Today is Father’s Day. Happy Father’s Day to all fathers who might be reading this…
It’s a grey day in New York. I’m on the train down to the city where I will be attending a play in Riverside Park at the Police and Firemen’s Memorial near 89th and Riverside, a mere four blocks from the apartment in New York. A friend invited me to join her and her family and friends and I committed to it a while ago.
My own father passed away when I was twelve years old. He was a quiet, reclusive sort of man around the house, preferring to putter every evening in his basement woodworking shop to almost anything else. He maintained a golf course perfect lawn, was well liked at work. He managed a commercial bakery in Minneapolis, owned by American Bakeries; at the time it was the second largest commercial baking company in the world. American made Taystee Bread, “baked while you sleep.” The largest baking company was Continental; they made Wonder Bread.
We were not close the last six years of his life. He became more withdrawn. His health faded following two heart attacks. While recuperating, he played endless games of solitaire in the den, at the desk facing the window; playing cards and watching the world go by. Like him, I have a fondness for the game.
He and my mother were in a very rough patch of their marriage, though I only realized that later, with the wisdom that comes from growing older and ruminating on what has passed, coupled with conversations with my older brother and sister.
The night before he died, I was being a squirrely twelve year old. He was annoyed and told me to go to my room. It was our last encounter. In the morning, he suffered a massive stroke and was gone in minutes.
Over the intervening years, I have grown to have appreciation for him. He did his best with me, given what was going on with him and I now credit him for that. Rest in peace, dad, and Happy Father’s Day.
Today is the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice; from now on the days grow shorter until the Winter Solstice. That’s a little depressing but there is still some time before the days grow short.
Today was chosen by India to celebrate International Yoga Day and all over the world Yoga is being practiced to mark the occasion. My friend, Raja Choudhury, created the official Indian Yoga Film, which is being shown at Indian Embassies around the world.
In Charleston, SC the Emmanuel AME Church has reopened for services after last Wednesday’s massacre. To me it is a sign of resilience and hope that they are worshiping there today.
Just about now, Greece’s creditors are having a meeting in Brussels in advance of an emergency meeting tomorrow to see if there can be a resolution of the Greek debt crisis. Tsipras, Greece’s Prime Minister, flies there tonight after meeting with his cabinet on a “definitive” proposal to their debtors.
Tsipras has also been playing footsie with Vladimir Putin, who says he might consider a loan to Greece. It’s been seen by many as a mutual attempt to thumb noses at Europe and unlikely to happen. But stranger things have happened in Putin’s Russia.
Shortly, I will be off to see the play in Riverside Park. The grey and threatening day seems to have given way to sun and breezes, the air heavy after the night’s rain. It is Henry IV, Part 1 by Shakespeare. I had a small part in it when I was in college.
Right now, I am chilling the white wine in the freezer with a timer set so I don’t forget it. I am bringing strawberries, cherries, cheeses, apples and some bread from yesterday’s Farmer’s Market in Hudson. It should make a good repast. There will be five or six of us.
I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
Letter From Claverack 06 19 2017 An Attitude of Gratitude
June 19, 2017It is the evening of June 19th; Father’s Day is beginning to fade as is Pride Weekend in Hudson.
An on again, off again rain falls and an hour or two ago the sky was nighttime dark. Cosseted in the cottage, a martini by my side, I watch the raindrops splatter on the Claverack Creek.
It’s interesting. I was very sensitive over the weekend, a little raw. When I woke Saturday, I was in an unexpectedly foul mood and at the end of the day I took myself home and had a talk with myself.
I felt raw because it was Pride weekend and I woke acutely aware that I am not part of a unit and that I haven’t been very good at dating. The last one felt like I had entered a reality version of Sartre’s “No Exit.”
I am alone and normally it doesn’t bother me and over the weekend it did. Hudson is a town of couples and I am not coupled, which puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. You’re the odd one at the dinner party.
And, then, Sunday, it was Father’s Day. Always a hard day for me. I did not have a great relationship with my father. He was good to me the first few years and then, he wasn’t. The last seven years of his life he had almost nothing to say to me. The night before he died, I was being a squirrely twelve-year-old and he angrily sent me to my room.
It was the last exchange I had with him. The next morning, he had a stroke and died. So, I have spent my life trying to read the runes of the little time I had with him.
Okay, so it’s problematic. Parental relationships are problematic. Maybe mine a little more than others and mine probably a lot less than others, too.
It’s just it pops up on Father’s Day.
And I know so many good fathers; I sent text messages to them today. My godson, Paul, among them. He has two children, a girl, Sophia, and a boy, Noah. I don’t know them well and know enough to know they are interesting children and that’s because they have wonderfully invested parents.
And then there is Tom Fudali, who is Paul’s father, who made me Paul’s godfather and I am eternally grateful for that because Paul is not my son and he is my godson and our relationship is something I had hoped for and didn’t think would happen and has.
And there is my friend, Robert Murray, father of five, who exchanged texts with me while watching his son, Colin, play soccer in New Windsor. Robert reminds me of my oldest friend, Sarah’s, father, John McCormick, who had six children and made their home the place to be. On bitter Minnesota winter nights, the neighborhood would gather and skate on the rink in John’s backyard. They are some of my most magical childhood memories.
And then there is Kevin Malone, Sarah’s son, who has always thought of me as his uncle even though I am not actually his uncle but we have an avuncular relationship that is so effing wonderful! He is not a father and he is wonderful and is a jewel in my life.
So, I was being self-indulgently depressed, and I need to focus in on all the wonderful things which go on in my life and all the wonderful people who are in it.
In the craziness that has been in my mind this weekend, I am so glad I wrote this as it reminds me of all the things for which I need to remind myself that I need to have an “attitude of gratitude.”
In Memoriam:
I read today that Stephen Furst had died. He gained fame in “Animal House” as Flounder, went on to “St. Elsewhere” and “Babylon Five” and directed movies and television shows. For a time, in the 1990’s, we were friendly. He was a gracious, gentle soul, doing his very best in life. RIP. I remember you fondly.
Otto Warmbier, the young student returned from North Korea in a coma, has passed away. It is heartbreaking. At least he was at home, with family.
Tags:Attitude of Gratitude, Claverack Creek, Colin Murray, Father's Day, General, John McCormick, Kevin Malone, No Exit, Otto Warmbier, Paul Geffre, Robert Murray, Sarah Malone, Sartre, Stephen Furst, Tom Fudali
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