Bistro Newsletter

I feel like I jinxed the Tigers last week, the minute I finished writing about them, they were out of the race. Bummer! It’s a good thing I don’t believe in that kind of stuff (I currently have my fingers crossed behind my back for lying). Either way it was an amazing run at the end there. I certainly didn’t see that winning streak coming and it was thrilling to see Detroit so alive and excited about baseball again. My dad and I used to go to Tiger Stadium pretty frequently when I was a little girl. He must have gotten discount seats being a Detroit Fireman because it seemed like we were usually right behind or next to a pole. He always made sure I had my mit with me. Now that I think back about it, there was no chance in hell a ball could have come near us with those poor seats, but I think my dad was a bit of a dreamer, at the very least a huge fan of baseball and was always ready to catch a fly ball. Dad loved hockey and played for the DFD until he found out he was only born with one kidney, then they wouldn’t let him play anymore. My dad was a guy’s guy, a flirt with any pretty girl, a prankster, and a dynamite friend to his buddies. He hunted, fished, camped and gardened; Dad loved the outdoors. He was handy, athletic and an adventurous cook. He was generous with his strengths; he was always helping a neighbor with a car problem, fixing something, or shoveling the snow for someone. Dad made dinner for us many nights and always made breakfast. He used to take us to school on his snowmobile and he would come back around and pick up our friends after he dropped us off. He smoked Chesterfield cigarettes (until it wasn’t cool anymore) and drank Goebel beer, long before it was cool. He used words like SUPER and DYNOOO-MITE. He liked to bowl and play cards. He had a moustache, was always in cut-off jeans and kept himself fit for most of his life, handsome guy. He was strict, short tempered, and made us eat everything on our plates, even if we hated it. He was an attentive dad. If he wasn’t driving us to horseback or ice-skating lessons, he would have been in the yard playing with us, teaching us things. We watched a lot of TV together, mostly sports; while watching he would have us rub his back for 25 cents or we could get a sip of beer. He always fell asleep and when we got up to turn the channel, he would wake up and say, “Hey I’m watching that and don’t spin the dial so fast or you’ll erase the channels!”

My dad adored my mom. They laughed a lot. He was always touching her. He continued to flirt with her for as long as they were together. He admired her work (nursing) and made sure us girls showed her love and respect. I honestly only remember them arguing once. They liked to play games together and have the neighbors over. I remember them smoking in their recliners chatting into the evening. I remember they used to go for walks at night before we went to bed. He frequently teased her and always had a sparkle in his eye when he looked at her. He was stubborn with my mom and his say was final, but I think he knew he could only push it so far. He took good care of his girls.​

I was 10 when my dad died of a brain aneurism this weekend, sweetest day weekend, forty-two years ago, he was 40 years old.
Sadly, I can’t say I think about my dad every day. I hear people use that phrase all the time. My memories of him are so long ago, I was such a young child, the memories are blurred, retold to me and probably manipulated by time. I am detached from that time in my life… having a dad. It’s hard to miss what you don’t know or can’t quite remember. I can’t picture him as a father to me now, as an old man… as a part of my daily life. It’s not in my brain’s capabilities. That makes me sad. I know I missed out on lots of dad time and father daughter moments, and I know he missed out on so much of his life, growing old with mom, maturing into the person he was intended to be. That makes me angry. But as I write these words, I realize I have many of my dad’s characteristics that I have listed here… the good and the bad, and that makes me happy. I am fortunate enough to have had a loving father, a wonderful example of what a husband should and can be and for that, I am grateful.
Sharon