FATHER'S DAY IS COMING!

Soon it will be Father's Day and we all know what that means, or do we? Newspapers and TV ads will be blooming forth the Father's Day Sales from cars to tools, to grilling implements. This is the color of Father's Day in this country. I seem to miss the point, that wasn't how I thought of my dad as a child up to the day he died. He wasn't about a car or refrigerator I could get on sale for him or myself for that matter.

Growing up Dad was a source of amusement for me. There were things and events that made him Dad, my Dad, and I keep them very close to me.

Mom on the other hand always got primo considerations when it came to picking out a present for Mother's Day, and poor Dad always got the short end. You shopped for him with one foot in the store and one foot on its way for another chore. I mean what could you get him? He really didn't read, didn't need dress clothes since he was a factory foreman, and although he was handy, especially at dinner time, he had all the tools he needed.

He had a great staple gun collection like some men had rifle cabinets filled with guns, dad had a drawer, filled with staple guns. The gun collector had on display sometimes ammunition, Dad never had any staples available.

If you wanted to treat him to a baseball game, you better be prepared to go along with him, and you do the driving. Dad never purchased a new car until late in his life, since he usually went to one of only three places: Brooklyn to visit my grandmother, his job and some relatives in the next town. On occasion, Mom would get him to take her to visit her sister for dinner.

Dad kept meticulous records for his bills and the tax man. An accordion file folder with charts maintained his bills every month, and a shoe box of little papers and receipts for taxes. Dad made charts up for everything including his temperature!

Dad loved salad, had to have it after his dinner. One year we wrapped a head of lettuce in wrapping paper and gave it to him on Father's Day, and when he died, which was a few days before Father's Day, we left a head of lettuce on his grave. I know he enjoyed the joke when he was alive, and I'm sure the lettuce was more appropriate than any flowers to remember him by.

This year I will once again visit his grave and remember him, we talk a little, (I will and he will listen) and I will thank him for all the wonderful years he gave me as a father.