My Dad was proud of me. Of that there was no dispute. I followed close enough in his footsteps that he knew the route, even if I walked on different paths.
My Dad was a complicated man who wanted the world to be simple. He enjoyed Jeopardy, Jim Beam, and James Bond. He thought there were too many dinosaurs. He could be obstinate. He could be argumentative. He was quick with what is now appropriately called “a Dad joke”. He taught me to drive as fast as I wanted, as long I didn’t endanger anyone. Seventeen speeding tickets later, he would tell me not to speed.
I learned a lot from my Dad. Most of it true, some of it not. For years, I thought the bungee cord was invented by a man named Arthur J. Bungee. According to my Dad, Arthur J. developed the bungee cord in 1942 to preserve rubber for the war effort. My Dad told me that Mr. Bungee’s new cords were used on aircraft carriers and helped America win World War II. Of course I believed him.
I wrote in the dedication of my novel, Curveball at the Crossroads, that my Dad introduced me to baseball and the Blues. I remember when he took me to my first Major League Baseball game, Back to School Day at Shea Stadium, 1985. I received a free Mets school binder that day that I still have. My Dad religiously watched those mid-80s Mets, descendants of the ‘69 Mets he witnessed win the World Series. In that year in which the second most amazing event was a man on the moon, my Dad was selling programs and scorecards from Shea Stadium’s upper deck.
One of my Dad’s favorite stories about his time as a vendor was when the Mets won the division for the first time in their history. When the final out was recorded, bedlam erupted and the fans rushed the field to celebrate. As an employee, my Dad was supposed to stay in the stands, but on this day he joined the jubilee in the grass. When a policeman grabbed him and asked why he was on the field, my Dad told the officer that in order to sell his stuff, he had to be where his customers were.
I remember when my Dad introduced me to the Blues. I was a hip-hop kid in the 90’s, much to my parents’ chagrin. During one my first visits home from the Army, however, I asked my Dad if he could make me a cassette of Jimi Hendrix songs. As he recorded most of the classics from his vinyl collection, he asked me to listen to “Red House” before he copied it. Red House is Hendrix’s most bluesy song. I wanted that song on the cassette. That lead to me finding a CD entitled “Jimi Hendrix Blues”, one of my favorite albums of all time.
My Dad taught me that most music is influenced by something earlier. I remember him listening to Dr Dre and immediately recognizing Parliament-Funkadelic samples. He challenged me to find the source of my music. In my growing Blues fandom, that led me to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and the legendary crossroads where Robert Johnson allegedly made his deal with the Devil. If that sounds familiar, then you understand my Dad’s influence on my novel.
Throughout the years, my Dad and I went to a lot of events together. In 2008, I took him to his first World Series game in 39 years. I took him to see Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, and almost every year from 2000 to 2010, we saw the legendary BB King play the Blues.
Sometimes our events required long drives. For a few years, he would journey to Tampa and join me in trips to Tallahassee to see FSU football. As part of those weekends, I introduced him to the Bradfordville Blues Club, a small music venue outside of Tallahassee that was one of the last juke joints in America.
Besides music and sports, I understood my Dad professionally. After a few years with various other defense contractors, he worked for Northrop Grumman for over 30 years. In my career, I have worked for over a dozen different defense contractors, to include Northop Grumman for a year. My Dad was very excited I joined his company, but not so excited when I complained about my time with the company and left after nine months. I had to tell my Dad that although the company is the same, my division and my experiences were vastly different. Whereas he worked on a Northrop Grumman campus, with Northrop Grumman equipment, in Northrop Grumman buildings, I’ve always worked on military bases, surrounded by military people, doing military things. In my Northrop Grumman job, that base was in Doha, Qatar, where I enjoyed being until it was time to come home. When I came back, the company had no stateside positions for me so I moved on.
For someone who never put on the uniform, my Dad had a love for the military that went above and beyond. The equipment he worked on in his forty-plus years in defense contracting saved lives and helped win wars. And when I left for basic training on August 21, 1995, it was my Dad who drove me to the recruiting station in his pearl white, 1971 Datsun 240z. If you knew my Dad, you knew that car only came out for special drives. When we got to the recruiting station, he cried, gave me a big hug, and told me how proud he was.
I am going to remember a lot about my Dad. Although he could be a pain in the ass, we had a lot of good times. But time moves on. Shea Stadium is gone, leveled in 2009. BB King passed away in 2015, and the Bradfordville Blues Club closed its doors early last year. Many of the people and places I shared with my Dad are gone. Now he is gone as well.
I’m gonna miss you, Dad.
