First, Saturday marked a special post-pandemic moment as I watched my 9-year-old grandson, Oliver, help lead his Little League All-Star team to the championship round in a dramatic walk-off victory in San Jose. It was 93 degrees.
Oliver gives great hugs and as we embraced after the game I whispered "I love you."
***
Late Friday afternoon a lovely female friend and I were walking around the Glen Park neighborhood of San Francisco when we paused at an upscale market so she could pick up a coffee. I am familiar with the market because my two youngest sons both worked there for years, one in the fruits and vegetables department and the other as a cashier.
Also my oldest son sometimes shops there. As I waited outside with my friend's tiny dog, I noticed a man nearby sitting holding a book, and I struck up a conversation with him.
It was one of Ernest Hemingway's novels and there was a bookmark sticking out of it. He said he had overheard the conversation I'd been having with my friend and said "You should be a writer. You talk like someone who should be writing a book." He nodded at the volume he was holding.
"That's funny," I replied, "because in fact I am a writer and I am writing a book, though I'm not sure mine will compare with the one you're holding."
He stood and we formally introduced ourselves. His name was Roger and he explained that his father had actually met Hemingway when he was in the merchant marine. Apparently that meeting had made enough of an impression that he mentioned it now and then throughout the rest of his life.
After his dad died, as he was going through his possessions, Roger found a copy of "To Have and Have Not" with a personal inscription inside from the author to his father.
Finding it after his dad passed away helped him grieve for his father and appreciate anew the life he had lived.
I got the impression, maybe rightly maybe not, that with Fathers' Day approaching, it just somehow felt right to this man to be sitting in the late afternoon sun reading the words of the man who had made such a great impression on his father many years ago, and that someone else had noticed and that that someone happened to be me.
Soon my beautiful companion emerged from the market with her coffee and we took our leave of that place. She was shivering a bit as a light fog settled in over us from the west.
"You made a new friend again," she smiled, used to my ways. It's not the first time she's seen me strike up a conversation with a stranger.
As we were walking away, we talked about our dads. She told me about hers and I told her about mine. It had taken me until very late in life before I could bring myself to say the three simplest but hardest words to him. The night he lay dying in a coma I was crying and didn't know whether he could still even hear me in the hospital room where I had rushed after the call came in, "Your dad has had a stroke."
But I whispered, "I love you."
So that is my Father's Day story: My three sons, one market, one woman with golden hair, a coffee (and a cookie she got for me), an unseasonably warm summer's evening, the fog, two dads who went away, their two sons, one a man named Roger reading Hemingway and the other being me.
And me telling my young friend how I'd finally told my Dad that I loved him.
Does any of that make sense?
Happy Father's Day!
***
The news:
* Biden fights to sell democracy abroad when it faces challenges at home (WP)
* How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections (NYT)
* Hot Housing Market Locks Out Many Would-Be Buyers (WSJ)
* Virus surge claims brightest minds at Indian universities (AP)
* 1971: The Year That Gave Us Starbucks, Disney World — And A Lower Voting Age (NPR)
* In The Atlantic Ocean, Subtle Shifts Signal Danger (NYT)
* The Record Temperatures Enveloping The West Are Not Your Average Heat Wave
* The World Relies on One Chip Maker in Taiwan, Leaving Everyone Vulnerable--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. makes almost all of the world’s most sophisticated chips, and many of the simpler ones, too. Its dominance poses risks to the global economy, amid geopolitical tensions and a major chip shortage. (WSJ)
* The Long War Against Slavery -- A book by the historian Vincent Brown argues that many seemingly isolated rebellions are better understood as a single protracted struggle. (New Yorker)* Biden finds himself caught in politics of Catholic Church (WP)
* Why G.O.P.-Led States Are Banning the Police From Enforcing Federal Gun Laws -- Missouri is the latest state to throw down a challenge to the enforcement of federal firearms laws as Republicans seek to thwart President Biden’s gun control proposals. (NYT)
* Virus surge claims brightest minds at Indian universities (AP)
* Bet on Baseball, Learn About Investing (WSJ)
* Pandemic lab: ‘Zoom fatigue’ hits women harder than men (WP)
* Entire Portland police crowd-control unit quits over fellow officer’s assault charge (WP)
* Area Bird Creeped Out By Bird Watcher (The Onion)
***
" We Are the Champions" (excerpt)
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions of the World
No comments:
Post a Comment