"CARVED IN STONE IS A NAME I WILL REMEMBER*"

Its that day again, the one we never made a very big deal about around the old homestead. Seven kids and a wife and two jobs most the adult working life left little time for himself. Its the sound of the rage-humor nonsense syllables he used to replace swearing. For a time it was the smell of cheap cigars, an endless string of General motors cars, a seat in the rearward pew of the local Catholic Church, a rumpled raincoat, sometimes worn with the collar pulled up as if to say "gee, I hope nobody sees me here." It was that bulldog look on the face of an extraordinary gentle man. He was the best seat in the house guy who never wanted to go to the game live. He was the man who dared put a "Republicans for Kennedy" sticker on his car in the middle of a Goldwater-loving neighborhood. The same man who, because of his faith could not vote Democratic after Roe, but never preached a second about that to anyone. You had to pry that kind of stuff out of him. He was the Marine Sergeant who left home for Guam in 44, and got back to civilian life a few months into 1950, having no idea how fortunate he was to have separated 90 days before his unit became among the first sent to Korea, a trip that would end for most of them violently. He was the Latin teacher and football coach at a public high school of all things. He was a man who never laid a hand on any of his children in anger - at least that I ever saw. He was the man who often frustrated us for seeing unacceptable behavior within his family, but not condemning it. He was the man who was even handed about that approach to all of us. He was the man who would sometimes get down in a four point stance in front of the TV on Fall Saturdays, whose mood rose and fell with the fortunes of The Fighting Irish. It was the man who retired early, without any hobbies or diversions, after all of his kids had made it past adolescence. In life he was as his epitaph simply reads, "One of God's Noblemen." Mostly he was the man that I loved dearly, even if I so rarely ever told him so.

Happy Birthday Dad. I hope you know I loved you. Hope I'm doing as well as you did.

*from the song "Carved in Stone" from "The Subdudes