Last June for Father's Day, I wrote this poem about my dad.
You can view the blog post here.
My mother had an opportunity to read my blog while at my brother's house on Christmas. Yesterday when I was talking to her, it finally came up. She nailed me on an issue of which I was not aware -- that my father was not merely a chemical engineer, as I had written in the poem, but he was a CERAMIC engineer. The difference? A chemical engineer has to get the chemicals right. But a ceramic engineer has to get the color right.
I had not known that all these years.
On top of that, he was in an exclusive class of only about 20 people who graduated Ohio State University with a degree in ceramic engineering, way back in 1953.
So, here is the REVISED version of the poem, setting the record straight.
Proud Daughter of a Saxophone Player
Both hilarious & confusing was
the final visit
with my dad. He was in the hospital
expected to recover; yet little did
I know then he
was on the way out. Seems obvious now. He was
looking to have a beer, some
Hershey
Kisses. Kept asking me when I was leaving
and what time it was. Said the raindrops on
The window looked like stars.
We prayed together: the Our Father,
Hail Mary,
and the Guardian Angel Prayer. When I left at 6:30,
promising to return with those
Kisses, he told me
“Make it sooner, rather
than later.”
He had become a ceramic engineer
at the insistence of his mother, a
good
career she had been told, and she
was
paying for it, after all, with her
factory job.
Five year program at Ohio State
University.
It was never his true intention,
but later I heard
him say he could not imagine his
life without his knowledge
of chemistry: what substances go
into the melt to make the colors
found in beautiful glass objects. I have his notebooks, his math
figures scrawled in his familiar
style. I like to
picture my dad as a student, living
in a boarding
house, walking to classes, up late
writing papers and
meeting my mom at Newman Club picnic.
The first college graduate in his
family.
I sense his greatest disappointment
was not fully pursuing music.
He had wanted a music store of his
own, where he
could be a teacher of music,
surrounded by
gorgeous instruments, talking tones
and rhythms,
refrains and phrasing with all
manner of musicians,
Playing gigs at night. Instead, his music was part-time
A member of his cousin’s big band, popular
in our area.
The after dinner saxophone riffing
up in his bedroom, the soundtrack
of my life – the jazzy scales, the
improvisation, playing along with
Boots Randolph, filling our
home. A comfort.
When in fourth grade I expressed
interest in playing the
clarinet, he immediately bought me
the best one on the
market – a Selmer. On holidays, he and I would play little
duets for the family, he on his
saxophone and me squawking
along on the clarinet. I was first chair, but it didn’t
keep me from quitting band in
seventh grade because
it took place during recess, and I
preferred
to help the first grade teacher
with her grading. I thought
he was forever disappointed, but
when I mentioned it many
years later, he wrote me a letter
saying it was perfectly okay, and
that he has always been “in awe of
the inclinations of children.” As
a
teacher now, I can see I was
following my inclination back then. Somehow
he knew that, even though it would
take me decades to know it myself.
I remember my mother telling me
my dad never got over his parents’
divorce.
He was ten-years-old, the worst
age. My father never spoke
of it, but the shadings of
melancholy were always there, and his
efforts to always be in our lives
noticeable. In December 1975,
he received word that his father
had passed away – a man
whom had married again and had a
whole new family. I went
with him to the funeral home during off hours on a cold and clear
winter’s day, just after Christmas.
I remember my father standing
by the casket of his father, but I
do not remember any words that day.
As a family we had already suffered the loss of my little
brother earlier
that year, and we were being held
together by some kind of fragile faith,
as we climbed through the wreckage
of that year…together.
Too often we dwell on that which
has been left undone;
the things we could have said, the
effort we should have
made, maybe something we would have
said if we knew time was
short. When I think of my dad, I know that none of that matters.
What matters is consistent caring
and loving actions: tossing the ball
with the boys after dinner, laughing uproariously at some television
show,
taking us to the bike shop or an
Indians game or Big Boy,
adding his own substance to the
color of his children’s lives,
sharing the joy of a little drop of
chocolate wrapped in silver, and
playing bravely on a summer night,
his magnificent melodies drifting
from the upstairs window, filling
the neighborhood with magic.
hms 6/16/2013 Rev. 3/9/14
But the best television was on Saturday afternoon –
Ghoulardi came on with his crazy sayings (Stay sick! Turn blue! Purple Knif!)
and horror movies like the Cyclops, the mysterious disembodied gloved hand, and
the walking tree (those last two seriously gave me nightmares!) For his birthday my brother received a
gift of a Ghoulardi sweatshirt – I was so jealous! Ghoulardi was a big deal and, in fact, in Cleveland this
year they are having Ghoulardifest to celebrate the 50th anniversary
of this classic show. 
Travel 2013
Tennessee’s Davy Crockett raised his hat in victory
