A Personal Reflection
Excuse me for today if I get personal. Today, November 19, would be my father's 98th birthday. 1905 is a long time ago. To think that in some small way I have a direct connection with someone who was born then is incredible. The world is so much different today. (How's that for stating the obvious!)

But my father died 39 years ago December 4. He was 59 at the time, just four years older than I am today. Memories are of course clouded by many, many things- time, apocryphal stories, wishful thinking, personal experiences. There are pictures, of course, but they capture but a small piece of Red's life that I can only guess about.

He played on his high school's greatest undefeated football team ever in 1922. He was the first and only of his family to go to college. His dad was a trainman for the New York Central. He went to the big city- Philadelphia- to become a pharmacist. He graduated and returned to his hometown to buy and run a local pharmacy.

He decided to leave home and responsibility at age 34 and got drafted in the pre-World War II era, which unfortunately led to him being recalled in 1944 at age 38. It was then he met my mother. The Gentile from rural Pennsylvania meeting the Jewish girl from Brooklyn 8 years younger than he, while stationed in Georgia. In another of his acts of rebellion he married her. He was shipped overseas with the 10th Armored Division and saw action in the Battle of the Bulge.

He and his wife returned to his highly Gentile town and had two children. I was the older, born when he was almost 43. My brother came along three years later.

On my 10th birthday he had surgery for a benign brain tumor which left him partially paralyzed and unable to continue working. Three years later his wife was diagnosed with cancer and died within three months. He spent his last year in a Veteran's Administration hospital as the tumor slowly regrew until it took his life.

In many ways I grew up like him. Good and bad. There was a moment in my early recovery from my alcoholism that I realized that I was indeed Red's son. I could then, in whatever ways were possible, have some small understanding of his life. He was a rebel, the one who caused his family the most heartache, but was also the favorite son. His mother's diary showed that. He was a compassionate community person, always willing to get out of bed in the middle of the night to open the pharmacy for an emergency called in by his friend and my God-father the local doctor. When he sold the pharmacy he wrote off a goodly number of debts from people who had needed medicines but were unable to pay for them. He had a temper which may have been affected by alcohol or pain drugs or who knows what else.

I learned a lot of things about not being a father in those 16 years I knew him. I have a hunch, though, that I must also have learned some things right as well.

Today, 39 years later, I remember Red - my dad - with warmness and love. He did what he could do with what he had. He lived as best he could and truly did love his family and his community. The pharmacy still has our family name on it. I drove by it a few weeks ago when I was back there for the first time in 19 years. I smiled. It may not always be there, but it is today. A memory of an imperfect human being who also happened to be my dad. Happy birthday.