Rant #2,679: Daddy's Home

How was your Father’s Day?
 
Mine was good, very good in fact.
 
Lots of food, lots of heat, lots of laughter, lots of stories …
 
It was a real Father’s Day, and at the end of it, I was completely pooped.
 
I do all the cooking, and it got really hot out there yesterday, and by the end of the day, I was simply a mass of sweat.
 
I tried to cool down with a thick shake from Carvel—my present to myself on this day—but it simply did not work.
 
I settled in to watch the WWE’s pay per view “Hell in a Cell” broadcast, which began at 8 p.m., and my son confirmed that I fell asleep at about 8:01 p.m., and I slept for the next two hours, still as hot as one of the hot dogs that I cooked yesterday on the grill.
 
I woke up in a mass of sweat, watched the last hour of the show, and went right to sleep, and I had a pretty good eight hours of rest, finally cooling down as the bedroom air conditioner encased me in cool air.
 
But it was all worth it—and I do believe we had a visitor there at our Father's Day get together that we could never have imagined would show up.
 
I don’t know if I believe in ghosts or apparitions, but there were a couple of weird things that happened yesterday that lead me to believe that these things happened for a reason, and were not mere coincidences.
 
Father’s Day was always my dad’s favorite celebration, and in his younger days, he just loved to barbecue on that day, and eat the results of his toil with his family surrounding him.
 
In the last several years of his life, I took over the job, and he continued to bask in the glow of the day.
 
He passed away last Labor Day, and his last really good meals of his life last year were the barbecues we had on Father’s Day and on July 4, where he ate like he was 25 again and really enjoyed himself with his family around him.
 
His absence was felt yesterday, and felt in a big way, but somehow, I don’t think he was really that far away during the day.
 
First, I said something which doesn’t bear worth repeating here, because it is a family thing and I don’t think anyone would get the significance of it in the context of which I am putting it.
 
Family definitely got it, and we had a good laugh about it. It was just something my father would say, and when it came out of my mouth, I think the entire family got it head on, and we laughed and laughed about it.
 
Then, later, was the coup de grace of my thinking that my father wasn’t that far away.
 
I drove to Carvel after the barbecue to get ice cream for my family, which is definitely something that my father would do when he was running the show on Father's Day. After such a hot and successful day, it just seemed to be the right thing to do.
 
As I always do, I was listening to the 1960s channel on Sirius satellite radio, and again, as I always do, I was listening to Tommy James’ Sunday evening show, which I always seem to catch a few minutes of each week.
 
Again, this is a show hosted by a rock and roller that features rock and roll songs, and to honor the day, he was going to be playing songs that had to do with the focus of the day, which was fathers.
 
So what was the very first song he played on the show? Was it a true rock and roll song, a song that was so rock and roll and so about fathers that it hit the bull’s eye on the target?
 
No, he played “Oh My Papa” by Eddie Fisher.
 
This song is just so un-rock and roll, but it really hit a home run with me, because of my father’s legendary attachment to the song.
 
He often told the story of being in the service, far away from home, and when he heard this song on the radio, he cried, thinking of his own father and how far away he was from his family.
 
He told that story so many times—and it has since been confirmed by various family members that saw his love for the song right in front of them over the years even long after his military service—that I have to believe that he was just so attached to that song, and the memories it brought up to him about his own father.
 
Anyway, so here I am in the car, and “Oh My Papa” comes on the radio, and I swear, not only was I taken aback by this musical choice, but I swear that I felt that my father was sitting in the passenger seat in the car next to me when that song played out.
 
It was a memory that I will never, ever forget.
 
And dad, we miss you a lot, and however you got back to us on your special day, it simply made the day that much greater.
 
I wish I could tell that to him face to face, but somehow, I don’t think that even a day later he is too far away from me.
 
Thanks, dad. You made the 2021 Father’s Day celebration one that I will never forget.