A Valentines Classic!

First, allow me to start off with a fanciful holiday greeting:

I hate to be a killjoy, but I put it on about the same level as "Grandparents Day" and "Children's Day."

There actually is a "Children's Day." In most places its celebrated on June 1st, but that date can vary depending on your location in the world. I remember when I first mentioned it to my Dad and asked what my sister and I would be getting his response was "Oo-gots." This is the phonetic spelling for a Sicilian word which loosely translated means "Dick." When I asked why he simply said "Because every day is Children's Day."

My Dad was classic. My definition of someone being "classic" is that they do things that:

1. I never saw anyone do before.
2. I have not seen anyone do since.

Until the very day he died in December of 1993, if he wanted you to take his car and buy gas for it he would say, "Go to the ESSO station and have them fill it up with Hi-Test."

He absolutely refused to acknowledge the name change in the United States to EXXON or the fact that "Hi-Test" had been replaced with "Super Unleaded."

CLASSIC!

Whenever he would ask me to do this for him I would respond that I couldn't because I didn't have a time machine in which to transport myself and the car back to 1958.

He would always say "Just go please," and walk away scowling.

When I first started driving I would go to the post office just to find
out the price of a stamp. Of course I now hate driving with a passion.

At age 17, though, my Dad knew that I loved to drive. So he would send me on errands to the store. "Go to The First National and pick up half a pound of ground chuck."

What's "The First National?" You may remember it as FINAST, the now defunct grocery store chain. Its original name was First National Stores and they got FINAST by combining of the first two letters of each of those words. It hadn't been called First National since the 1950s but my Dad's response to not using the new name was "That's what they called it in the Bronx and that's what I call it now." I didn't use the time machine line this time, I just went and picked up the meat.

CLASSIC!

My Dad did not care for grocery shopping. He was the type that knew what he wanted to buy and would just go get it; definitely not a SHOPPER like my Mom. You need underwear, you go buy underwear and come home; you don't stop to look at canoes or perhaps sofas.

Once when my Mom was sick and he had to go buy the groceries he took me along. While on the checkout line he realized he had forgotten something on the list. "Do me a favor, go back there and grab a roll of toothpaste." My response was to ask if he'd also like me to grab a "tube of toilet paper" while I was back there. I got a swift kick in the pants.

Another time when my Mom was sick he went to the store by himself. He asked me if I needed cereal. I told him to pick up some "Franken Berry", which is that awful pink cereal with the pink marshmallows and the pink cartoon Frankenstein on the box. I also mentioned the pressing need for "Oreos." "OK, I'll have to see if I can find them," was all he said. He returned home with a box of Cherrios and "A&P Lorna Doones," which are crappy shortbread type cookies with a fake Maraschino cherry on top.

"Why didn't you get the "Franken Berry?" I asked.

"They didn't have any." he said.

"How could they not have any?" I retorted.

"Look," he said, "I wasn't about to buy that crap. Its pure sugar and water. These are better for you."

"Yes, but the Oreos...," said I.

"Cookies are cookies." he replied.

My Dad thought everything was everything else. For example, the word "ESSO" was really just a generic term for "gas station." The phrase "First National Stores" was really just a generic term for "grocery store."

Everything was given a generic term. Any sort of snack food in a large cellophane bag was referred to as either "chips" or "pretzels." If I was eating a huge bag of Doritos five minutes before dinner my Dad might say "Put those pretzels down please." Sweet things with icing were called "cakes" or "cookies." My Dad's system worked very well for him and I always thought he should have marketed it for use by the farsighted or those with memory issues.

I use Alberto VO5 to wash my hair, mainly because its a brand with which I'm familiar and I can pick it up for around a dollar a bottle. A friend of mine, one of these organic types, started to explain that this VO5 "is very bad for your hair, you ought to use Apricot Paba Patchouli Coconut Organic, some shit, who knows what, 8 DOLLARS FOR A SIX OUNCE BOTTLE," at which point I glazed over and started humming. I told her my hair certainly wasn't worth that much.

Once I saw my Dad washing his hair in a large utility sink which we had in our laundry room. He was a musician and was getting ready to go out on a job. He was using Ivory Soap to do the job. I asked him why.

"Because all soap is the same shit made by the same two companies and given different names." he said.

CLASSIC!

We both loved baseball. I still do. Dad was a die hard Yankee fan and so am I, to this day. If the Yankees would play the Minnesota Twins or the Texas Rangers, and you asked my Dad who they were playing, he would always say the Senators. The Baltimore Orioles were always the Saint Louis Browns, even though they had moved to Baltimore in 1953.

Once around 1988 he had to take a business trip to San Francisco. He called home when he arrived. Remember, this was before the days of interleague play.

"I'm going to an exhibition game tonight," he said, "New York is playing Philadelphia."

"Why would the Phillies and the Yankees be playing an exhibition game in San Francisco?"

"No," he replied, "its the Athletics and the Giants."

Of course. I should have known. The Oakland Athletics were the Philadelphia Athletics when my father was a kid. The San Francisco Giants used to be the New York Giants. What I found really "classic" about this was the fact that between Philadelphia and Oakland the Athletics were in Kansas City for twelve years, from 1955 through 1967. My Dad skipped this city and just went all the way back to the beginning.

Yes, he was a "classic." And I miss him more than anybody.

Happy Fathers / Valentines Day.