Sunday, November 17, 2013

Facebook fads: Lesser known facts about me.............

Facebook has done it again!  They get me to tell too much about myself, and it's out there for all to see.  Now pictures of me with my thinning hair and protruding belly are exposed.  I do like wishing my friends a happy birthday.  I don't play Facebook games unless they involve words, so I ignore all requests to join in a game, and it's not personal.  I can ignore most of the momentary fads like replacing your profile picture with a giraffe in response to an incorrect answer to a riddle...I didn't even try the riddle involved so that I wouldn't be tempted.  This week's fad, however, is a little more engaging.  My Facebook friends are posting some random facts about themselves.  I'm happy to get to know some of the lesser known, and not too revealing tidbits about my friends.  Since one of my purposes in creating this entire Fatherknowsbest57.blogspot.com body of writing is to give my children and grandchildren some personal history, I thought I would participate in the Facebook fun, however cautiously.....

1)      I was the oddball, the third of four children and the rest were girls.  My daughter is the third of four children and the rest are boys.
2)      My birthday is February 5th, and my youngest son’s is January 25th, eleven days before mine, and my daughter’s is February 16th, eleven days after mine.
3)      I took swimming lessons twice in the 70’s at Upper Darby High School and Drexel University, once in the 80’s at the Y, and twice in the 90’s at a swim club.  I can’t swim.  I sink.
4)      My three sisters each had one son and one daughter.  I am once again the oddball with three sons and one daughter.
5)      I have a business degree from Drexel University.
6)      I was born at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and lived in Philadelphia until I was a year old.
7)      I loved snow until I had to drive in it.  I still love looking at it in scenes in old movies, just not on the traffic reports.
8)      Though I have been driving for 40 years, I drive for the convenience.  I am deathly afraid of highways, aggressive drivers, texters and phone talkers, and get claustrophobic in cars with the heat on.
9)      I was an at-home Dad for 15 years, and did some daycare in my home.
10)   I am obsessed with pop and rock music recorded between 1963 and 1977.
11)   I am of 100% Sicilian descent. 
12)   My mother’s maiden name is Giacchino, and I am a distant cousin of Academy Award winner Michael Giacchino, who composed musical scores for ‘Lost’, ‘Up’, ‘Alias’, and many more.  I have never met him.
13)   I graduated from Upper Darby High School.  Some famous graduates are Jim Croce, Todd Rundgren, Tina Fey, and Cheri Oteri.
14)   Don’t tell anyone, but I have struggled with Reading, and the stuff I assist in teaching my kids at school has helped me as much as it has helped them.
15)   Most of my favorite movies ever made are Christmas movies: A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, The Gathering, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, Elf, The Santa Clause, et. al.

There you have it, kids and grandkids...


Thursday, November 14, 2013

Love Story

If you grew up in the '60s and '70s like I did
and you had all sisters like I did
and a Mom like I did
and a Dad like me
You might remember an old flick that wasn't very appealing to a young boy teenager called 'Love Story'.
Nonetheless, I accompanied the gals and Dad to the theater back in the day when a family could afford to go to a theater.  The theater was filled with teary-eyed Moms and sisters, and silent Dads and brothers.  It was a sensation.

From this film came a hit single by Andy Williams.  The 45, of course, was a part of the repertoire of songs on the turntable in the living room on a Sunday afternoon after church and before dinner.  I grew to love most of the tunes we enjoyed as a family, but not this one.  It seems that whenever I get into a situation for which there is no immediate course of action, the first line of this song pops into my head...♪♫WHERE DO I BEGIN?♫♪  Normal, right? 


Well, last weekend we had our first overnight visit from the grandchildren.  Though it was four plus decades ago, that line of that song popped into my head, so I decided to wish Andy Williams peace, for he meant no harm, and have some fun with the lyrics, which are at my fingertips thanks to Google!  Most will have to consult their back brain, or ask their parents or grandparents about the movie or song, but after this weekend and some new lyrics, it holds a new, special meaning....




♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪
Where do I begin
 to clean the kitchen that the grandkids have been in
The sweet young ladies that I'm proud to call my kin
I've got three days of silver stubble on my chin

Where do I start

Feeling so alive
My whole demeanor found a hole and took a dive
The baby's babbling woke us at four forty-five
They stayed awake and so did we and that's no jive

They fill my life

They fill my den with Legos, dolls, and things
And my TV with Disney girls and kings
They fill my floor with lots of crumbs
And everywhere I step there’s constant crunching
Sat on the floor so much there’s hunching
I reach for pain meds
They’re  always there

How long does it last
Can sudden hugs erase the state of dissarray
Impromptu smiles now come and melt our hearts away
This is the ultimate...the mess will have to stay
And I don't care
♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♪♪


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

AUTUMN SURVIVAL...MY WAY!


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BIRDS OF PREY


When I went outside to do some much needed weeding, I didn't realize that one of these feathered beasts sat on a lamp post across the street.  It sprang forth with a wing span unlike any I've ever seen on a flying creature. It landed on a neighbor's roof and sat by itself absorbing the rays on this crisp fall day.  I ran inside to get the camera, and when I returned there were three of them...and those suckers were BIG!  I guess I didn't look as full of life as I thought or felt...and with my aging attention span, not much weeding got done after that...
 


A MAGIC DAY


Halloween.  There - I said it...and it didn't hurt.  It used to be a bad word in my brain.  It meant the angst of our finding or making costumes for the four children.  It meant hastily putting up some insincere ornaments on the day of trick-or-treat, and taking them down as the last of the little ones came to get their bounty. It meant the hasting of my then thirty something body around countless blocks of neighborhood just to keep up with our children.  It meant the sugar highs and lows of the same children....
This year, though, something happened.  A week before Halloween (there, I said it again, and it still didn't hurt!) I started playing outside with lights and artificial cobwebs that stuck to everything, including me, and I thought of those little faces we guided through the holiday, and how cute they looked in their costumes, and how excited they got when they reached each door screaming Trick-or-treat.  Before I knew it, I had a smile on my face thinking about Halloween.  The mediocre display of 2013 seemed awesome to the little masked trick-or-treaters' eyes, and Halloween was a success.  This year, the ornaments didn't come down until the next day...
 


FALL'S DECAY


The green of summer, turned to gold
Red and orange, bursting bold
Soon the brown, then the cold
Early dark, feeling glum
Eyes fatigued, spirits numb
Wishing new green life would come



AUTUMN'S RAY


1
3
2




The poignant light brought on by grandchildren:  1 Watching our granddaughter sit and smile with her Grandma, 2 watching her smile and play on the floor once occupied by her father and his brothers and sister, and finally, 3 knowing that I can still guide the new generation, MY grandchildren, on their Halloween trek around Grandma and Grandpa's neighborhood and live to tell about it.....



DAD'S FORTE

Being Dad...The saddest and the happiest thing about this
October is the celebration of the 90th birthday
of this gentle soul, whose forte was being Dad. This was the man who could pick up a book: a technical book, a how-to book, War and Peace, or even the most difficult of textbooks, and read it and understand it, and help each of us, his children, with our homework. This is the man who chauffered his driver's license-less wife, my mother, to wherever she needed to be whenever she needed to be there without a grumble for all those years. Isn't it typical and
sad that I appreciate him more with each
passing moment, and emulate him when I am aware of my actions. The gathering to celebrate
Dad's birthday every year was a
testament to his command of his role as a
family man, and his family, once a
year, celebrated him with hugs, presents,
and one of Mom's Italian cream cakes.
I hope Mom made him one this year, and
 there's a party going
on up there just like old times!


MOM'S BIG DAY



Happy Birthday, Mom!  Today we celebrate this lady on what would have been her 89th birthday.  In this picture, a spunky 86 year old followed us around Philadelphia's Temple University for my daughter Karen's graduation.  At dinnertime, Mom showed no wear as we celebrated.  This is a testament to her legacy. Complications from Chronic Lymphoma would steal her from us and this Earth just six weeks later.  The glue, the meal provider, the cake baker, the one that didn't let me get away with anything, the one who was there for all of us, the Mom...I hope the party is still going on and someone is serving her...


SEASON'S ASSAY




My Jackie took this and calls it a picture of a pensive author.  Maybe she's right.  In the life of me, it is natural for the mood to decline in the autumn.  The evolution of summer's laid back livelihood into autumn's anxiety is unavoidable.  The loss of leaves on the trees is a metaphor for life's losses and disappointments.  As in any man's life, there are highs and lows.  It is through grace that I survive the low moments with hope that in the future, tomorrow, or even in a few minutes, I return to swimming instead of drowning.  Feeling the lows, and then feeling the joy as my family comes home again with the warm memories of ones lost safely tucked behind that joy...and not in the forefront...is my survival.





AUTUMN SURVIVAL: MY WAY
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