Stories about my father/Happy Father's Day 2022

 

My dad would have turned 95 on June 21st. His birthday was always right around Father's Day; some years they fell on the same day. We lost him back in 2007. Time plays tricks and it feels impossible that it was so long ago.    With Father's day this weekend, it feels like a good time to take a break from writing about viruses and instead give a shout out to my father. When I wrote the first edition of this post, I put the call out to the family for their input. There were some classic stories like the time dad tried to calculate the width of a canyon based on how long it took for a sound to echo. In the same vein no one in the family can help but to think of dad during a thunderstorm. We all find ourselves calculating how far the lightning strike is by counting the seconds between the boom and the flash.   Dad strongly preferred back roads to the highways. We never stopped teasing him about one trip from Pittsburgh to New York, where we went miles out of our way because he was following the moon, rather than looking at a map, and had grossly miscalculated.   The lock for my high school locker was Kr Cr Ar -- If anyone needs help figuring out the code that would be 36 Krypton 24 Chromium 18 Argon. My dad had us remember combinations based on the periodic table. Yep, he was a nerdy scientist.   This had its pros and its cons. The first time my poor husband Sandy visited my house (at the vulnerable age of 18) my dad handed him a Scientific American magazine and asked about alternative approaches for addressing the problem posed in the article. Deer in the headlights would probably be an accurate description of Sandy at that moment. My mom rescued him “Robert, leave him alone.”   One of his passions was music. He was one of the rare people with perfect pitch. One night, I was sitting next to him at a large group dinner. There was the sharp clink of a fork hitting a wine glass. I heard him quietly ask,“Hmm what note was that?” He tuned out the rest of the conversation for a moment and then proclaimed “B Flat.”  I couldn’t help myself. I ran to the piano to see if he was right. We clinked the glass again. It was indeed B flat.   He played his violin until his last days. Certain pieces of music bring him right to me. We had a couple of Beethoven’s Violin and Piano Sonatas that were ‘ours.’   He came from a large family. His maternal grandfather, Michael Weiss had 14 children, so he had cousins everywhere. Family was tremendously important to him and he made the effort to stay in touch with people. He also created a system in which all the members on that branch had an identifying number. I was 2-4-2 — My grandmother was the second eldest, Dad was the 4th and I was the second. The extended cousins still use that at family events. The ‘Weiss’ number system lives on (my grandson is 24211).   He loved animals. When we were growing up he unhesitatingly welcomed the parade of stray cats that my sister Marjie brought into the family. To round things out, we also had an assortment of fish, gerbils and birds. One of my all time favorite ‘dad stories’ was when one of the finches suddenly died. Dad had a cousin who taught veterinary medicine at Cornell. (Family number 14-2). Cornell happened to be where Sandy was in school. I got up there to see him as often as I could. Dad thought it would be interesting for me to bring the dead bird with me on my next trip so that cousin Richard could do an autopsy and ascertain the cause of death. He put the bird in the freezer to wait until my next visit.   I did NOT think this was a good idea and after a back and forth, strongly declined to take the frozen bird. Here is the thing, No one is quite sure how long the bird remained tucked away in the freezer.   He was curious about everything (why did the bird die?) and brilliant until Alzheimer’s dimmed his mind. If anyone had a question, before the days of google, the obvious choice was to “ask Grandpa.”   He also figured out a Back Scratching hack with a handy grid system. ABCD going down/12345 going across. If you had an itch you could easily instruct the ‘scratcher’ where to go. B3 is usually right in between the shoulder blades. (I-3 was off limits)   Dad was game to do anything. We were always on the go to fairs, concerts, bowling, sporting events (Go Steelers, Pirates and Penguins) or even just to go watch a bridge being built. My mom was delighted to have quiet evenings with the rest of us out of the house.   When we weren’t actually going anyplace, we had a stash of board games including chess, Mastermind and Racko that he was always willing to play. I don’t remember him saying no.    He was recycling and composting long before it was fashionable. His optimism that anything could be fixed or repurposed was overshadowed by his full schedule. Tools and willingness lost out to the fact that there were only so many hours in the day. This meant that his workbench in the basement became a veritable cornucopia of broken toys and unfinished projects, where it remained virtually untouched until we cleared out the house. That was a project that took us several years.   My dad didn’t tell a lot of jokes, but he was the universal recipient and appreciated any humor that was directed his way with a broad grin and a big laugh.   One of the traits that I got from him in spades and am most grateful for was his problem solving ability. Like my father, my default is to go right into problem solving mode. The truth is, sometimes people just need to kvetch, vent and have someone simply listen.   Learning that not everyone wants to have someone “fix” them is something that I continue to work on. This would have been a foreign concept to my father. If he saw something that could use some correction or fine tuning, he would dive right in. In some cases this might have been total strangers. A man limping? Let's evaluate the physics of his gait. An off-key singer? (his favorite) He invented a method to teach anyone to sing.    His kids and grandchildren coined the verb “to Grandpa someone,” which translated as constructive criticism, or instruction that was more than likely unasked for. He was pretty sure that anyone could learn anything, and he was ready and eager to teach.   My dad had a remarkably even temperament. It is possible that he never once raised his voice to me. I would like to think that this was mutual, but every time he tried to teach me the error of my bowling technique, I would lose control of my temper (I should have listened, I am a terrible bowler.)   It was no fun being mad at him. He would simply get sad and say something along the lines of “I am going into the backyard to eat worms.”   He was a family man who loved his wife, children and grandchildren with all his heart and we knew it. He started with girls only, three daughters, followed by five granddaughters. The switch flipped. The next two grandchildren were boys, followed by three great grandsons, who he never got to meet but would have been so proud of. One is a budding chess enthusiast who gets exasperated with his mom for making bad moves — she wishes she could travel back in time with him so he could play against his great-grandpa!   To all the caregivers out there, my memories of my dad center around the gift of time. This was the most valuable thing my father could and did give to me. Spending time with your kids is something you will never regret. If you are not getting enough, make this post a spark to have your see what you can shift around to get more quality time.   Here is a simple activity that my dad loved. Find an “inclined plane” (otherwise known as any board or piece of cardboard that you can lean on a slant.) Roll things down Watch your kid laugh   Here is a bonus story about my dad, for people who like the inexplicable   Thanks to 2-4-1, 2-4-2-2 and 2-4-1-1 for your help!!