I like when my team
gets a big lead in a game
and then pulls away
Today is (or isn’t) the anniversary of the day my Dad died.
There is debate on this because my Dad died late at night in a hospital room with my brother Paul and I at his side.
Paul had called people that the time was near and one by one, my Mom and my 9 other brothers and sisters arrived as fast as they could, but after the moment.
With this mob of people in the room, it was some time after midnight before a Doctor could verify that Dad was indeed dead, so his death certificate is dated the next day.
My Dad would have enjoyed stealing an extra bureaucratic day of life.
To make up for it, when Dad’s headstone was delivered, the stone mason had made that common January mistake and carved 1987 instead of 1988.
As my brother Steve said, “What can you do? It IS carved in stone.“
Dad would have enjoyed that as well.
Once, back when I was in college, my parents visited me and Dad enjoyed walking around campus to see what had changed since he had been there 40 years earlier.
I took them down to the ‘New’ Law Library which was built next to Law Quad.
So the new building wouldn’t mess up the esthetics of the Cambridgesque Law School, the new library was dug 7 stories down into the ground.
I led Mom and Dad down the flights of stairs and past a sign that all visitors must register.
My Mom pointed to sign and I dismissed it with a wave of my hand and my Dad said, “Mike knows what to do.”
We walked around and my Dad inspected the stacks and study carrels and we ended up standing on the stairs along side an atrium that was dug out and sided with windows to let some sunlight into the underground structure.
Mom looked at the chrome window frames and pointed out they were covered in dust.
Dad looked for a bit.
Then walked over to the rail and leaned way out and wrote with his finger:
Ashes to Ashes
Dust to Dust
If your grades don’t get you
The Devil must
“OH BOB”, my mom said, walking away.
This past fall, I got to spend a weekend in Ann Arbor with my granddaughter and its been 40 years SINCE I was in school.
I felt I could have grabbed a pad and paper and walked into a lecture without missing a beat.
I am sure when my Dad was writing in the dust, he felt the same.
Thinking of things my Dad liked, he liked his sports teams.
He like Michigan and I am sure he would have enjoyed last years undefeated season.
His favorite team was the Chicago Cubs.
He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with the Cubs on the radio across from across Lake Michigan.
Later in life when he had a cottage in Grand Haven on the lake shore, he put giant rotating antennas to catch the TV signal from WGN so he could watch the Cubs.
At least on good days.
On bad atmospheric days or days with storms, the picture would fade in and out or get all fuzzy.
Many times we would hear Jack Brickhouse saying, “Its back back back bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” and when the picture came back, it was a commerical.
Came the day in Grand Rapids when Cable TV came to our block.
Dad called and called or at least had his receptionist call and call (My Dad hated the phone and his receptionist, Diane, endeared herself by calling anyone he asked) to get the first available appointment on our street for the Cable Guy.
Cable Guy shows up and looks at the house and told Dad that while he, Cable Guy, could connect the house to the cable, he was not allowed to wire up a house.
Dad would have to do that.
Dad and the Cable Guy looked over the house and Cable Guy gave Dad a couple hundred feet of coaxial cable and promised that he would stop back at the end of his day.
Dad took that cable and spent the rest of day up in the attic and under the roof crawling around until he had cable running to our family room and his bedroom.
True to his word, Cable Guy showed up late in the day, approved of what Dad had wired up and went to work.
Mom came out and called Dad to dinner and he came in sat down at the table.
As I remember it, Cable Guy came with him and pulled out a chair at the table.
Mom was mom and laughed and offered to set a plate.
Cable Guy said he appreciated it but went back to work and we went on with dinner.
Halfway through dinner, Cable Guy called to my Dad, “Sir, if I can show you how this works?”
Dad was out of his chair at the head of the table and into the family room.
Dad walked in and the TV was on and Cable Guy was standing there with the Channel Selector Box (which in those days was the flat box with a slider that you used to change channels).
The Chicago Cubs, in crystal clear cable TV, were on.
Dad sat down in front of the TV.
Cable Guy handed him the box and explained how it worked.
Dad listened but didn’t hear a word.
He was in his living room and he was watching the Cubs.
At that moment, all was as good as was ever going to get in his world and he enjoyed that moment.
(A corollary to this story is when VHS recorders came on the market and we were after Dad to buy so we could rent movies. One Saturday morning my brother Tim pointed out that if we had one, we could tape the Michigan-Notre Dame that afternoon and Dad could watch the tape all week long. Dad got down the Witmark catalog and picked out a machine and gave Tim his credit card and sent Tim and me out to buy one – Michigan and Rick Leach beat ND 28-14 and that tape floated around box of tapes forever.)
Along with the Cubs, Dad kind of followed the Bears.
At least the 1985 Bears.
I think he followed the Bears just to tease the rest of us.
The rest of us followed the Lions.
We would watch every Sunday and there were games where the Lions would be ahead.
There were games when we thought, the Lions were going to win.
Dad would sit back and predict how the Lions would lose.
We would be hopefull.
Dad would say that Lions were once again going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
We would yell NO NO NO! in exasperation.
But Dad had seen this team before.
The Lions, we thought, are going to win this one.
After the Lions lost, Dad would quote Harry Caray and say, “Victory had one thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan.”
He seemed somehow, to enjoy losing or, at least, to enjoy being right that the Lions were so wrong.
I got so mad once at Dad’s black outlook that I asked, “What do you like about Sports?”
Dad looked at me and without hesitation he said, “I like when my team gets a big lead in a game, … and then pulls away.”
No Haiku For You 