Happy Birthday, Dad

At the family house on the shore of Lake Secor in Mahopac

Ninety.

Like, how?

There would be ninety candles on the birthday cake.

Death always leaves us with questions and assumptions. So many questions.

I suppose the biggest one is: How would life be different?

But we've mourned and thought too many times over the past 30 years since you died.

So many tears. Too much sadness.

Easter morning, maybe 1970 or 1971, with his youngest

I keep the memories close. Of long drives to and from Florida and mowing the lawn and watching TV and talking sports (to be fair, not really your thing but you did it for me) and so much more.

I often wonder if your hips would have gotten replaced and what it would have done to your quality of life.

I wonder if you would have listened to my radio work. I always thought you'd be proud and a big fan. At least, I hoped so. I know you would have adored Sean.

I also wonder how and if you would have counseled me, in that diplomatic way that you handed down like the most precious jewels. For all of the explosiveness of being unable to find the right screwdriver or discovering a Howard Johnson's was closed at 5 a.m. in Walterboro, SC you had the ability to be as soft-spoken as Mr. Rogers when it came to matters that needed dexterity.

I just think about how you would have handled (or not handled) certain...things.

Who am I kidding? They would have been addressed. Somehow.

I guess my biggest regret -- my biggest thought -- is that I'm not sure I truly knew you. I was 20 when you died. I think I was just starting to get interesting so, really, what did I know?

Probably mid-70s in a typical pose

I wonder what 1996 would have been like. You know why. After years of ribbing me for middling and pitiful Yankees teams, maybe we would have sat together that fateful night with the Bombers up three games to two on the Braves.

Maybe we would have talked a lot on that journey of a season. Maybe, to my face, you would have rooted against them, while privately hoping they'd win it all.

How would you have felt watching the Joe Girardi triple and the subsequent singles by Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams that opened up the 3-0 lead?

I almost guarantee you would have been a Paul O'Neill guy. His fire was the kind of player that you liked.

And so, what would it have been like at 10:55 p.m. on Saturday, October 26, 1996? Would you have gone to bed before Charlie Hayes settled under the foul pop fly of Mark Lemke? Would you still have teased me or would it have been a great triumph?


These are all irrelevant thoughts, I suppose.

You made me a better father. We had a good relationship. Great, even. But I know there were times of silence where you didn't quite know what to do with me. I take those lessons and pour them into my relationship with Sean.

You're ninety today. I'd love to have your wisdom. I'd love to have you tell the stories of delivering to The Great One's house (Gleason, not Gretzky), or of how you thought Gene Kelly was such a gentleman when you happened upon the Hello, Dolly! set in Garrison.

I'd love to know more about Pearl Harbor and World War II and Korea and where you were for JFK and more about my grandparents and Hartsdale and Lake Secor.

I'd love to know what you would have thought of the Gulf War and 9/11.

What would have moved you since 1989? Inspired you? Annoyed you?

Questions. Assumptions. Too many.

What would you have thought? I suppose it doesn't matter at this point.

We'll keep figuring it out here.

You were always my hero. Always.

Happy birthday, old man.