Wearin' O' the Green

 

My dad (center) with his parents, Sep 1957

I finally put something green on.

I've been working around the apartment all day and, as I put a load of laundry in, I popped on a pair of green basketball shorts.

There. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Mere steps away from our place was the annual Greenwich St. Patrick's Day parade. Given Sean, Chris Erway, and I were going to host it on the radio at one point, I didn't have much of a drive to walk over to it.

WGCH had a car in the festivities but I was bummed there was no broadcast.

So, I kept myself occupied on this day of mixed emotions.

I could hear just a little of the hoopla as I bounced in and out of the apartment all day.

We're getting ready to leave for Florida and the last day before traveling is always hectic. At least, it is for me.

So there's the aforementioned laundry to do, cleaning up the car, staging things the way I want for the drive, cleaning up and making sure everything is in place for Rascal while we're gone, and so on.

Plus, with the warmth, I allowed myself a break by grabbing the reclining chair that I use on the balcony. I sat out there and ate lunch. I even gave myself a moment of "sláinte" by grabbing a cold beverage.

It wasn't Guinness but it would still do just fine.

I even created next week's "Meet the Beatles" by recording it here in my studio. I will post it in the archive after it runs next Sunday.

Basically, we could almost drive away now. We won't but we could. Sean has something going on so he told me if I considered leaving I'd be going alone.

So, no. We'll leave tomorrow morning.

I also caught up with my sister today, who wished us well on our trip. She just got back from Florida. 

I realized after we hung up that we didn't talk about our father.

It was 35 years ago tonight that I came home to the news that Dad had died at 59.

In an instant, life changed completely. There's no way around that.

Such a thing is impossible to calculate but exactly what would have changed had he lived longer?

"Everything" is too easy to say but it's not entirely wrong.

It goes without saying how much he is missed. I truly think of him every day and I suppose I try to live up to standards that would make him proud. I think we all do that.

I liked most of those standards.

Let's be honest, this trip is a tribute to him in many ways.

He taught me to hit the road early on trip day and to make every moment count. He gave me a wonderful sense of direction.

He taught me to be weary of Washington, DC traffic and to keep things on the entertainment system that keep a driver alert.

Conversely, I don't sit at meals for long to have extra cups of coffee. Plus, I don't smoke so there's that.

We'd pull into a Howard Johnson's in somewhere like Roanoke Rapids, NC and you knew you'd be off the road for at least an hour.

"More coffee, sir?" he'd get asked and, well, you knew the answer.

I can easily take my coffee in the car and I'm sort of content to eat and drive.

Incidentally, I miss Howard Johnson's but that's a whole different topic. He'd be amazed with the grab-and-go life of Wawa's and Sheetz and Bucc-ee's.

But I know him. He loved being "Uncle Don" and stopping at his niece's house would have been a no-brainer.

That's where we'll be tomorrow night. I love being "Uncle." I always have.

The hurt of his passing will never subside and I've accepted that. I still choke back too many tears on that topic and his fingerprints will be all over this trip. I'll see the sites that I saw with him. Places that he taught me to love.

The last time I drove towards the bottom end of South Carolina, through Georgia, and into the Jacksonville, FL area was in 1989. It was six weeks after he died. I'll likely stand on the same beach that I did on that trip when I looked at the water and pondered what the hell had happened. Still, it was the first moment of serenity during that time. To clarify, I was there for the funeral of my grandfather.

My dad's dad.

And so I had the right approach today. I did a radio show and then recorded a second radio show before going to the grocery store. Plus all of the other things that I did to stay busy and not be preoccupied with St. Patrick's Day.

It was another day, even if it took me hours to come around to put something green on.

Happy St. Patrick's Day if that's your thing.

It's still mine. Within reason.