I inherited my smile and my dark stare from my dad. he also gave me (a wee motormouth) permission to be quiet and full of thought. as an engineer, he is patient, logical, meticulous; attributes I'm finding more and more useful in life. he taught me how to throw a baseball (he was a professional player), the love of photography, the joy only a dog can bring to a human and the identity of every sea creature in the tide pool. he showed me what it means to keep a commitment. he was my first example of cool: the man drove a '61 corvette, played jazz saxophone and was the Twist King of California (or something like that). but never too cool or aloof to refrain from obligatory dad jobs like playing the cake walk at the castro lane school carnival or carrying a traumatized child through Scream-in-the-Dark (and proffering the subsequent apologies to the man in the gorilla costume after said child's vicious assault on the gigantic scary monkey).
thanks dad, for being an excellent father. happy fathers day.
