I have dread this day ever since I first realized Dad was my father. Over the years, I would come to call him Pops.
Pops was, as our longtime family friend Shirley always used to say, “a kick in the pants.” I remember how loud he could be, how funny, how silly and sometimes, how serious and even frightening when I was very young. I remember when he came home from work and would sit reading the paper with his bourbon and water and pipe, back in the days when he did such things. I would sit on his lap and ask for sips of the nasty stuff. I remember running to him moaning about having the hiccups. “Dad, I have the hiccups.” He would ignore me. “DAD, I have the HICCUPS!!!” Still nothing. Finally on the third or fourth whine, he would turn to me suddenly and in his massive voice say, “WHAT DID YOU SAY????!!!” Scared them right out of me, every time.
I remember dancing on his feet as he led me around to soundtracks of various musicals. I remember watching him do the same thing with my sister Kami when she was young and wondering how I so quickly become too old to do that. Pops loved to dance and if we didn’t readily dance with him, he would just take off on his own.
I remember him cooking us up scrambled eggs, served with Danish, the morning before we headed off to Disneyland in our large station wagon. I hated that mixture. I remember his love for ice cream, brownies and other sweets. One afternoon one of my brothers cooked up some brownies that we had to make disappear before Pops could have any, because they weren’t the right kind of brownies. I got my mother to talk to him on the phone so my brother could take care of things. Pops arrived in the kitchen looking for brownies that were now gone and blamed his missing out on my mother for talking too much. That was probably the only time I really heard him say anything unkind about her in front of us after they divorced. But it was a matter of brownies, after all. I remember at Easter how he would walk around the house chanting “Easter time is the time for eggs and the time for eggs is Easter time.” He could be so silly.
We liked to tease him about his “ill-fated expeditions.” I remember the picnic with a bunch of folks on the top of some dry hot hill covered with dry prickly grass and a few old oak trees in the middle of a hot summer. We hiked up and Pops kicked aside a large pile of dirt and put the blanket down. Kathleen sat down and a few minutes later started shrieking. Never really the outdoor type, he had managed to kick over a decent sized ant hill. I think on the way to that particular outing he may have prefaced the whole trip with one of his great lines: “you are going to have fun dammit, whether you like it or not.”
And then there were those evenings sitting in front of the TV at 3222 Cowper Street when we kids would get a bit unruly. We could hear him marching down the hall. He would slide open the door and say, “You’re getting silly. Go to bed” then close the door and march right back down the hall. We didn’t go to bed or stop being silly, but heh, he tried.
Years later, we had fun using these “Dadisms” on him. He would just look at us with that look, all twinkle in the eye and smiles, saying, “heh kid, you better watch it!”
Even though my parents made their livings as attorneys, using words seemingly constantly and teaching us all of us to do the same, Pops wasn’t big on some words when we were growing up. I know when he was older he regretted he hadn’t told us more often how much he loved us and how proud he was of us. But we knew it. He showed it by his actions, by always encouraging us to do what we wanted to do in our lives. As a girl growing up with a strong mother for a good role model, I remember that my father also reinforced in me my ability to be whatever I wanted, and do whatever I thought was important. He instilled in me my work ethic, my willingness to do things for others, my sense of humor, and my self-confidence.
Another thing I really appreciated about Pops is that with all the years he spent listening to people getting divorced saying pretty vile things about their spouses, he was never one to say mean things about others. He never said an unkind word to us kids about our mom when they divorced - except for the brownie incident. He had seen too many parents play tug of war with their kids and he wasn’t going to be that person. As we all grew up, I realized he did the same with us kids, refusing to listen to any harsh words any of us might have for our siblings, or saying anything harsh or critical about one of us to another. He would listen, but he wouldn’t judge. And sometimes, he would just say, “okay, that’s enough.” Invariably, he was right.
Pops managed to genuinely mature as he aged, and when he met Lorna, it was a very good thing. I always joked that only a child psychologist would be able to handle him. Lorna helped him as he spent the latter part of his life looking at his skeletons and softening his edges. I don’t know if he ever forgave himself for not being a perfect person. I know he was always hard on himself and felt responsible for any mistakes we kids ever made. I would tell him that he and mom did the best they could and at least I turned out okay. That always got a chuckle.
No visit to Pops and Lorna over the years could ever properly end without him first discussing with me at some length the best route to drive wherever I was going and often pulling out the map, even if it was back to the same place I had just come from. I have always loved looking at maps and I am sure I got that from him. Then as I drove off, he would always give the same sage advice, “take two and hit to right” and “don’t shoot til you see the whites of their eyes.”
In the last few years, during our visits Pops, Lorna and I would enjoy doing puzzles and watching mysteries or old movies on television. His sense of humor was as good as ever, and while sometimes he would miss what was going on for a while, he’d pop back in with a typical quick witted remark.
Leaving to join the Peace Corps was a difficult decision for me. My biggest fear was exactly this. Before I left, he sometimes would ask me whether they couldn’t place me somewhere where they spoke German, so I could use that skill. I studied German and lived abroad in high school because of his love for that part of our heritage and it continues to be an important part of my life and will always connect me to him. I would remind him that pretty much anywhere where German was spoken didn’t need Peace Corps volunteers, and he would laugh as he realized this was probably true.
I miss my Daddy, but free of a body that simply couldn’t hold up to such a vast spirit, he can now joke, and dance and laugh to his heart’s delight. For this, I am grateful. Pops, May the Force Be With You.
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