Fathers: An appreciation

Wow. I'm really sorry.

And I'm also sorry I can't come up with anything better to say than "wow" - the internet is such a poor space to try to offer condolences

my dad designed the cover for october magazine:

http://www.jstor.org/graphics/thumbs/01622870.gif

and was way cooler at 22 than i am now.

Great cover max's dad.

Fuk, I could say a lot about my dad. I guess he's taught me by example that life isn't just something that has to get settled by the time you're 30 and then follow a set path. He was a public school music teacher, a wall street clerk, an art gallery owner, a cantor, and now he's becoming a rabbi. He started composing in his 40s and has written an opera, three symphonies and two childrens' ballets. He's a relatively successful person who genuinely lives by the idea that ethics and morality are more important than self-advancement.

today's my dad's birthday. i called him, he was stuck in traffic.

My condolences, Ned, to you and your family. You're right, my dad would be freaked out and possibly suspicious if I let on that I credit his example with how my life's turned out, particularly his work ethic (which is vast) and the fact that he always took great care of mechanical things. And, that he let me play with his old chemistry set when I was very young. His grass-cutting dictatorship (the lawn is cut north and south, do not make patterns!) is probably why I prefer living in an apartment.

My father always used to make things for us at night, out of lego or meccano, and when we came downstairs in the morning there would be a crane or a boat or something. He was still making things for my son until fairly recently. Last thing he made was a little thing out of meccano that span round. Thanks dad.

My Dad has always been good at knowing when to suddenly splash out on something spontaneously. I particularly remember a climbing frame when I was 4. These days it's mostly vast quantities of chocolate and fruit cake which he conceals until the appropriate moment in files in his study.

We met with the humanist guy who will do the ceremony and had to sit and think of things that he would say at the ceremony and it was really difficult. Like a lot of people, I had a very...er...complex relationship with my dad and some of the things I liked about him most are probably not the things which my mum, for instance, liked about him most, his love of an argument for instance. And then there is the fact that many of my friends loved my dad because he was very funny, but that used to drive me mad because, for one thing, his jokes were sometimes at my expense (and when you're 16 you really don't want that) and, for another, I wanted to be the centre of attention when my friends were round godammit.

I'm so sorry to hear about your Dad.

Um... I love my Dad because he's a funny workaholic who is as obsessed with dark chocolate as I am. And he doesn't freak out when I tell him sketchy stories like my Mom does. He's also pretty generous and he's so into his grandkids that it's very fun. Finally, I like how he calls me up on Election Day to instruct me not to vote for the candidates he knows damn well that I'm going to vote for.

sorry to hear about your dad dying, Ned.

My dad is a funny fellow. we have a lot of different opinions on things and stuff, but he did a lot to instill in me the love of learning (despite not having much education himself) and so made me the lightweight faux intellectual loser I am.