This is an expanded article that was published in the June, 2013 edition of The Vegas Voice, in my column entitled "Say What !?!". After receiving a number of compliments from residents and readers across the Las Vegas valley, since today is Father's Day, I thought I would reprint its longer version as a tribute the my best pal...Jake...my dad.
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He was never a corporate CEO; he was never a college grad; he didn't even graduate from high school.
He wasn't very handsome due to a childhood accident, and he wasn't very good at baseball or football either, but was the best at one thing....
...being my dad.
And this being Father's Day, I'd like to tell you what he did give to his two sons that couldn't be purchased for all the gold in the world...
...a sense of humor....an ability to look at his own shortcomings...and turn them into a lifetime of memories for his kids.
As the years pass, somehow it seems more difficult to remember what I wore yesterday, but when it comes to memories of my dad...
...they remain indelible in my mind.
Dad was a man who could laugh at himself, easier than he could at others.
He told me once that was a sign of maturity and self-assuredness, at being human; that if you were capable of laughing at yourself, the whole world might laugh along with you, not at you, and would like you for it.
He was in a horrible auto accident when he was just 4 years old, and in that accident, he was thrown through a windshield crushing a number of bones in his nose. Money was tight in the family, and he was never able to get it fixed....and "flat nose" became a name associated with "Jake" throughout his childhood.
But...Jake would overcome it. He had a talent so many other kids didn't have. He could draw, and the teachers were always coming to him for the classroom artwork. He was SO GOOD, that he would later receive a full scholarship to the Chicago Art Institute, one of the most prestigious schools in the country.
Jake was too small for most sports, but he was good at one...he could swim...and being fearless....he could dive, and dive he did....from platforms that were three stories high, competing and WINNING high school championships in Chicago.
Yes...a kid with a deformed nose and an ability to draw, was well on his way to actually becoming a somebody.
That all changed in his junior year of high school, when my grandfather, a jack of all trades, decided that he would make some extra cash by cutting hair for an amount LESS THAN UNION scale. After all, the country was in the middle of a depression.
One day, two men knocked on his door and informed him that undercutting a union was dangerous to his health. That's how things worked in Chicago during the 30s.
Gramps would pay them no heed, and two weeks later they were back...with baseball bats.
..and due to the mounting medical bills that he incurred over four months of hospitalization....Jake...had to quit school and support a family.
During that same summer, while diving from a cliff, his three and half summersault went terribly wrong as well, hitting the water not on a straight plane, but on one which crashed him into a rock quarry, where he lost consciousness, and had to be rescued by others.
His diving, the one sport at which he excelled, came to a screeching halt that day due to massive injuries, and his dreams of being a cartoonist and graduate of an illustrious school...ended suddenly within just a few months.
He could have easily taken a path where "chips on shoulders" begin to grow, but not Jake. Good people accept bad breaks, look past them, and are determined to find a way to conquer them.
...and Jake's way...was laughter !
He was the "clown"; the guy who also loved to laugh; the guy who would dance with the girls while the other guys sat back talking of sports; the guy who was never threatening to any of them....
...but also...the guy who the girls loved for the caring, courteous, and gentlemanly manner he always had...while making them laugh at him...and they, at themselves.
Suddenly he met a very special girl named Rose, sweet Rosie, and she was the prettiest of them all...the one the other guys wanted to chase, never even thinking Jake would ever have a chance.
So...why would this beauty have anything to do with a man who had a "flat nose", and hadn't even graduated from high school?
She would tell me years later..."he made me laugh" !
And that was the greatest gift he was able to pass on to his kids...
He made us laugh...just about every day in his life.
That continued for the next 57 years of their married life until in 1998, he got sick and we lost him.
And despite a tear that falls from my eye each time my mind wanders at thoughts of him.....
...those thoughts quickly turn to a smile....teaching me that laughter was merely the best way he had at saying..."I love you."
So...dad...to those many lifetime memories; for always being there when I needed you, for guiding me through life (even while I was smashing all of your cars as a teen).....and...for just plain being you....
...I dedicate this to you and all fathers everywhere on behalf of all sons and daughters, who were fortunate to have a dad, as wonderful as the one I had.
Your loving son....Dick
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