Yesterday was Father’s Day. My oldest son called. My youngest son popped in with best wishes. And my daughter and her two arrived on the way to summer camp with a pair of socks for me declaring me a cool ass grandpa. We ate pizza for dinner. Drank Doctor Pepper. The kids slept on the couch and my daughter slept in the upstairs guest room (my old office). This morning everyone except me and the kids are still asleep. In a bit, I’ll go get breakfast tacos.

I also spent a few moments yesterday thinking about my father. We had an interesting relationship, partly soured by his second wife the one who replaced my mother after she died. I’ll be honest. I didn’t like the woman. Then, after 30 years, she too passed away. I got my father back. We went on road trips. We visited the World War II museum in New Orleans. We went to Corpus to see the Naval Hospital where he met my mother. We looked at old pictures together. And eventually I helped him find a new home back in San Antonio where he met his third and final wife, a woman whom I adored because she was the epitome of kindness. They wanted five years together but ended up with about three when he died in 2006.

I remember my dad mostly as a man in uniform, doing his duty for the United States Navy, traveling the country, visiting historical sites, teaching me baseball, coaching when I needed a team, and showing me love of family. And that last one is the big one because he loved his family, and he knew the names of all of his cousins and the names of their children, and even the names of their friends. And it was a joy to see him with his brothers and his mother, because when we were all together there never seemed to ever be an ill word spoken. He was a man who did his duty and loved his family and that seems a good way to be remembered.

Part 26, Living in America: An Old Man’s Journey into His Past