fathers day

They called him Frank- a big handsome man with lots of charisma. Mother always said she married him for his good looks and artistic talent, but when I got older, she admitted their compatible sexlife was the glue that kept them together. He was not only a fine calligrapher but he could sing on key as well as harmonize. In his youth, he was in a traveling Minstrel Show where they all performed in black face. After he returned home at the end of the First World War, he married Mother; or rather she roped him in.

My father was an easy going quiet man while Mother was the talker in the family. Her ambition was to have a large family, own a nice big home in a neighborhood that had good schools. She gave birth to five children and four survived. Owning a home didn't happen until my oldest Brother came back from WW2 and she bought a small track house with his GI loan. I had to count six blocks from the corner to pull into the right driveway during those early years. Eventually the houses began to look different as time passed.