Dad (3)

When I got out of bed this morning, I muttered to myself "I hate to get up in the morning." Just then a song popped into my head, "Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning,Oh, how I hate to get out of bed." And my dad's voice sang it. It must be an old memory because it has been many years since my dad and I lived in the same house at a time where he and I had to get up early.

My dad loved to sing, but he always claimed that he never knew the words to what he was singing. In church he had the words. His voice was the loudest and I remember that the girls would cringe every time he opened his mouth. But I loved his deep voice and as far as I could tell he was usually on key. The pure joy that he sang with instilled in me a joy for singing at an early age. I remember that both mom and dad used to laugh, when I sang at the top of lungs to the pop music on the radio.

Since I was away at the seminary for all of my high school years, my family dinner conversations were limited to summers and holiday vacations. Nevertheless, I remember many of those conversations. Well, I guess I could call them arguments. But I can fairly say that I think we both enjoyed them. The topics most often were hippies, the Vietnam War and Nixon. I remember the rest of the family sitting quietly by at the dinner table while my dad and I loudly debated the topics of the world. "You guys, are tearing down our country," he would say, lumping me in with Jerry Rubin and I was an open minded lefty. I remember exactly my dad saying to me, "You're too open." Yet I also remember his strong support of Civil Rights legislation. He real empathy with the poor and down trodden. He also had enough humility to admit when he was wrong. Several years after heated conversations about Nixon and his band of crooks, he said to me, "You know about those guys, you were right."

My dad had a great influence on my art. I always felt bad as a kid that mom criticized his work. I loved it. She even said one time that she thought that I was a better artist than him. Rather than feeling complimented I felt it was an insult to my dad. I knew that I could never match him as an artist. He not only worked in oils, but also in stone and wood. He would often get an old piece of cherry or some other hardwood from the wild and carve a head, or face or statue in it. The whole family became recipients of his products. I remember coming down to his place in Cape May, New Jersey one time seeing his great collection of pieces in the studio.