Things I never need to know and can’t forget.

The rotary phone explains the J B Scotch

My dad died when I was about 18 years old, which makes that 44 years ago. But he left a legacy. He left me pearls of wisdom that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot forget. Below, I’ve listed some of them. They are the ones I can remember offhand.

“Turn the goddam light off. Do you think I own stock in ConEd?” It took me many years to realize that I didn’t control the stock value of Consolidated Edison; but until I came to that realization, I used to flick the lights on and off just to mess with the stock market. And why didn’t he ever buy stock in ConEd? I could have made him a fortune! “Don’t ever play on the front lawn. You wanna play? Go to the schoolyard.” This only meant one thing to me. I heard, ‘Play on the front lawn. but get out of there before I come home from work.’ He loved his front lawn. We didn’t even have an electric lawnmower. He pushed that sucker. He edged. He pulled weeds. I played football on the front lawn. Until that one day he came home from work early…years of speech therapy cured my stutter. “Don’t ever touch my new Cadillac. Ever.” Notice what I’m doing when he took my grade school graduation picture below:

This almost killed him

4. “Get home when you hear my whistle.” My dad could whistle that whistle where you put your fingers in your mouth. It was loud. It was earsplitting. When he wanted me home, he stood outside on the porch and whistled. We lived in Chicago, and got complaints from people in Indiana. Dogs used to come over and tell him, “Cut that shit out.” I could be in someone’s basement, and I would hear his whistle. My friends had to be home when the streetlights went on. He didn’t trust the streetlights.

5. “You think you’re funny? You can’t make a living from being funny.” He didn’t live long enough to see me do standup comedy. I would have loved that. Not out of spite. Well, maybe a little out of spite. But every son wants his dad to be proud of him. I think he would have been proud of me.

I loved my dad.