I miss my dad. In fact, I miss him almost every day. There are so many things that I either encounter or I do that remind me of him and the things he taught me. We were very close.

My dad contracted polio when he was young – probably four years old, and it affected his right side. His right arm was paralyzed, but he maintained use of his hand, and the collapse of his right side probably contributed to his death since his lung on the right side was affected. He had to learn to write all over again with his left hand. Anything he did with his right hand was adapted by supporting his right arm, such as shaking hands. But his disability never slowed him down.

I heard that he was an awesome mechanic and re-built his own cars from junk cars that he bought. He adapted an oil filter that would use a roll of toilet paper. He said he had to change it every week because of all the dirt roads, but it was still cheaper than buying real oil filters. He rebuilt the engines in his cars. I remember when I was very young, he rebuilt the engine for our Hudson. I remember all the parts being laid out on the driveway in the porthole house on Jefferson. When we had the Ford station wagon that leaked oil, he bough 50 weight oil and put a big pan under it to catch the oil; then, we just poured the oil back into the engine. We had planned to rebuild the Ford’s engine, but he died before that ever happened, and I had to learn how to work on cars on my own.

He ate weird stuff that I still eat today. He loved grapefruit with sugar and salted his oranges and apples. He sliced cantaloupe in two, scooped out the seeds, and plopped a scoop of ice cream in the hole. Then, he sprinkled pepper over the whole thing and ate it that way. He loved sauerkraut right out of the jar. He would buy a huge jar of sweet pickles, take out all the pickles and put peaches or beets into the jar and pickle them. He taught me to always slice open peaches to look for tiny worms around the pits. And he made THE BEST homemade ice cream – with fresh peaches or vanilla with hot fudge sauce that was still kind of grainy from the sugar.

He always had a garden with tomatoes in it. He loved tomato sandwiches with lots of mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. No cheese. No meat. Just tomatoes. He taught me how to plant them, how to prune them, how to find tomato worms, and when to harvest. He taught me how to cut them for sandwiches and how to “rescue” the good parts of a half-eaten tomato.

My dad played guitar. His Regal Southern Jumbo hangs next to my bed. I played that guitar in the Red Barons. In 1968, I got a Silvertone Jumbo guitar for Christmas. I’m sure my dad was the reason. It was not cheap. And I never put it down. That’s the guitar on which I learned every Beatles song. I remember my dad playing guitar in church and singing. He had to prop his leg up on a chair to play so the guitar could support his right arm, but his hand strummed just fine. I wish we would have played together more. I don’t know why we didn’t.

My dad worked around water his entire life. He started as a dispatcher for the San Joaquin Valley Water District and got to know every farmer in the valley. He always had fresh fruit from farmers, and sometimes we would get to fish in county-owned reservoirs where no one else could go. In 1963, he got a job with California State Department of Water Resources under Alan Cranston which moved us to Sacramento. After his death, I learned that my dad had designed a valve that was instrumental in getting the water from the aqueduct over the mountains into southern California. He drew the design on the back of some piece of paper. He saw the problem and solved it, just like he did when he needed a cheap oil filter.

My dad died when I was eighteen. I missed his wisdom and guidance through the formative years of 18-25. I made a lot of mistakes because he was not around. But in the end, the things he taught me in my first eighteen years did me well.

I miss him every day.

(Pictured: Me and Dad in 1955. I was 2 1/2 years old.)

(Pictured: Me and Dad in front of a split-window Chevy.)