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Eli’s eyes offer wisdom. Looking up smiling…taking it all in … watching… synthesizing…not missing a beat. He is all of one year old.

Strong argument may be made that life cycle events are termed such not so much for the marked rites of passage, but for the life they, even in the best of circumstances, can suck out of you. No reflection on my family, of course.  They are warm, gracious people. Still, there was  a different dynamic to past generations.  We not only married within the neighborhood but stayed within the neighborhood.   We walked to birthday parties (didn’t fly).  Best yet, bodily rhythms in tact, we slept in our own homes, in our own beds, and rose rested to sing “Happy Birthday”.

That stated, I love these events, rarely missing them. Indeed, they give me reason to leave Ohio and rhyme to my visits. So I do birthdays!

Max’s first? I picture Elmo. Lucy’s first?  I see a gym.

Eli’s first, though….this past weekend: AT A HOUSE.

No, that wasn’t a typo. Family and food IN A REAL HOME! Who needs more? Not this cowboy. Eli’s party? Best venue ever.

—Took me back, it did…to days when Hal and I’d romp, Cousin Gary’d join in, men would play cards and women’d clear tables—

Not that change is bad. (Aging, perhaps, but not change necessarily). I couldn’t help thinking though, as I watched on Saturday, that maybe Eli, in his quiet, infinite wisdom, saw things my way.

First birthdays, like milestone surprise parties, are more photo-ops for the masses than celebrations for the honored. And that’s OK.

Eli’s simcha offered everything, from a son slaving over a patio larger than my Bayard bedroom to HIS son, all of three, showing how quickly time flies.

Time flies for adults too.

‘Round the table we sat, the many of us-  East Coast Gary and I regaling ourselves (if not the crowd) with stories of days at Fort Sam Houston. Medics we were in San Antonio, and through the safety of stateside anecdotes we fought the war. (Did  I mention the Military discount from our motel?).

But the day stood for Eli. A shining star. Turning 1.

This gentlest of souls was named for my mother. Never do I look in his eyes and not see her there. What higher honor than to perpetuate one’s neshamah through generations. “Eli”, (Hebrew for ascended), heightens my spirit by his existence and lofts each of us by his presence. All babies sparkle, plain and simple. Babies named for one’s mother, however, glisten!  As such, while New York cousins surrounded his face, I sat there quietly, consumed by his heart.

My eyes were on the prize. He was the reason d’etre, the quiet straw who, even napping, stirred the drink.

Not that there weren’t a few off-key moments….comic relief, let us say. No names please, but even with an AARP card in hand, Grace Slick provided me etiquette lessons, parenting lessons and (at a restaurant), a chapter on the “New Math”.

It mattered not. At all.

The weekend came and then we went.  Twenty-four hours after we sang “Happy Birthday” we boarded a plane.  Going home.

I would wait for the pictures, access my Facebook, recapture the moments.

On Monday a foil-covered weight that’d anchored Eli’s balloons sat flush on my desk…

Next to a like one from Max’s balloons…next to a drawing by Lucy—

In front of me — inches from my phone — always…

I see it and smile and take it all in…
I  synthesize Eli…

Sitting in Ohio.

Not missing a beat.

Dear Dad,

The other night they asked us to answer the following question: “What makes you tick”? Instantly came my response, and with confidence. “Acceptance, ” I wrote.  My level of acceptance”.

I am in such a great place these days. Have been for a while.

Remember back in the day…those time I’d complain to you about, let’s say, the heat? We’d be in the room with a bunch of  perspiring people  and I’d be grimacing, giving looks. “It’s hot for everybody,” you’d have to remind me.

Or how when I’d knock after just a few cards in a gin hand, but pick up only a few points, and I’d be pissed?  Invariably you’d remark “If you take two or three points each hand you’ll win every game”.

Or, for that matter, WHENEVER things didn’t go exactly as I’d planned, and I’d greps, how you’d neutralize me with “It’s still better than a kick in the ass!” or “Little Boy, you’re crying with a loaf of bread under each arm”.

(God I HATED when you chided me that “Life isn’t fair”. Really!  That of itself didn’t seem fair).

You were right though, Dad, as you usually were. My hindsight is 20/20. (Not that I was really a malcontent…I wasn’t. Still it took me near half my lifetime to just let things slide).

“This too will pass,” you would tell me, when spit would happen. “Someday”, you would promise, “We’ll look back on this and laugh.”

My friends too had their mantras.

Stuart would say “Don’t have any expectations, B”. Alan, muted growl and all would wince “What’d you expect”? With Bobby it was typically “Get over it” and with Walt: it was a matter-of-fact “Go figure.”

So I’ve learned Dad…and I don’t waste time these days, fretting or riling over things I can’t change, things I can’t control.

Like other people…or the past.

That call Jon Scott’s father blew in the 60’s? The play the Bucks couldn’t get off up in East Lansing in the 70’s? The bullshit field goal they gave Karlis in The Drive game? (80’s)? Heck, even that crippling divorce of the 90’s! They’re in the book, Dad—and I know it.

Even God, (as they say), can’t undo the past.

—So I’m breezing a bit. Life is but my loose garment. At peace with most anyone….usually.

Work is fair, play is better, and family is best.  And…

We’re flying to New York; I’m doing a show; even Carrie, on a nightly basis, is improving at gin.

I mention this, Dad, because I reached out to Jamie again this week.  And was rebuffed. Again.

I shook it off, you should know, Dad.  Again.

Shook it off…

—Because if you were here you’d be telling me that this too will pass…and that you’d point to Eli turning 1 and Lucy via FaceTime and Max singing Hebrew—and you’d remind me yet again in that half/full spin of yours that I’m crying with a loaf of bread under each arm… and that three out of five grandchildren know and love me, and that as shitty as that sounds that’s still batting .600, and even Williams never did that!

But I need you, Dad. Down here. Now. Odd as it sounds, Impossible Dreamer that you were, you always saw things better than they were, yet you were right.

Things always are better than they are!

—And I know you’d be telling me even now, with my rejection in Plainview—that someday we’re going to look back at today and laugh.

I’m counting on it, Dad.

You never lied to me.

Love, Bruce

Friday night

“When I see you I think of my brother”, he winced. It was Hal’s Rowland reunion, with siblings included. Shaking Marty’s hand (as I refilled Carrie’s soft drink), I embraced memories of his brother –my classmate – who’d died young. Three years ago, next month, I remembered…as well as how I’d found out…on Facebook.

“My brother got cheated,” he lamented (the surround/sound of contemporaries underscoring his comment).

It was an evening of turned back time – from Davis Bakery coconut bars to Geraci’s pizza. Our classmates they weren’t, but our people they were.
Ms. Leimsieder too, you see, has lived the gift of South Euclid.

So there we shared hugs, hellos, embraces and clasps and renewals in a party room flooded with six Boobus Bowl veterans, five lodge brothers, four members of the early ‘60’s White Sox, three OSU roomies, two sisters of sisters from my Bar Mitzvah—and one Pear. (Not to mention H’s first girlfriend).

It would have been nice, though, to have seen Bobby Wishnek.

Saturday morning

Six tenths of a mile, that’s all: the distance from Bob’s house, past Stu’s and mine– to Alan’s. Not that I needed to, but to assure accuracy, I map-quested it. South on Wrenford, of course; then left at Bayard and across Belvoir. They were simpler times of boyhood intimacies.

Bobby was coolest back then. But from days of bicycles through years we were too proud to ride them…until the ultimate manhood of driver’s licenses—we grew from pals…to friends… to The Big Four.

Some things never change. Would Wieder’s pit stop in town afford us time to convene? Would digital analysis be needed to sync our schedules? Most importantly, would Bobby pass on golf? Mindful agendas they were: Alan had family to see; Snyder had a foursome to honor; Stuart never leaves his house. What to do!

(Me? I’m easy, readily relishing my self-pronounced latter-day status as a Man For All Seasons. Never leaving town I’m ALWAYS available. I mean, really: Al lives in Portland, Stu down in Naples, Bobby in Bainbridge…and me…me: just 1.44 miles past Wido’s old house. (And YES, I map-quested that too).

But coffee we did. La Place’s patio. Over smiles.

And catch up we did: Alan’s book. My brother. Bonnie’s father (Grover’s project).

And laugh we did: reliving last year’s Erev Brush Reunion dinner —from the jousting over who’d be included to the special poll taken that night (and Ermine’s refusal to vote) to the conversation between Marvin and Stuart the very next night….(not to mention the mandatory two minutes on Jackie Levine).

Reveling, smiles eclipsing even laughter, four core friends sat with a bond much like the postman’s creed. Indeed, after all the years, tears and (sometimes) fears we’d shared, STILL, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can stay our harmony.

How close are we…still? No Mapquest required.

Sunday afternoon

It was sunny in Cleveland, and lazy.

Al and Joanie had left. Dick stopped by on his out. Across the globe the world awaited an all-Nazi soccer final and here, a local star was coming home.

Hal looked good Friday night. Lucy shone bright in a pic on Facebook. Eli’s birthday’s a week away.

And I woke up this morning, after a weekend with friends, next to the best of them all.

Al Bogart’d have said “You’ve got the world “by the balls”; Ben Selzer’d have chimed “By the kalooms, my boy”. How right on they’d be.

Buttressed by the past, but not living in it, I cherish my wonder years, but know these are the glory days.

Adam left on an April Sunday in ’66. Mom was at UH, Hal wasn’t home, and walking into an upstairs bedroom I’d found him motionless.

“Wrap your dog in a towel and take him to the hospital,” I was told, (when I’d called the vet’s house).

I did so dutifully. In white terrycloth I cloaked him, gingerly placing him in the green Chevy II before heading down Cedar.

To Dr. Elsner’s.

I was met at the side-door by Lefty. Bypassing the office, the aide guided me right to what appeared to be an operation room. And… and… even though I was 16 ½, even though my cherished sheltie felt heavier than ever, even though the “hoont” hadn’t moved in an hour…it hadn’t hit me he’d died. The dots didn’t connect.

He had, of course — and within moments, they did.

“Just leave him on the table. We’ll take care of it from here.”
“When’s Dr. Elsner going to be here?” I asked.
“He’s golfing.”

I drove home alone–in tears. The ride was short, but the day stayed long. Indeed. Adam had been my brother’s ninth birthday present and our mother’s “second set of ears”. But he had been my running buddy, and I cherished him.

There would be another Adam years later—a “rescue dog”, of sorts. It was early Y2K that I’d found posted a notice. One bichon…being given away… in Parma.

So I rescued him from the west side. (It could have been worse).

How I remember our drive back ‘cross town! There he sat, on the passenger’s seat, shaking. And there I sat: left hand on the wheel, right hand on the dog, comforting.

Bonding on 480, we two fell in love.

Adam left in due time… for a better world:  Chicago. In the early days of Stace and Jace he’d run the hall at their condo— jubilantly barking. Happy was Adam, joyous and free.

Oh, I’d see him on visits. When I’d sleep on their couch my old friend would lay near me. He remembered, as did I.

Then more years passed and gently I morphed from middle-age to (shall we say?) more than middle age….

And I met Carrie—
And Leesa—
And Rusty.

Rusty Leimsieder wasn’t like any dog I’d friended before. A Shetland sheepdog he wasn’t. Not even a bichon. No, this thing was IMMENSE! On good days, standing, he’d tower over Aunt Helen. On bad days, growling, the two shared a smile. With it all though, I grew accustomed to his face.

By our sides he would sit, as we dined. (I would sneak him my mushrooms). By our sides he would bark, as we snuggled. (I would curse him). What I remember most, though, is that by MY side he did lay, the night of my surgery. Protective, caring, guarding….

Carrie texted me Tuesday. Rusty’d gone to a better place.

Saree was with her; Arthur’d been nice. The dog was at peace.

I was cuing up “Seinfeld” that night, readying for laughter.

“Leesa’s crying,” she said. (I didn’t have to ask why).

My thoughts turned to Adam, and to Lucy, and to Chicago—

And I hoped against hope that when the bichon’s number is called, my little two-year old will be away at college

“…Turning back the pages to the times I love best…”

It didn’t hurt as much as Wieder’s pulling me off third base. Being relegated to catcher bruised my ego–but at least I stayed in the game. Regardless, I winced Sunday, even sensing my son was as right now as Alan was then. (Their bedside manners were different, to be sure. Wido glared, waving his glove with “Just get behind the plate”. Michael was marginally calmer). Only marginally.

“Don’t be an idiot Dad! You’re 65 years old.” (sic)

We’d been emailing back and forth that morning. Me? I was trying to coordinate travel to both Westchester County and Edison, New Jersey. Ah but as George told Jerry when pondering “The Switch”, it just couldn’t be done.

Finally picked up the phone. “Maybe I’ll drive,” was my thought. “I can leave Saturday morning, go right to Jersey, and come up on Sunday.”

— And that’s when he said it; that’s when, in (pardon the expression) a New York minute, I had to get real.

“DON’T BE AN IDIOT DAD! YOU’RE 65 YEARS OLD!”

(Quibble, I didn’t. Gross exaggeration of my age aside, it was game, set, match to the kid. The bat was out of my hand. Curtains for cross-country travel.

— Not that I ever did much. Hal and Howard Ross once drove west. Oh, and Bobby and the boys trekked to the Rose Bowl. (Wasn’t that the year the car broke down in Albuquerque, and they left God Damn Will in New Mexico?).

No, I stayed local. By design. But for the jaunts to the coast in the days that I had in-laws, my travel was limited. (To Columbus).

….And so it was that on this past Sunday, when my son (for the lack of a better analogy) urged me to come to New York, but to bring my play book)…that I thought back on the Top Ten Road Trips of my life:

10. Cleveland to Baltimore. 2011ish Jackie weds Alan. Driving through Breezewood…anticipating the honor of standing under Jackie and Alan’s chupah. Does she know that her sister divorced me?

9. Cleveland to Indianapolis. A decade ago, and another marriage. Alan Galan and Holly. Midst my low-fat diet someone had told me there was no fat in McDonald’s ice cream. Stopping and stopping, downing cone after cone, I hit Indy by midnight. Just in time. Nature wasn’t calling; it was screaming.

8. Columbus to Atlanta. 1971. Caravan/style we drove, Harriet’s father and me. Ricky Fenton and my Dad were in Greensboro and the game plan was for Murray and me to share a room in Jonesboro, Georgia, knock down those leads, and then meet the others in High Point (N.C.). Murray B. Galan, affectionately called “Galanpa”, was a wonderful man (Picture a Jewish Ted Baxter), but a stubborn roommate who insisted we sleep with the TV off. The memory that lingers however is the visage of this gent changing MY TIRE on 85North one sweltering Sunday. “What do you mean you don’t know how?” he asked twice.

7. Indianapolis to Passaic, N.J. (1970). I was an idiot even then; I was run by fear, even then. Lonely week in the Hoosier state ending, I called The Jersey Girl, but no one answered. To me, there was but one plausible explanation: she was cheating on me. (She wasn’t). Or even worse (in my mind), getting high. Jumping in my car I proceeded to drive across I-70, through Columbus, to New Stanton and across the state, pausing only for gas. No warning calls for her from the road—nothing. Driving with a focus as strong as a Bruce Mandel handshake, I never stopped. No, I wanted to catch her red-handed –wanted to end it dramatically! ‘Can’t imagine what I figured to do when I got there really, but I arrived after 10. Her Dad, puzzled to see me, came to the door. “I just wanted to surprise her,” I said in my best Opie Taylor. “She’s at Roberta’s house,” I was told. Back in the car I went, and right to her friend’s……where I found them sitting calmly on a couch. Just the two of them. Doing nothing. (Picture Grace Slick and Janis Joplin). It was a wasted trip, I well knew; I was a schmuck, I well knew. Still, when your girl friend’s a lot cooler than you, you run on anxiety.

6 & 5. Passaic, N.J. to Cooperstown, N.Y. (1981); Cleveland to Cooperstown (1982). The first jaunt, with Michael in tow, came weeks after Barker’s perfect game. We’d watched it on a Wrenford bed, and it only seemed right that we shoot up from a stay with his grandparents. The majesty of the place was overwhelming, and I recall too the simulated carpet field on the third floor, where kids ran the bases. Whenever someone crossed the plate canned cheers filled the room and, Lord knows how many times my boy slid into home. Or how many times he’d dust him self off, and bow to the crowd. The next year’s ride was much longer. Jamie joined too, and treasured still are my pictures of them, by a mailbox on Main Street. Those were idyllic trips, unbeknownst to me, at the beginning of less-than-idyllic times.

4. Passaic, N.J. to Nicholson, Pa. (1971). The Jersey Girl’d kicked me to the curb while I was staying with her folks. From a payphone I called information, got the number where Linda was camp counselor. (Picture Laura Nyro). It was somewhere in PA. Hurriedly, (I’m guessing quietly), plans were made. Those were days of road maps — my Dad had me keep one in the glove compartment — and to the sounds of songs like “Solitary Man”, dreidling through the hills of the Keystone state, I found her camp – and peace.

3. Queens, N.Y. to Cape May, New Jersey. (1972). Someone had to visit Fenton in the Coast Guard, so I hit the Garden State Parkway. (Until that trip I was certain the entire state was Jewish). How skinny he looked up in the second floor mess area! How proud I was of him, the first of us to serve.

2. Cleveland to East Lansing, Michigan. (1994). Primetime with The Little One. There and back we sang in the car and rehearsed for a show, all as I regaled her with stories of my days at MSU…tales that were, even then, a quarter century old. Quality time with my baby for the first time post-separation. Cherished!

1. Rye Brook, NY to Cleveland. (2012). How was I to know that Sunday that this would be my final solo? Really—whodda thunk it? Soothed by the week’s sojourn of two weddings and All Max All The Time, cruising home to have dinner with Carrie, daydreaming to the repeating “Catch The Wind” on my ipod…. How do I not give this finale the gold? I wasn’t just driving to Cleveland, I was driving home.

Anyway, that’s my list—for what it’s worth. Nothing exciting, except the memories they stir. Each, I might add, came in the summer time. Each, I must note, came in good weather:

— Sunny and warm…like the day Wieder moved me to third…and like just last Sunday, when a loving Michael took the bat from my hand.

“…Carefree highway, let me slip away on you….”

G. Lightfoot

John led Friday night. The first time I heard him speak was a decade ago. Different room, same building. Same thoughtful message.

I like John. I like the vast majority of those I’ve met “in the rooms”. Not all, of course. There are, to be sure, the same jerks one finds in the real world. We avoid them though— like we would errant “earth people”.

Parked pensively, warmed by his story of recovery, it was hard not to feel the dynamic—still shared after all these years —- of the men I’ve met in the trenches…each of us (in our own way) living second acts.

This was the best group (if you’d call it that) …the best “organization” (but hardly that), that I’d ever been part of. As the stats show, for me at least, it’s been (to coin the phrase of my father’s friend Nathan Detroit) “The oldest established permanent floating crap game in Cleveland”).

I’m really NOT an organization man. I survived the army, barely…stumbled through two years as an employee, barely…and for the thrust of my career have been self (if not gainfully) employed. Other than my drill sergeant in Fort Polk, a putz I once officed with, and the ex-wife, no one ever got to tell me to shine my shoes.

Rules I can follow, but not always structure.

The fifties found me in the Boy Scouts. Mrs. Markowitz was our den mother and we got these patches.   From empty metal band aid boxes we crafted cigarette cases for our still-smoking parents.  I hated scouting with the passion that others (but not me) hated Hebrew School.  Thank God Little League came and my father had his priorities in order.  I went AWOL, traded uniforms.  And fuck the merit badge, by the way.

There were groups of my youth, of course:

—The Excels in grade six. (Disbanded when Bruce Schwartz’s mother called Rowland, complaining we’d excluded her son).
—R.E.N. at Greenview. (French for “rouge et noir”, reference to our red/black banlon uniforms). This died too. Perhaps Snyder remembers.
…and…
—Shiloh A.Z.A. Male arm of B’Nai B’Brith Youth, national’d granted us a charter and advisor; Bobby was voted Aleph Gadol; this died too. They pulled our credentials, we were told, for our excessive hazing. (I’m sure Groovy recalls).

And there was the club of my first adulthood: the Knights Of Pythias.

—Conventional wisdom has it that Past Chancellor Al Bogart brought me in The Lodge. Not so. Truth be known it was the most private of my social circle, one Stuart William Fenton, that sponsored my entrance. Co-signed by Ermine, my application went through in ’75 and in November that year we were …brothers. It was a special mix, that crowd. An amalgam of men all ages, founded by an act of Congress on the precepts of charity, friendship and benevolence, it (for the most part), honored them.

A common thread runs, though, from the Cub Scouts through Knights. In each group, with all the friends I had—from Bobby to Stuart to Alan to Mark — I felt “less than”. Was I good enough? Or sharp enough? Was I OK? My friends did not measure, but I did. I knew that they liked me, but was I OK? OK enough?

That all changed in recovery.

From my first meeting in ’97 through the conclave last night, I’ve never NOT felt a part of. Not better than…not worse than. One of.

It’s bizarre, frankly. Coming from different worlds, telling different stories, melding. Common ground? We’ve all shot ourselves in the foot one way or another. We’ve all been kicked in the ass, one way or another. We all were our own worst enemy, one way or another.

And now we’re each trying to grow, one way or another.

That’s why, perhaps, as I walked into that church the other night and saw my friend John I felt grateful. I know his story, you see. And he knows mine. Over time we’ve shared how we’ve tripped, stumbled, fallen, and risen.

I don’t worry anymore if I’m OK.

I’m standing.

10 AM Chagrin and Richmond Roads. The sun is shining.

Graveside, quietly, I studied worn faces on the family of my youth. This unveiling, this final goodbye to Uncle Bob, portended more. It was, I suspected, our first goodbyes to each other.

So many lifetimes have passed since the Bogarts of Bayard and the Hoffmans of East Silsby felt like one. Five decades: times diffused by divorce, death, distance and (dare I say dollars?) had left marks. Or had they?

I was tearing this morning.

—After greeting faces of yore … ‘though refreshed by renewal … as the rabbi from the shul we’d cut our teeth on spoke…. I was tearing. Eyeing my cousins it was hard not to picture, even now, that Chanukah Bonnie elbowed me out to light the first candle, those Seders I was NEVER the youngest…the picnic Gary ran bases backward. (Do they remember? It mattered not. My brother does).

So I introduced Carrie to the few she’d not met, said Kaddish with the throng I well knew, and placed a rock on the stone of a man who loved me more (I’m sure) than he liked me, but did not forsake family.

And I left.

 5 PM Wilson Mills and SOM Center Roads. The sun is shining.

Dinner for Helen’s 100th wasn’t so much a celebration as an acknowledgement.  This lady — the only living blood who’s known me longer than Harold — never celebrates; ‘ just not in her DNA. Our aunt, rather, in the course of her lifetime, has trudged from quiet young maiden to mid-aged “old maid” to a rigid yet fragile fossil— completely bypassing a term as curmudgeon. She is gentle now, age eroding her edge.

I preferred a booth; Margie thought a table. Aunt Helen didn’t care, demanding only that H sit on both sides of her.

It was a hollow hour— small talk in vogue.

We used to walk a tightrope with our aunt. Play it safe, we would, fear governing our comment.

But she’s lost her “game”, so it seems. And it’s no longer fun. So seldom does she leap on our phrases…so rarely does she hurl verbal venom…that the thrill is gone, and conversing is no longer a competition.

She’s morphed, I submit, into a nice, little old lady.

I miss my aunt.

I crave—yeah, I yearn for that trademark inflexibility, that immutable illogic to the logic she spewed when she played in her prime.

Gingerly we guided her to the car after dinner.

“No steps” I assured her, as she tepidly walked.
“No steps?” she asked again.
“No steps.”

We drove home peacefully, the four of us. Leesa slept, Carrie spoke, Helen listened, and I thought.

What I miss most it occurred, is that I miss my youth.

10 PM and at home.  Pitch dark outside, with the sun still shining.

Dead Dad,

Recall how you resented Art Modell for the way he treated Paul Brown? For that matter, remember the dirty looks you gave when radio played rock singers re-doing old standards? (The Browns’ owner was a “carpetbagger”, you said…and when you heard Bobby Rydell singing “Mammy”? How many times did you point out “He couldn’t shine Al Jolson’s shoes?).

Hold that thought.

You know: the guys in recovery have taught me to let go of resentments. Even justified ones, they advise, hurt only me–inhibit my peace of mind, if you will. (I’ve come to see, Pop, that they’re right. I get that there’s no benefit in playing Victim. F ’em, I now figure. To use your expression, Dad…by exorcising these few dipshits from my life, well…it’s… “addition by subtraction”.

Perhaps that’s why I like Olbermann’s show so much. You may not get it in heaven, Dad. After all, it’s only on ESPN2. Still, the best segment on TV is his nightly five minutes unabashedly identifying who he terms are that day’s “Worst Persons In The Sports World.’

You really need to watch it, Dad. Give me the five minutes. (As you would tell me: “Have I ever given you a bum steer”). You could TiVo it to save time. And if you don’t know how, Dad, ask Uncle Phil for help. After all, he sold furniture. Then you could fast/foward to the part where the sign ‘WORSTS” displays, and play from there. What you’ll hear first is his disclaimer: “First the miscreants, losers and riffraff, the unwashed and the unloved. Don’t take it completely seriously. I don’t mean it completely literally. We just call them the WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD!”

I’m hoping you tune in dad, so here’s a taste. And NO. Don’t worry, I’m not not feelng sorry for myself, but I want you to watch the show. You’ll love it…(like I did ‘”Maverick” which I saw at your urging). So…here it is…a belated Father’s Day gift to you, designed to cover the nearly three decades since you left:

THE WORST PERSONS IN YOUR OLDER SON’S WORLD (1985-2014)

— So….

First the miscreants, losers and riffraff, the unwashed and the unloved. Don’t take it completely seriously. I don’t mean it completely literally. We just call them the WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD!

The Bronze goes to (and no real names, of course), John Smith, a former friend of mine I used to lunch with frequently. This goes back to the early Y2K’s when a lady I’d been dating some time, in a moment of unnecessary candor,told me she’d recently…shall we say “been intimate” with my friend. Much to her chagrin, I called him out on it immediately and of course he denied it. Later that day, bolting into my office he theatened me. (I took that as an admission and exorcised both of them).

The Silver goes to John Doe, another former running buddy. Alas, this friend of a lifetime… he, the only one of Bayard days to discard our joint history when I went through divorce… I’m thinking you’ll find particularly egregious since through decades not only was I steadfast, but way/back/when you and Mom would bug me to include him in things. Even in college …and YES, even when adult. This hurt Dad, seeing as our families go back (and forward).

BUT TONITE MY DEAR FATHER, THE GOLD GOES TO MR. ED! Yeah, that’s right, Mom’s third. You know, the one who once left her in a hospital on the eve of Pesach and went to Baltimore. Yeah, that one. You were gone a decade by then Dad; she filed for divorce, but then (you know her: afraid to live alone), she dismissed it. Years later the clown pulled more crap and she filed again – – – from the nursing home. Dropped that too, she did, telling us demurely that she “wanted to die a married woman”. You should have seen me when I confronted him, Dad — right at Menorah Park. Threw him out of her room, I did. H cringed and Margie looked away but boy did it feel like I was spiking the ball in the endzone!

—And no, you never met him, Dad. Never will. He’s not heading where you are, where Mom is. No, he’s heading south, Dad, because…Mr. Ed, yes— MR. ED …is the last 29 years’ WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

All my love, Bruce

       “…Here’s to the fathers – lift up the glasses .
       Here’s to the glory still to be.
       Here’s to the battle, whatever it’s for,
       To ask the best of ourselves, then give much more…”

My angle on Father’s Day has altered with time.

Once, as a kid in the decade before Dad and Grandpa Irv wanted to castrate each other, it meant an afternoon where Dad, H and I would wear our matching collared Florida sport shirts. White they were (with a blue outline of the state over the left breast…mine still hangs in my closet). Grandma Cele brought them north one spring after her winter on Collins Avenue. Ah, but that was the 50’s.

By the 60’s life got real. Cousin Rita, (sister of the All-World softballer), married Mel on the first Father’s Day post our parents’ divorce. Touch and go for a while, but we saw our father, saw the ceremony, and saw no bloodshed.

In the 70’s, of course, I myself fathered. By decade’s end it would be a boy, a girl, and a third in the green room.

Then — in the blink of an eye—thirty years passed!

It’s harder to father than to mother. Maternal instinct? I get that. PATERNAL INSTINCT? Not so much. I cherish then, the wisdom, warmth and memories of the many fathers I’ve met, observed, or even in only a passing way interacted with over time. Through the lens of my lifetime, while I didn’t catch their inner worlds, so many have touched me, or taught me…or just made me smile.

So here’s to just SOME of the men I still picture … to the flashes of warmth that their names always image… to the winners.

Andre, “Sam” and “Uncle Miltie”, Messrs. Snyder, Wieder and Fenton. One night Bob’s Dad rushed me to my mother’s right after I bloodied the white interior of their garage; countless times Al’s father’d schlep downstairs to move his blue/black van just so Wied and I could play 1/on/1. (Why did Alan always make me be Ledgemont?)….and Stuart’s dad, Mr. Fenton (nee Feinstein), whom I knew first, last, longest, and best. That man loved me, and the feeling was mutual.

To Mr. Glassman (who took us to the New York Spaghetti House before an Indians opener and Mr. Baskin, who showed me his poetry….

And one of my earliest of giants, Mr. Lomaz.  Ralph called me “Al’s kid” on Bayard, and I wasn’t quite sure this big man knew by name.  Then years (and wives) later for both he and my Dad I got a call to come see him in his new office on Tyler Boulevard in Mentor; he wanted throw me some business.  “You have a brother too?” he asked.  Family stats he might forget, but friendship—never.

To the fathers I saw only through Little League: Like Mr. Wendel, who drafted me at 10, Mr. Racila (Ray made it at 9), who stood down the foul line, and Mr. Capretta, who sat near the backstop. Fixtures, they were, beaming proudly. (I’m certain their sons still remember).

And Mr. Mandel. And Mr. Herzog. When his dad passed Bruce spoke of his “always being there”. Harold was. ‘Still picture him at White Sox games and Boobus Bowls…saying little, seeing all. Alan’s Dad? Did Herzog ever make “the Majors”? It matters not. What I do cherish is his father on the sidelines for football and always giving me that warm nod from his prime seat at Corky’s.

Life’s second act brought more heroes.  College came for my kids and they never looked back. Columbus, Boston, New York, Chicago—-never to return. By then, Jersey’d gone south and my next decades filled with theater, recovery, and more. On stage I saw fathers set examples for sons, and likewise in the rooms. Heartened was I by the constancy of it all.

Six months ago Norm died. Maybe 7. And still, when this man of flash, this dynamo that hushed rooms by his entrance finally left stage, it was the precedent he’d set that his sons spoke to most. “He urged us to help others,” said one. “To do it quietly,” spoke another. I loved my cousin Norm…perhaps…just perhaps because he reminded me of my father: another sweet soul.

So I love Father’s Day, and I salute those I’ve mentioned. And I love being a father; it’s the gift that keeps giving. Do I miss my dad, some 29 years later. In a way. Is he with me? Still. Every day.

He set the bar high, as did his comrades. There WERE The Greatest Generation.

       “…Here’s to the heroes – those who move mountains.
       Here’s to the miracles they make us see.
       Here’s to all fathers – here’s to all people
       Here’s to the winners all of us can be…..”

(F. Sinatra , adapted)

Having just pulled in the Deerfield driveway, Carrie and I debated over which side to park on. Stace and Jace, we figured, would pull up shortly. (Our dialogue was shorter but no less trivial that colloquies I so relish with my brother).

SUDDENLY though, the garage door lifted and, idling on pavement we watched a sprite-like figure emerge from the shadows.

“Lucy!” I shouted, through the driver’s side window, “It’s your Pappy!”

Quizzical look on her face, stepping slowly, she peered out through sunlight.

“Pappy!”

— And then, in a jaunt made for cinema…somewhat of a cross between Shirley Temple bounding toward Bill Robinson and Yogi Berra leaping into the grasp of Don Larsen after the perfect game— Lucy Hannah Bohrer sprung right to my arms.

It was 6pm Friday, Chicago time. Game. Set. Match.

Funny thing how things work. I’d been stranded last January — winter blizzards and all. Grounded in the Windy City, with no way out. Frustrating as it was though, it meant quality time with Lucy. Hours of Mickey and Pluto and Dora and….guess what? I savored those moments.

Moments.

What IS life if not steadfast paddling interrupted by … moments?

When she was no more, say, than Lucy’s age, Stacy hid in the cage housing Rocky. No sheltie, however, was our daughter, and what we now recall as hours of her carted up like a dog were probably just minutes…or moments.

We had time before the Bohrers came home and Yes, we embraced it. Sprawled on the floor, building with Legos, three toddlers were we. Luce made plastic ice cream cones and I slurped mine loudly. Very loudly. Jerry Lewis loudly. “Isn’t Pappy funny?” Carr asked.

Oh, I got the easy laugh of course. (I’m so good with two-year olds). But even that ran its course. I mean: how long do you really think I can lick fake ice cream, grimace, feign dripping, and still keep a little girl’s attention?

“Look, it’s Minnie!”, cried Carrie, pulling the coloring book from her bag. And Lucy devoured it. (More than the pictures, in fact—the Jewish leprechaun readily identifying the alphabet’s letters. Impressed with the “Q” was I as we bought ten more minutes).

It was that kind of weekend: nothing exciting but everything memorable.

So we dined on a rooftop near railroad tracks…and…and YES I know this sounds trivial…but o’er the roar of the trains —from across the patio — the kid sighted a girl from her school. Unimportant, of course—but to a grandpa: worth noting.

I wasn’t a father — back in the ‘80’s — carrying pics of his kids. Not my thing. Not that I wasn’t proud of course. I just figured EVERYONE has kids and EVERYONE thinks theirs are so cute. (So brandish mine I never did…and please, I’d beg inwardly: don’t show me yours).

Ah, but grandkids are different.

So I post when Lucy makes funny faces—
And I boast when she bounces to music—
And I kvell when she dances on cue.

We ate dinner at home Saturday … had breakfast at Eggsperience Sunday…and shared timeless moments. (Did I tell you it was at the downtown Eggsperience that they first told me they were having Lucy?).

And then we left town. Stace gave directions to pick up the free way…and…not unlike the girl from the ‘80’s in the cage with the pet …well—let’s just say the S in GPS does not stand for Stacy.

But we did find our way.
And we drove home at peace.
And with smiles.

—To paddle through life … in between precious moments.