Happy Birthday, Dad

My father would have celebrated his 102nd birthday today.  But, unfortunately, he’s been gone for slightly more than twelve years now.

I miss him enormously, and I think of him every day.

I’ve been thinking of him today.  There are so many stories I recall that might illustrate his character and personality.

But here’s one that represents what he called his “Norwegian sense of humor”:

He had a good friend by the name of Pat Carney.  They used to meet for breakfast every weekday morning at the local greasy spoon, the Chico Cafe (aka the “Chico Ritz”), along with other local businessmen there in South El Monte, California — including, until his sudden, premature death in 1973, my Uncle Ernie, who was Dad’s brother and business partner.

At one point, Pat had our construction company do an asphalt parking lot for him.

It was a pretty routine job, and it went well — which is to say, normally.  But then, one morning, several months after the parking lot was finished, Pat arrived at the Chico Cafe quite exercised.  He’d detected some weeds growing up around the perimeter of the parking lot or perhaps (I don’t quite recall) through a crack in it.

“What the hell?” he demanded.  “Why are there &@$% weeds coming up in my parking lot?”

Of course, such things happen from time to time.  It’s not a crisis.  But Pat was really ticked off.

So, to calm him down, Dad told him that our company employed a full-time weed specialist.

“You do?” replied Pat.

“Yes, we do,” Dad answered him, promising that he would have that specialist on the job and at work before noon.

“See that you do it!” said Pat, still not quite mollified.

Just around lunchtime, Pat called on the phone.  “What the hell?” he demanded again.  “There’s a @#$%&*$#@ing goat staked out here on my parking lot!  Did you have anything to do with that?”

“I told you that I was sending my weed specialist,” Dad answered, with sweet calm.

There was a long pause, and then Pat burst out laughing.

We took care of the problem in the conventional way, with an herbicide, later that day.  The friendship was definitely back on track.

My Dad had gone immediately back to his office after breakfast that morning and called a friend who (for some reason) kept a couple of goats.  “May I borrow one of them for an hour or two?” he asked.

“Sure!” said the friend.

Dad picked it up, took it over to Pat’s parking lot, drove a stake into the ground, and tethered the goat to it — and that intuitively expert specialist did indeed eliminate the weeds.