Carousel

1) He taught me how to play chess when I was four and played with me regularly until I was an adolescent, even though, for the first year or two, I would throw a tantrum nearly every time I lost (which was every time we played). I ended up being president of the chess club in high school, so I guess it stuck.

2) When I was in college taking courses on various things he had studied, he routinely sent me photocopies of relevant problem sets from when he was in college, completed in his pristine penmanship and preserved over the decades as if destined for my reference.

3) You know that somewhat annoying habit I have of drumming my fingers all the time? Well, I got it from my dad :-) I’m pretty sure I inherited my sense of rhythm from him.

4) When I was fifteen and got my learner’s permit, the unenviable duty of teaching me how to drive fell to him. He used to take me to the Central Florida Research Park, where we practiced first in parking lots and then on the 30mph circle within the complex. One day, he told me to go towards the park’s exit and asked me to turn onto Alafaya Trail (speed limit 45mph). I protested, terrified and certain that I wasn’t ready. He coaxed me forward, assuring me that it would be just fine. I made the turn, hands gripping the wheel fiercely, nervous and angry that I was being pressured into driving on such a fast road. It would soon turn out, however, that there are few things in this world that I love doing more than driving.  I discovered this because my dad pushed me that day.

5) When he has a problem to solve, he never, ever gives up. His dogged troubleshooting of random computer issues and insistence on fixing things around the house (even when it would have been much easier to replace them), for instance, set an example of persistence and self-reliance that are still ideals I aspire to (and, to be honest, fail to meet).

6) He never misses an opportunity to teach. This can be pretty irritating sometimes :-), but the lessons stick. I remember a time when I was nine years old, and he randomly picked up a little notepad, wrote a few sentences on it, and told me to read it. I’ll never forget those words (and I still have the little piece of paper on which they were written):
He who knows not and knows not that  he knows not is a fool. Avoid him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student. Teach him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Awaken him.
He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man. Follow him.
I was so taken with this simple proverb that I took the piece of paper to school one day and showed it to my teacher. She asked me, “your daddy is a very smart man, isn’t he?” “Yeah,” I said. (I learned a few years ago that my dad didn’t come up with this himself — it’s variously attributed to the Chinese, the ancient Hindus, and the Persians — but the fact that he randomly wrote it down from god-knows-what-memory and gave it to his son says a lot.)

7) He’s not generally an outwardly affectionate person, but every now and then he makes an offhand comment that shows you what he’s really thinking. Like the time he saw me watching a video of an old dance performance I’d been in, and he remarked casually, “I don’t know how many times I’ve watched that video.”

8) His career has taken him to many places over the years — Chicago, Colorado Springs, the Bay Area, Southern California — but the whole time, my brother and I stayed with our mom in Orlando. Thanks to his (and Mom’s) self-sacrifice, we both got to grow up in one place until we graduated from high school. Every good feeling I have about childhood, I owe to this continuity.

9) When I was in high school, he was working 70 or 80 hours a week at a startup in the Bay Area, but somehow he seemed to find time to respond to every single email I sent him, asking for help with this lab report or that essay. We got a lot of mileage out of the “Track Changes” feature in Microsoft Word during those years. He never once said that he didn’t have time to look at another draft.

10) Someone asked me half-jokingly the other day, “aren’t you 25? Why do you always act like you’re 40?” That wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like that, and it won’t be the last. I do like being mature, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that this has very little to do with wanting to act older, but rather more simply with wanting to act more like my dad, who is one of the most focused, professional, principled, brilliant, and generous men I have ever known.

Happy Father’s Day!