Happy Father's Day

Father's Day is an important day for me. My own dad has been gone since 1998. Here I am with him in Nantucket when I was about five years old. I always was a Daddy's Girl, and thinking about him now usually makes me laugh, although of course I miss him. A self proclaimed "blue-eyed country boy" from the midwest, he ended up going to college on the GI Bill and then making it big as a film critic in New York City. People who knew him later in his life saw him as witty and sophisticated, always articulate. He never lost that basic innocence though. He could make a trip to the grocery store an adventure, finding the humor and absurdity in everything. He also passed along to me a sense of possibility and fearlessness. I remember him saying, well into his '60's, that he still had a lot to do in life, and that looking in the mirror was a surprise since, as he put it, "I still feel like a likely lad!"

Wherever he is (perhaps sharing a martini with Frank Sinatra in some parallel universe) I wish him a Happy Father's Day. He was indeed the happiest of fathers, and a shamelessly proud grandfather, too...





Also a Happy Father's Day to Joe, here with our kids about ten years ago. Yes, they are all still cute, and the boys can still get on their dad's lap on occasion (well...sort of...)

These three are the reason I'm the luckiest gal on the planet.