Happy Father’s Day

 

Happy Father’s Day!

The best thing about my dad was his sense of humor. He had a great gift for making up funny songs on the spot or coming up with an obnoxious nickname. But heaven help you if you teased my dad.

 

He was the second youngest and the only boy in his family so he was doubly spoiled. My mom says that his older sisters would have to finish most of the fights that he started.

Their nickname for him was Mosquito because he was such a pest. He once took the dentures out of his sleeping grandfather’s mouth and hid them.

Besides acting like a royal pain, my father loved music. Mostly Afro-Cuban music like Celia Cruz but he also liked Frank Sinatra. He tolerated Elvis Presley, was rather neutral about the Beatles and generally thought most rock music was noise. We still have a ton of his old LPs, so if you live in northern NJ and want some Spanish music on vinyl contact me! *wink* No seriously, we’d love to give them away to someone who’ll love them as much as my dad did.

His favorite instrument was the trumpet and I think one of the biggest regrets of his life was not really learning how to play. As a result, whenever any of us expressed an interest in playing a musical instrument he jumped at the chance to have us learn. My oldest sister Betty plays the guitar, piano and sings and I can play a little piano and guitar. My nephew Eddy already at 11 years old, has won a few awards in his piano studies and his older brother, Alex, plays a mean guitar. My other nephew Jared has also picked up the guitar. My niece Stephanie also plays the piano. So we’re a rather musical family.

Here’s a picture of my mom: I’ve already talked about my dad twice and I realized that I haven’t posted a picture of her. Isn’t she cute? Mom’s taught me a lot herself. She taught me how to knit, crochet and now sew. She was so proud of me when I made my reversible apron. There’s a lot I can say about my mom, so I may devote a whole post to her sometime soon.