Vichy Water – Author's Blog Just another WordPress weblog

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         Sometimes updating a blog every few days becomes a bit laborious. More folks keep dropping by so I need to give them a reason to believe (an old folk song). Earlier I thought about not eating red meat (hi Michelle P.) for decades and the reasons for that (a rather light hearted Tom Jones-ish escapade). Then a few hours ago, Facebook and Ellis C. and a post about Father’s Day. I gave him thumbs up. He enlisted me (with a misconstrued bribe) and I obliged. Then a bright bulb goes off (they don’t make 150 watts anymore so even bright bulbs are incandescently getting dimmer. I hope not a societal commentary). That’s it. My blog; copied nearly verbatim from the comments I made to Ellis. He said it was a bit tearful. Before hand, some thoughts about our world.

            Am I Santiago (the Old Man and the Sea), going 84 days without catching a fish? Am I prophetic, thinking they cap the gulf oil volcano in 84 days?  Wishing and hoping. So much dialogue, diatribe and other forms of “dia” saturating the information highway. Everybody involved. Is there a scientist or think tank that knows what the oceans and life will be like on August 5th, 2021.  Why enforce the Jones Act (which keeps foreign ships from helping us)? We need the help. Why not 20 specific, outlined contingency plans for blowouts before another well is drilled or another “I” is dotted, Bob Cratchit (an ancestor is rumored to be head of BP. Not) So much cover-up and stone walls.

            My grandmother told me stories about Russia in the old days of fiddlers hanging around a roof. The Cossacks were coming so they all ran around fixing up their villages to make them look nice. A term evolved: Potemkin village. Make nice. Are there marching orders to make the gulf coast beaches and everything visibly going on look nice? Freedom of the press having lunch (fresh cow’s milk) in a Potemkin village? One more thought about scientists saying what will happen to the oceans. They don’t know the “S” word. No offense. But common sense should tell us we don’t know.  A year ago I had the good fortune to have the former head of the EPA during 9-11 for several minutes, one on one (not on a basketball court, although she’s pretty tall). I wanted to say when I was in eighth grade; we studied fire, chemicals and reactions. When you burn unknowns, you create unknowns. Don’t breathe unknowns. We’ll never know what becomes of our precious oceans. My mother’s hormone pills she took for all those years, using old American Standard fixtures, flushing away, are probably still floating around our oceans, hooking up with a variety of creatures on every level of the chain. Small mouth male bass fish in our lakes almost all have eggs now. Oh, for the last few months I now peel all my fruit. Forget about washing. Enough. Now to my father.

            So the Facebook query by Ellis C. wanted to know about “Daddy’s Day.”

            I’m smiling at the screen. I could write a novella about my father and one day I will. Fathers. My father never used word “love.”  Never talked to me about civil rights. Never took me to any kind of athletic game. Never was for a lot of things. Funny you ask Ellis. Recently he passed. Even more recently, I had one of my famous epiphanies. He was the greatest father EVER. He did what his genetic makeup and world allowed him to. He never had Facebook or college BUT he was the greatest because (besides giving  great athletic and anti-aging genes) he TAUGHT me how to be the father I needed(and always wanted) to be. So my son Neil (my best friend in the world) has heard and felt the word love 23 times a day for 24 years. My son goes to 40 Rutgers sporting events a year (a little less now) with me (since he was 11). My son and I talk every night about civil rights, comics and parallel worlds (with some antiquated advice on dating) and when he was seven  I made him watch ‘Animal House’  and ‘Wuthering Heights'(really, really) So now we run to midnight opening movies together(it has a Ponce De Leon effect on me).Indeed, I had the greatest father. Oh, so DYFS doesn’t hunt me down for exposing my son to bad language at such a young age: when watching ‘Animal House’ when he was seven years, I coughed in my sons ear every time a bad word was said(especially when that devilish figure sat on Larry Kroger’s shoulder) Thanks Ellis for making me remember. Happy Father’s Day everyone. Dad, I miss you.

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