For Father’s Day
A True Story, But Short, for Father’s Day
written by: Phyllis Schwartz
I was walking down Chicago’s Armitage Avenue to the ‘El’
Crying.
I was 30 years old and crying because I had just dropped my
Dad’s Father’s Day card in the mail.
Thinking about my first job in the news and I was blow drying my hair in the bathroom in the middle of the night and my dad was yelling
The headlines down the hall.
He was listening to the San Diego’s all-news radio station in his darkened
Bedroom.
I could hear that coffee commercial with the bird squawking. Kava! Kava!
He was going over the notes in his head from the night before.
He stayed up and watched the late news while I slept, so he could
Tell me what tape they used.
Yelling down the hallway, over my blow dryer.
So I could produce my first T.V. news cut-ins.
At the crack of dawn.
So I’m walking down Armitage Avenue on this gorgeous day. Crying.
And a street person is crunched down against a brick wall, sunning himself.
He asks me if I have one hundred dollars so he can go to Hawaii.
I tell him he’s already in Hawaii.
He says yeah, you’re right.
Somehow I thought it was something my father would say.
20 years later Dad was gone and I was eating at a fancy
Restaurant on Armitage Avenue.
He would have been so impressed I had made it,
Some thanks to him.
I miss you again this and every Father’s Day…
Love, Phyllis
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