Yesterday I dreamed of my father....

[Jack Valentino]

We were attempting some pickup rendezvous in northeast East Lansing, perhaps in the vicinity of Park Lake and N. Hagadorn Roads, by my recollection of the visuals....

I was on foot, trying to get into the car--- which seemed to be one of those which he owned in the latter 1970's, maybe the AMC Ambassador...

Anyway, I kept trying to get into the car, but he couldn't see me over his right shoulder, and kept fecklessly moving it just as I was about to open the passenger door and get in... LOL And of course, at one point I could hear brakes screaming from some other car as he pulled out in front of them...

(His driving license was revoked when he was about 91 years old, and he failed the road test afterwards... and once, when he was much younger, he backed into my sister's boyfriend's car, in the driveway, since he wasn't in the habit of looking behind him. While visiting an auto repair facility, I heard that they had nicknamed him "Crash"! Luckily he never hurt himself or anyone else.) Also, at some point I heard stories about him having driven his 'Model T' through the farm's chicken coop when he was 14? well, in those days the DMV didn't have much authority on private property, but I have to assume that he drove it many other places, back in the early 1940's.... He was too young to enlist for WW2, but his two older brothers did. Far as I know, they served but were never in combat zones.

Well, I did finally make it into the car. I was very glad to see him, since he died in early 2020 (non-covid, just old age), and I hadn't seen him lately. Then I woke up--- with a big smile on my face and in my heart! Much better than waking up from a 'bad dream'...

I missed him a lot after buying a new home after his death, thanks to my portion of his life savings--- I wanted to show it to him and get his advice on it.

I particularly miss him at the opening of gardening season--- he was raised as a depression farm boy, and gardened all his life after moving to the city... and I shared that activity with him when I was a small boy, and again during about the last 10 years of his life, when I had moved back in with my parents "temporarily" as I thought at the time... but I was glad that I was with both of them at the moments when they passed away, the only child who was.. I was the "baby of the family".

When he had passed and I was moving to my new home, I dug up the patch of chives in the back garden and took it with me...
That stand of chives dated to my early childhood---- I don't know if it was newly planted there,
or had come from somewhere else previously, but I transplanted it to my home, and it does well---
and is a minimum of 56 years old now...

If I could talk to him now, I would like to ask him about that stand of chives, among many other things....

Thanks for everything, Dad... and thanks for your visit! I do miss you.

And thanks for the ride! hahaha



And THANKS to all of you reading this, if you managed to get this far---
This "orphan" just needed to talk about this, and DU is almost the only place I have to do it....
online or offline