Happy Father's Day!

I'm reposting an entry from several years ago when I blogged on Live Journal. I've written some about my father before, and when I do, I almost always end up in tears and being incredibly mushy (or as he would have said with an eyebrow raised, Tender). So I guess I never venture too far into what I feel about loving him and missing him because, well, because I'm afraid I might never get out. The last paragraph of this, the last sentences--that says it all. I'm sharing it with you today because I can't with him.

The World Cup--and Harold darling...

It's a draw--1::1, USA and Italy. {Sound of cheers}!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sure a computer saavy person could actually give you a link to that sound, but it ain't me.

I can't believe I actually watched the game. I didn't intend to. I turned the TV on to just hang out for a while, and there the game was. And I never moved throughout. I'm amazed at myself.

I've never been a sports fan particularly. My father, from whom I would have gotten the bug, wasn't a a sports fan either. He was a star fullback, first for Cornell, and then for one of the early league teams, the Long Island Bulldogs--or maybe it was the BlueBells. He played in the days when the helmets were leather caps and the only padding they had was Kotex. He considered contemporary players, with their complicated underlay of plastic and metal, to be (his word) sissies. So I never learned to love games by sitting on his knee. I learned to love reading by sitting on his knee. And arguing any topic at any time whatsoever....

...it's a funny thing about this blog. I started out to write about watching the soccer and how I couldn't believe how absorbed I was in it and how it took me back to that time long ago and far away, when I loved a footballer in England and spent many a Saturday watching him play...

...but then my thoughts took a right hand turn to my father--and I suddenly realized that tomorrow is Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. You would love all the new stuff computers can do. You would cheer my blog on and write Anonymous comments and maybe you'd have your own blog. I miss you. I miss your mind and your wit. And I miss the way you loved me. And liked me. Especially that.