Things that remind me of my Dad:
- Used bookstores
- The smell of pipes
- Running
- Wesleyan University, especially the Alpha Delta Phi house
- A notebook full of handwritten (in fountain pen) mathmatical derivations, like of the angles between the streets of L’Etoile in Paris.
- Europe’s cathedrals
- A ski trip the two of us to Zermatt – in bed each night with our books. Two peas in a pod.
- Good red wine
- Faded Nantucket reds
- Hand-drawn turk’s head knots (also in fountain pen) in every Valentine and birthday card
- Knots in person, too – learning to tie a real bowline, being awed by his skill at turk’s heads and other tricks with a line
- Celebrating birthdays where I became an age that was a prime number
- The note he wrote to authorize no-helmet skating in 6th grade at BB&N (“recognizing that risk is an inherent part of life …”) – I mortified at the time, infinitely amused now
- The carefully curated and annotated photo albums
- Exhortations to pack light, get ready fast, be able to read a map, and look good after 2 miles to windward
- A favorite bowtie that comes with the same joke every time: “I’ve nothing TouLouse!”
- Playing “Scarlet Ribbons” on his guitar, singing to us
- Reading thick history books in German, French, and English
- The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
- Teaching me to drive our old Jeep in Mattapoisett – being patient when I rammed it into a huge boulder at the edge of the ocean
- Christmas carols on the stereo at home from October to March
- His miniature Caterpillar trucks (Cat was a client, and Hilary and I teased him mercilessly, calling them “toys,” and were always told sternly that they were “models”)
- His diving off the dock in Huntington during our last visit to Gaga and Pops’ house there
- His beautiful, elegant skiing