Happy Birthday, Dad!

-
Dad's high school photo

 Today is my Dad's birthday.
He died in February, but he would have been 78 today. This is the first birthday that I cannot call him and wish him Happy Birthday.
I don't really know what to say about Dad. My brothers and I always laughed that you could introduce Dad to the President of the US and they'd be on a first name basis in ten minutes. Dad was easy-going and loved to laugh. He took many hardships without complaint, especially his failing health in the last months of his life. That was just the way he was.
(A deep and heartfelt thanks to my brothers Barry and Tim for being there for Dad during the bad times. You were great sons to Dad and you are great brothers.)
I'm grateful for the many good things that Dad did for me in life, and I smile at so many of the things he wanted to do for me. There are some stories there…
Dad had his flaws. He and I didn't always see eye-to-eye, that's for certain, but the bottom line is that he was my Dad.
I miss you Dad. Happy Birthday.

Dad looks happy. Tim looks bored.

Dad at 11 months


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I cancelled The Bauman Letter

-
Image
I signed up for The Bauman Letter, edited by Ted Bauman and read it for a few months. His father is a well-known member of The Sovereign Society and Ted contributed for years. I like Ted's writing style and read his letter for the nuggets of information I could glean. One month he recommended a company in Australia for holding my gold. If I had a hundred grand in gold, maybe I'd go that route. Then again, maybe I'd bury it in the back yard like the old Romans. I cancelled his newsletter after reading his October issue. Ted posted ten pages of glowing prose for the 1291 Group of the Americas . I was impressed by his report and thought this might be a company I could park my IRA with and not worry about it. (We've been burned by local investment advisors who lost large chunks of our investment and still took their overly fair share of fees, so we're hyper-cautious.) Ted especially praised Erika Nolan, the CEO of this prestigious firm. Ted forgot to menti...
Read more

FBAR Scam, but not illegal

-
Image
FBAR (not to be confused with FUBAR, but the one can lead to the other) is a government required Foreign Bank Account Reporting that you must file if you have one or more foreign bank accounts that total more than $10,000 in assets. It is another of the methods the USA uses to track illegal drug trafficking money. I won't comment on how effective it all is, but there is a sort-of scam you need to be aware of. Yeah, you didn't want to read all that. Here's the scam. If you google FBAR, the very first link reads: Fbar Filing - FinCEN Foreign Bank Accounts Form - eFileFBAR.com and links to www.efilefbar.com. Don't click it! It's a legitimate link and they ask you all the correct FBAR questions. When you finish, they want you to pay them $350 to file for you ! Go to the FREE Government Link The government web site asks exactly the same questions, in exactly the same order and then lets you file for  FREE  with the USA. So what the "efilefbar...
Read more

Grandma

-
Image
Mom would have been 78 this year. Happy Birthday, Mom. When our cousins laughed and told my youngest brother that Grandma Jen wasn't our Grandma he just smiled and walked away. "She's my Grandma," he said. When they told me, I was irate. I was eight years older than my youngest brother, and I knew it wasn't possible for Grandma to be my cousins' great Aunt. I also hate being confused and I knew Grandma Jen was our Grandma. In a family tree Grandma Jen was our great Aunt, our real grandmother's younger sister. We have very little information on our grandmother. Elva Gertrude Elston was born in Sanilac County, Brown City, Michigan in 1915. She left the farm and her family and moved to the big city of Detroit when she was eighteen. According to relatives she never used the name Elva, but went by the name Peggy. She was very beautiful. My Aunt Ida (Peggy's youngest surviving sister) told me that Peggy came home to the farm for a few weeks duri...
Read more