What’s up in heaven?
DEAR DAD,
It’s been a while. Don’t get back to the cemetery very much, or even to church as much as I ought to. One’s 1,000 miles away, and the other may as well be. But I think of you often. Been what, eight years?
Don’t know how much you see or hear of what goes on down here. In heaven, the front page must be full of fishing reports and old Jim Murray columns. Down here, we’re not so lucky.
Hear about Iraq? We recently invaded that Middle Eastern dust bowl in search of chemical and biological weapons no one can find. Was it the right thing to do? In 50 years, maybe we’ll know.
Strange world, strange times. Each day, the world seems to get smaller and more volatile. Is there anything more cowardly than a suicide bomber? More reprehensible than a murder-minded zealot? You wouldn’t believe the airports.
A lot has gone on since you’ve been gone. We’ve got another Bush in the White House, and they just reported that your old pal JFK had an eye for a pretty pair of legs. Stop the presses, huh? What’s next, Antony harassed Cleopatra?
But there’s good news, too. Deflation is back, if you believe the economists. All I know is a $4 lunch is now 7 bucks. Loaf of bread, $3.
In other news, Daley’s kid is still running your hometown, and the Cubs are hovering around first place. Yeah, the Chicago Cubs. I know, it’s only June. Any sign of Cobb or Durocher up there? Just kidding.
Mom is good. Had a couple of minor heart problems, but who hasn’t at her age? She still hasn’t given up that old Pontiac you bought her, claiming an inexplicable fear of air bags.
Remember those 40 years of 50-hour workweeks? I guess they paid off. Mom’s safe and warm and fully fed. There’s bourbon in the cabinet and enough money for an occasional lunch out. That house you built for 25 grand? Now worth a small fortune.
The grandkids are fine -- loud as the Marx Brothers with the same rabid distrust of authority. There’s another grandchild, you know. Were you around when God made that decision? Wry guy, God. Must be a hoot at parties.
Well, your latest grandson is 6 months old now. Bats right, throws left. At least that’s the plan. His mother dresses him in a plaid windbreaker and a floppy fishing hat like you used to wear. Some say plaid is the new pink. Still looks plaid to me.
Your oldest granddaughter is halfway through college, if you can believe that. You’d never recognize her. She can out-talk Larry King and out-walk Monroe. Hard to believe it was only 10 years ago she was sitting on your lap.
Your oldest grandson is driving now and has the sweetest swing since Willie Mays. At least, I think so. Best of all, he makes me laugh like no one else.
Meanwhile, his little sister reads a book a day and is uncommonly poised around adults.
“What gives?” I ask her.
“Huh?”
“You have poise and good manners,” I say.
“So?”
Gets them from her mother, I suppose. Or some dormant family gene that reemerges every 200 years.
“If you have children, you have everything,” you once said when the first kids came along. To this day, I have no idea what you meant.
Me? I’m OK. I seem to have inherited your cough and your golf swing and your midlife propensity for rooting around the backyard. I recently planted pumpkins, tomatoes and some Walla Walla onions. If it all works out, by October we’ll have jack-o-lanterns big as Buicks.
“We may have to open a frontyard stand,” I tell the kids.
“Hold off on the lumber,” advises the college girl.
No vision, these kids. No eye for greatness or even a sense of proportion. Money is like an emotion to them. It comes, it goes. Two weeks ago, some shoe empire gave a high school hoopster $90 million. That’s right, $90 million. It’ll be gone by Tuesday.
So, Dad, I hope this brings you up to date. Happy Father’s Day, for all the years I never said it enough. For all the stupid neckties we bought you, when all you really wanted was another plaid windbreaker or some new fishing line.
You’ll always be here, in the baby’s smile and in the way the older boy flails at sand traps. In the college girl’s laugh and in a thousand other ways no one could ever begin to explain.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. See you around.
Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.
