108

I love to tell this story, and, today being my late father's 108th birthday, please let me share it.

My dad taught himself to do everything. He had to quit high school when the Depression came along, but he was better educated than most people I've met. He could fix or repair or build from scratch just about anything, and toward the end of his years he began going to the woodworking shop at Baltimore County's BYKOTA (Be Ye Kind One To Another) Center, where he participated in projects with the others just to have something better to do than sitting around watching television.

BYKOTA is located in the building that used be to Towson Elementary School, and Towson High School before that. The Office of Aging has its headquarters on the third floor, and I told Dad that one day while he was sawing and sanding, he should go up to the third floor and say hey to my good friend Lisa who worked up there. Lisa and I were co-treasurers for the county's United Way campaign, so you know already she is a very patient and kind woman.

Anyway, one day Lisa called to tell me that a "smallish, mild-mannered gentleman" had presented himself in her office, gently knocking on the door, asking if she were Lisa, and, having received a positive reply, he went on to say, "I'm Mark's father..."

Lisa was stunned! As she tells it, she said, "Your son comes barging through that door like he's leading a brass band in here!"

Which I have heard before.  Another friend went to a rodeo and saw a prize Brahma bull named "Big Sid" come charging out of his pen to do what bulls do at a rodeo. That friend said that the way I enter a room reminded him of Big Sid.

But Lisa still speaks fondly of Dad, his newsboy cap in his hand, being such a gentleman. 

So while I am a believer in science and medicine, maybe there's something about genetics we don't understand just yet. I didn't get that mild-mannered gene, and certainly not the "smallish" gene. I am enough of a gentleman, though. I will not pull a chair out from under someone or throw food around in public.

Like most men of his generation, when the time came to fight in World War II, he went and fought, and when he came home he spoke no more of war. Prying information out of him was like getting the combination to the vault out of the bank president. He went back to the job he had with the Baltimore Gas and Electric and found his niche there, quietly supervising the room of "load dispatchers," the people who made sure that just the proper amount of electricity was being sent out to homes and businesses - not too much, not too little.

And you know, that was the key to Dad's life, in a nutshell. He did wonderful things in the most shy manner.  When a lady up the street lost her husband, Dad did repairs around her house for a long time. When he took up carving duck decoys, he whittled and painted wonderful Mergansers. 

He taught me to know and accept my limitations, which is why I don't try to carve ducks out of wood or rewire the basement electricity. But one time when he saw me emcee a concert, he said he couldn't imagine getting up in front of people and talking.  And he pointed out that I couldn't imagine NOT getting up in front of people and talking.

It was Dad, a regular at the Baltimore Symphony, who was to introduce me to country music when I was in elementary school. He gave me an album called "Hank Williams Lives Again" and said, "You might like this." That started something right there!

I like to picture Dad at 108, up in heaven reading his Robert Frost and Woodworker magazine, having his lunch (a piece of cheese, a couple of ginger snaps, and a Goldenberg's Peanut Chew) and looking forward to his dinner martini. 

I still hear from him, especially when I'm doing something that might result in my electrocution, disfigurement, or election to local office, all things he urged me to avoid. He would be embarrassed at my writing this encomium, but when did that ever stop me? 

Happy birthday, Pop!