Happy Birthday Dad.
A year ago you were still in Norwalk Hospital, recovering from a nasty bout of staph that came close to killing you. Thankfully you finally got out of the hospital on my birthday and, eventually, made a full recovery. Only to pick up yet another nasty viral infection in October.
Did you run over some leprechauns in 2006? You did something to cheese off the universe - 2007 was just a nightmare for you. It wasn't a bag o'laughs for the rest of us either. I was never so glad to see a year end as I was to see 2007 disappear. Auld lang syne.
You've made it to the ripe old age of 69. You made the commment, when we were having dinner together a week or so ago, that you had outlived your Father, who died in 1967... I think. He would have been 53, if I'm doing the math correctly. Heart disease, the scourge of our family, took your Father's life too soon and nearly killed you when I was 12. It finally claimed your Mothers life two years ago, at the amazing age of 91.
At dinner, we talked about your trip to California in February, to the alternative wellness clinic. You learned alot about things you already knew, you said. And you were pleased as could be that you could keep drinking your Scotch because the doctors had said you had the healthiest liver they had ever seen.
I still don't believe that story.
But I've got a bottle of Lagavulin for you all the same.
Happy Birthday Dad.