Just in Time

I thought about my Dad. There was something about the piece I just wrote. Maybe it was the title Like dancing that triggered it. That was part of it but it was more the free spirited aspect. It was more the idea of the carefree, easy-going way about it.
My Dad has been gone a while. He was gone on a Friday, January 6th – yeah, Epiphany, at age 82. Every Friday after that day was marked for a long time. I wondered when Fridays would become just Fridays again and not how many Fridays since…
It became a ritual of mine to listen to music when I would get ready for work. I would always put on one of his favorites on Friday mornings and Artie Shaw and his renowned clarinet would bleed out tunes I won’t ever forget. It was having Dad there again for the brief time I captured on Fridays listening to what he liked and I loved because of him.
Dad was so easy. Dad told silly corny jokes and made everyone laugh with him. Dad sang in the car and made me sing along with him. He picked an old song and we would sing it acapella until the harmonies were perfect or perfect to us or never just right, let’s do that part again, there that’s better.
He would drink scotch, which was nasty, but not all that often. He would tell me to stop drinking coffee, “It’ll stunt you’re growth, look at me?!”
I’d laugh at him and keep drinking it and it did. Just like him. He was short.
He ate large bowls of ice cream after dinner while watching television in his recliner. It’s his fault I love ice cream so much.
I think the reason I thought of Dad was partly because of the title of that last post. After he was gone I wrote a short piece that I titled Keep Dancing. I hurriedly tried to find a copy of it last night and didn’t but it must be there. I told of how he would show me the steps, lead me along. I told of how he was always there and knew when I needed more practice and then he was gone. But I told of how the music is still playing and how I can keep dancing.
It’s funny how something as foreign to my Dad as running could trigger, for me, memories of him. I think it was the pure joy of the act that did it for me.
He loved it all and made it easy.
TT
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"Just in Time" was the name of the song we would sing in the car.  I don't even know the name of the artist since we would always turn off the radio to sing it.  It was just our voices, together.