A New Year

It's late at night on December 12th, I'm feeling a little blue, a little old, wondering if I can conjure up a blog worthy of some seasonal cheer.

So here goes...

My brother John used to get together with his brother-in-laws family on New Years day to watch College Football on two or three TVs all at once...one game after another, over another. Pre-BCS. When ASU actually had the occasional chance to make the Rose Bowl (there's always next year).  This particular family was all Irish American and Notre Dame boosters and mainly male...with all the trappings. Beer, and food, and more beer, and plenty of football to go around. One thing always cool about John, he'd get bored after a while and we'd go outside and shoot hoops...and all of this was all right with me, it all worked.

Sometimes on New Years day I would stop by Dad's little apartment on Greenfield and pick him up and he'd join us for the festivities. However, this particular time...I could hear the radio on in his apartment, I knew he was home and yet he did not answer. He was a hermit at times. I can relate, I have that gene too. But I was mad, and I went on to the New Years game, and I complained a bit to John when I got there, don't you know. I was vexed just a bit.

Dad had passed. I did not know, did not know until days later, when John called me at work. I was devastated, heart broken. I miss my Dad still.

Where do I find cheer with that? Well heck, all the years I did have Dad, and the years I have been a Dad, and that I learned not to hermit a bit from that, and that now I have daughters and grand kids and Christmas comes each year...and Christmas means a little bit more, and Christmas reminds me of my beliefs that one day I will see my Dad again. And maybe by then ASU will have played in the Rose Bowl again  (there is always next year).  :)

Cheers, nca