Love to My Father On His Big Birthday.

Today is my dad's 80th birthday.

80.

It seems like such a monumental age, almost as if it crosses some sort of an unspoken threshold. And in truth, Dad didn't want to celebrate all that much this year. He was uncharacteristically ambivalent about this birthday. He was emphatic about a moratorium on gifts and instead he wanted a far more muted commemoration than we might have done, one with just immediate family and some close friends. So, we honoured those wishes and had a lovely gathering last Shabbat but I couldn't let the day go by without some sort of observance as to the man my dad is.

Without further adieu, I present some fun facts about Ralph.

1. He was born on the second day of Rosh Hashana. Whenever someone would ask his mother about his birthday, that would be her answer. I'm convinced she never really remembered the English date until she looked at that Jewish calendar that came from the butcher.

2. His older brother, and sole sibling, Syd (z"l) was a full 7 years his senior. I'm convinced that my dad was a surprise baby to his "already-very-mature-for-those-days" parents but I was never able to get a straight answer from my grandmother, whose old-world sensibilities refused to discuss such things.

3. He was, unsurprisingly, ADHD as a child. It was a time when schools and parents didn't know about such things but because he was, and still is, such a gite neshema (a good soul) he managed to get through school with decent grades. His gregarious nature has always bought him goodwill but it isn't an act. Ralph simply has no capacity for hiding anything. He wears it all right out there for everybody to see. What you see, is what you get.

4. He speaks Yiddish fluently due to it being his parents' first language and some early schooling through the Arbiter Ring, The Workman's Circle.

5. Yup. My dad's first political indoctrination was through the very leftist and socialist (almost communist) Workman's Circle. It explains a lot about his visceral need for and fights for social justice but does nothing to explain his bizarre later in life vote for...

6. Rob Ford. Yes, he regretted it and yes he is very apologetic for it. (And yes...this is my way of needling him for a very out of character stupid act.)

7. Dad used to have very curly and very thick jet-black hair. Honest. There are photos.

8. He has a wicked temper. It is, unfortunately, something he felt the need to pass down to me. Those closest to him know it and have been in the direct firing line. He hates it about himself and is instantly sorry each and every time he blows a gasket but it can be painful. I choose to share this because Dad is fond of saying that nobody is perfect and that we all have something we'd rather not possess. His self-awareness about his foibles and flaws and his attempts over the years to deal with them is one of the things I admire most about my father. I truly believe that if I gushed too much about him in this post, he might taunt me about rewriting his biography.

9. He spent one year studying to be a pharmacist. He absolutely hated it and couldn't imagine counting pills behind a counter as a career. He left after that year in Windsor to go into a different side of the drug business...pushing...I mean...sales.

10. He used to work as a singer/waiter at Waposka Lodge in the summers. I still, to this day, cannot believe he waited tables. This is a man who can't drink a glass of water without spilling on himself. He still wears a bib that he carries with him wherever he goes. I can't imagine he did well by his patrons but his singing talent more than made up for his lack of tips.

11. Dad sang and Dad still sings. He has the most amazing baritone I have ever heard. He will say that it is old and gone but...nope, not true. He sings in the shower and in the car and at shul and when he thinks nobody is looking. He used to sing in a calypso band and was even cajoled into singing at his own wedding. He introduced me to every folk artist from 1940 on and still loves to go to small concerts and venues to take in an evening of whatever is playing. We would sing on family car trips and we would sing just for ourselves at home. I cannot stress enough how beautiful my father's voice is. One of these days, I hope to convince him to sing a duet with me at out Temple Coffee House. Maybe this post will provide the impetus.

12. Dad met Mom on a blind date....and then promptly didn't call her again for a year. A year!! There are a whole host of excuses he uses for that horrendous lapse in judgment but it was mostly because he was dating somebody else. When that ended, he decided to call her and....she couldn't remember who he was. Love at first sight, this was not. But something must have clicked because here we are almost 57 years later and he is still crazy about her. He will often quietly whisper to me, "Isn't your mother just beautiful." 

13. Judaism matters a lot to my dad and it pains him to this day that he never had a Bar Mitzvah due to that Jewish socialist upbringing. I've tried to convince him to do it as an adult over the years but I am still working on it. Dad was the creator of the very first Camp Scholarship Fund at Temple Har Zion and he went out and called every single member at the time to solicit the necessary funds to send kids to GUCI. He and Mom are regulars at Kol Ami when they are in town and often go to various synagogues in the South Florida area. I know that he wishes I was still on the bimah. He loved to brag about me to his friends, especially after High Holy Days. He tells me this a lot but he is just fine singing in the congregation with whoever is leading.

14. Dad is the most demonstrative man I know of his generation. He hugs and kisses everybody, men and women alike. He quite simply loves people and he feeds off of their energy. He wears his emotions like a badge of honour and has cried publicly on both happy and sad occasions. He just cannot pretend. It is what I love most about him.

15. Dad has had a variety of sales jobs throughout his career but the one constant has always been how good he was at it. It's that people-person thing again. He loves to talk and understand what people need and want, and he refuses to sell them anything more than what they absolutely require. He is unfailingly honest with his clients because he simply doesn't have the capacity for lying and mistruths. He can't keep a secret for shit and he will readily admit that lying takes far too much energy, so honesty is and has always been his credo.

16. Dad likes to be the peacemaker. He believes that family is paramount and those family members should never quarrel. I think it comes from the fact that so many members of his own family were lost in Europe. On more than one occasion, and not always with success, Dad has tried to mediate extended-family member squabbles. The hurt he has experienced when it hasn't come together has been palpable but he feels the need to try.

17. My father is the most absent-minded human being on the face of the planet. He has left his purse (yup. My dad has been carrying a man-purse for 50 years.) in more locations around the world than I could enumerate here. He forgets jackets on airplanes; credit cards in restaurants;  coffee mugs and briefcases on the roof of cars; hats, scarves, and gloves, in people's homes; and once he even left all of his suits in a motel room. He cannot walk and chew gum at the same time for fear he will swallow his gum. He has so much going on in his brain that he cannot remember the small stuff. I have often joked with him that I want to climb inside his mind and take a walk around to figure him out. He quips back that it would require a better woman than am I.

18. His absent-mindedness leads to his shitty driving. There. I said it. My father is a shitty driver mostly because his mind is usually elsewhere. He can park a fricking 18-wheeler into a spot the size of a postage stamp but his driving....well that is a whole other story. He once...and I am not making this up...drove onto the off-ramp of the 401. That was the day in my childhood when I thought I was going to die. Uber was created with my father in mind. I hope he uses it more often.

19. Dad never met a phone he didn't like or wear out. Until this year he still had two landlines and his cell both here and in Florida. He calls everybody all the time. He calls for happy occasions and awful ones. He calls to do business and will often wear out conglomerates (usually insurance companies or telecoms) that have cheated people. He will not take a single dime for his efforts and will often tell folks that he knows their games and refuses to be bullied by these corporations. He will often spend hours on the phone with insurers getting the best rates for his friends and families and then...he returns the commissions to the individuals. Lest you think this is a new thing born out of age, he has been doing this throughout his entire career.

20. Dad is loud and fun. He always wants to be with people and to be doing things. He loves to eat, often more than he should, but he considers much of it social. He and Mom have flown or driven in for out-of-town simchas because "celebrating is better than mourning". He loves to travel because "the world is a big place with so many things to see and people to meet." He never forgets a face, even ones he hasn't seen in 60+ years and he never forgets a name. He always leads with a handshake or a hug and has no qualms about reintroducing himself to people who may have forgotten him. Some individuals collect cars or coins, my father collects people.

I thought of doing a "top 80" of Dad but I realized that people had to read this and the length was already a bit much. The thing is, finding 80 things to share about my dad would have been so easy. He is just one of the best people I know and even though there are times when Ralph can be, in the words of Older Son, "So much more Zaidy than usual", I love everything about him. He is who he is and has never pretended to be more or less.

To the moon and back Dad. I love you bunches today and every day. Happy fourscore. Biz a hoondred oon Tzvuntzig yur. 💜💜💜 (May you live until 120 years!)