My dad had a theory, he called it the “Schwartz theory of gaseous expansion,” which stated the material in a room will always expand to fill the available space. No matter how big your room is, it will eventually feel cramped because there’s too much stuff in it.
I was thinking about that theory and how it could also be applied to time as I was out and about running errands with Mom. Now that I don’t have a regular 9-5 job, I theoretically have more available time. I’ve been in this position before and I remember noting the same occurrence – when you have more free time, your chores expand to fill your available time. It took ALL DAY yesterday to get the phone, cable and internet set up for mom.
In the few short months between my trip to Alaska for a family reunion in August and my trip to Alaska for my father’s funeral in October, I read Sarah Vowell’s book Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World. The book had been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year before I finally picked it up and started to read.
The first essay in the book was called “Shooting Dad,” a coming of age story of sorts: a progressive minded young woman grew up in the middle of nowhere in a house full of republican gun fanatics, yet finds her way home to a reconciliation with her father during an outing that involves his cannon. Hmmm, could be the story of my life.
My dad was famous around town as the guy with the Moose Gooser – A cannon that he kept at the house and packed up to take to every home game and most away games of the Palmer High School football team, the Palmer Moose. He was obsessive about that cannon and spent hours loading the shells by hand before each game.
I went to one game with him to watch him fire the cannon. That was this August and it was his last game. I read Sarah Vowell’s essay a month later and it was exactly what I needed to hear. No matter how extreme our political differences, he’s still my dad. And I love him – and I miss him.
The story is as funny as it is touching and well worth the time to read it.
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Two weeks ago my dad went in to surgery to remove his spleen because of a blood clot. when they got in there they saw that he had pancreatic cancer that had spread throughout his abdomen. they just closed him back up without even taking the spleen. they told us he has 3 months to live.
Since then they’ve told us he could have as much as two years. Two years never sounded so good.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had come up with (what I think is) a brilliant idea for Bebe’s birthday – a book celebrating Bebe and the number four.
So I’ve been calling around to get people to submit photos for this project. My dad apparently had a great deal of fun coming up with somthing to submit for the book – he submitted the following:
For this picture, the caption will say: “Grandpa has four hands.”
His next submission for the project was this:
I still haven’t figured out what the caption will be…
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. The book had been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year before I finally picked it up and started to read.
