Happy St Patrick's Day

An Irishman walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn.  When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more.  

The bartender asks him, "You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it; it would taste better if you bought one at a time."  The Irishman replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the other in Australia, and I'm here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the days when we drank together."  The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there. 

The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way:  He orders three pints and drinks them in turn. One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss."  The Irishman looks confused for a moment, then a light dawns in his eye and he laughs. "Oh, no," he, says, "everyone's fine. I've just quit drinking."

Who knew that St Paul was soaked in memories of my Dad?

Many days when I leave work the thought of my Dad comes to me.  As I glance past the Dorothy Day Center toward  Joseph’s Hospital.  No, Dad wasn’t homeless (!), but he did spend some time at St Joe’s, including the last week of his life spent in a room recovering.  It’s also the workplace of his daughter in law and former workplace of his cousin. A place to help people, a place to try to make you whole.

Then there’s a pang of “no I can’t call him or chat with him next time I go out to visit.” Ouch.

A  scan of the horizon to the left and there’s United Hospital. Another place of healing, OR an opportunity for Dad to nearly break the record for number of stents put in at one time (9, for the record). Go big or go home.

A little further to the left and there is Cossetta’s. Nothing says Jon like Cossetta’s pizza. And that’s a warm feeling. But it’s still hard to believe I’m not going to meet him there for lunch someday.  It’s so odd. Death is so odd. It’s real, but it’s so unreal. The memory of him, or his personality is so vivid that it’s impossible to think of him as gone.

Today is a trip day. Work trip day. As I was pulling out of parking lot at work, on my way to the airport for a flight out of town, I thought of my Dad. His trips. How much I LOVED going to the airport when I was a kid. How when I got older I would sometimes go out to the airport and walk around. I loved the bustle, I loved the movement. I loved the thought of going somewhere exciting. So exotic.  Almost everywhere was exciting.  Funny. Particularly since I lived directly under the flight path of the MSP runway for the first 11 years of my life. Directly under the flight path = all conversations cease when the plane passes over. All auditory moments replaced by the sound of the mighty jet.  Funny what you’ll put up with. And yes, I betrayed my age by saying that I could go hang out at the airport without a boarding pass in hand. What a foreign concept.

As I left St Paul tonight I passed Cossetta’s. Dad, oh Dad. And I made my way to Shepard Road. That too, is a Dad memory. The road we’d take to Grandma and Grandpa’s. The road he took to work when we lived in Minneapolis (under the flight path).  Oh. Pang. I had the radiio on and up comes a song by Link Wray: Rawhide. It seemed fitting. It seemed like music Dad would have liked.  (Memory: Staying up on the Northshore at a townhome. Dad wakes us up by blasting (no exaggeration) Sea Cruise…over and over again). Vivacious, alive, in the moment.

 I love you dad and I miss you.