Michael’s Memory of Dad
I don't remember this, but my mom said when I was little, I would almost always fall asleep while on my dad’s shoulders, and he would never let me fall. Back in Cub Scouts, my dad helped me make a Pinewood Derby car. He tried to make the weight as close to the required weight as possible without going over. Late at night, he would try his best to perfect the car in the garage.
My dad and I looked at the maps before we went on trips. We went on many camping trips to various places including Crater Lake, Havasupai, Zion, and others.
I also remember that he liked to watch “Huell Howser,” and I liked watching movie reviews on “Ebert and Roeper” with him. Dad had many old black and white movies which we watched together. We thought Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy were really funny.
Whenever my dad watched San Francisco teams playing, I liked seeing how excited he got, especially during the game when the Giants won the World Series. We not only watched sports together, but played sports together. Once in a while, we got the chance to play tennis together on Sundays. During our rallies, dad sometimes pulled off a backspin that I couldn’t hit since it moved toward the net after it bounced.
Besides being a protective and supportive dad, he was an avid reader. In the mornings, I would see him read the L.A. Times newspaper. He usually read aloud to me the scores of a recent game, or any news that interested him. He subscribed to Time magazine because he liked to read about news happening around the world. Because my dad liked to read a lot, I picked-up his habit and started to read the newspaper and magazines just like him. In fact, Dad saved a fortune cookie slip which says "leaders are readers.”