Thia first one is very familiar to the three of us, me and Chip and Jay, who grew up watching football with dad.

Grass is greener

Things not great on the field
What the heck is goin on?
Put in that freshman.

Unholy Thing
Dad drinks his vodka
he likes it mixed with milk. Yuk.
I want to throw up.

Everybody in our family knows that dad has always liked his licorice more than any other sweets. Not unlike me. Here’s Jay’s tribute:

Black Goddess

Dad turning ninety!
Think of all the licorice
This man has eaten.

Good, True, and Beautiful

He comes from the Church
Virgin Mary watches him
St. Michael protects

His Lucky Day

After tragic loss
He sure did strike it lucky
When he found liz

First, we learned that wonderful Irish grandfather Jack O’Neill was actually mom’s stepfather, not real DNA for us. At least we were 100% Irish on Dad’s side — until the discovery, 10 or so years ago, that the Dudley in dad’s background was actually Dudelein, and we was French.

Le Crushing Truth (Family Tree Shockeroo!)

Presumed all Irish
Til shocking revelation
Dudley’s Dudler

Jay pointed out how quick dad was to warn us about “ballooning up” and other familiar “don’t get fat” phrases. And that he had eaten 39 its-it (an ice cream treat popular in the San Francisco area) in a single weekend.

Dad’s World Record

Ya gotta, gotta
push yourself away from that
thirty ninth It’s it.

It turned out later that Uncle Cal had secretly bought a ping pong table and had been practicing for months when he, with pretended nonchalance, challenged dad to ping pong.

Ping Pong Apocalypse
Uncle Cal ready.
Dad plays with gin on table.
Dad whips Cal’s butt bad.

Jay wasn’t sure this actually happened and suggested he dreamt it because of something that had been said. Martha thought it did in fact happen (he is an ophthalmologist).

Weird Day Job
He removes eye balls,
Brings them home to show his kids.
They gleam on the shelf.

Controversy broke out in the neighborhood as the Knights planted trees that threatened the view. There was a discussion but Mr. Knight was unmoved and unsympathetic.

Bad Night for Mr. Knight
Tiptoe to Knight’s yard
One strange and moonless evening;
Too bad for that tree.

For many years in a row, Gram sent dad balloon seat pajamas for Christmas. We all laughed.

The Gift She Keeps on Giving
Each Berry Christmas,
The gift of hysteria,
Balloon Seat Classic.

Mushy But True
Language is useless.
Words don’t capture the feeling.
We love Dad so much.

We drove through Bend, business 97, at night, in surprisingly heavy traffic (for Bend). Cristin and Megan were in the back seat. We played Eric Clapton’s “tears in heaven” from a CD.

After the song finished, in the moment of silence that followed, we heard very quiet sobbing in the back seat. It was Megan.

“Megan! What’s Wrong? What happened?

“I miss Paul,” she said. She was about as old as she looks in this picture.

You can click the audio icon here to play that song …