Oct. 2, 2009. Dad turns 90. We celebrated the next day, Oct. 3, a Saturday. Martha arranged it, and gave a very nice speech. Then Jay pulled out his haikus. I hope to post the video on YouTube, but I’m also going to try to recreate some of his commentary, aside from the actual haikus themselves. Where I don’t have commentary it’s because I don’t remember.

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.

Have you seen the Freakonomics Blegs series? It’s fun. Great lines in movies, things like that. I gather that  bleg is a contraction for blogging and begging, a play on words related to asking readers for contributions.

It made me think of some great lines in songs. Some of these are pure poetry. Or so it sees to me.

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose

I’d trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday

Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobbie McGee

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi

The last time I felt like this I was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire

and I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn

Emmy Lou Harris, Boulder to Birmingham

You of tender years can’t know the fears that your elders grew by. So help them with your youth, they seek the truth before they can die. Teach your parents well, their childrens’ hell will slowly go by. And feed them on your dreams.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Teach Your Children

because the cops don’t need you, and man they expect the same

Bob Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues

Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand, and rivers that ran through every day. I must have been mad, I never knew what I had until I threw it all away.

Bob Dylan, I Threw it All Away

Cowboys like smoky old poolrooms and clear mountain mornings

Patsy and Ed Bruce, Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

I married her because she looks like you

Lyle Lovett, I Married Her Because She Looks Like You

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance

Paul Simon, Train in the Distance

Why am I soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard

Paul Simon, You Can Call Me Al

All I ever had: Redemption songs: These songs of freedom

Bob Marley, Redemption Songs

In the end, only kindness matters

Jewel, Hands

And, if you happen to speak (or read) Spanish, how about these:

Simon Blanco tuvo suerte. De tres balas que le dieron, solo una fue de muerte.

Anonymous corrido, Simon Blanco

Yo soy como el chile verde, picante pero sabroso

Anonymous, la Llorona

High mountain near midnight bright moonlight outside the tent

and cold, and almost barefoot, but I was out there and I stopped,

suddenly, stopped,

cold, and looked at the landscape.

Moonlight on granite.

The granite held it all steady and solid:

mountain lake and the lakeside meadow, the peak above it,

and the rockstrewn snowpatched cliffs between.

But the moonlight made it magic — crystal, sparkled, rock-flecked magic.

The rock, like solid time, relentless …

draped in a silver moonlight as equally unreal as rock is real. my people asleep in the tent in the meadow.

The slopes, the pass, the peak, everything there rested on granite.

Think about solid rock, miles deep, mountains made of it, that’s the granite.