Dad's Day

For all those who are waiting to hear more about my recent Goddification, apologies, because I need to take a moment to embarrass my dad.

Which is only fair, since my dad is a constant embarrassment to me. He has cooler taste in music than me. He's more honest than I am. He always gets to online articles about/by Chomsky before I do. I've been practicing the flute recently, but he probably still plays the thing better than I do. He also probably knows more about computers than I do. He's in way better shape than me.

It's embarrassing!

My dad has had a big influence on me. For example, I'm pretty sure he had something to do with the fact that I'm a leftist, and the fact that I think Prince is a musical genius.

No matter what crazy things I decide to do with my life (e.g. pursuing a career in academic philosophy, converting to Christianity), my dad never tells me how crazy I am. I'm pretty sure he thinks it, but he never says it. And I appreciate that.

My dad is a crime-fighting vigilante. Probably a lot of the readers of this blog have already heard the story about the guy who robbed my dad's store at knife point, so here's an abridged version. The robber was a big dude in his twenties, while my dad is about my size, but about a century older or so. The robber got some money all right, but after he left the store, dad decided to chase after him. Dad chased the bad guy halfway across town, until the robber got so tired he stopped and got my dad to promise to stop chasing him if he returned the money. The robber then dropped some money on the ground, and took off. My dad retrieved the money, and then figured out that a bunch was missing, so he resumed the chase. The robber ran away again, and got tired again, and tried the same schtick again, and tried to cheat my dad again. So the chase resumed, with the robber trying the same deal a third time. The robber cheated my dad that time, too, and then dad's shoelace broke, so he had to give up the chase. I think the robber ended up getting away with 30 cents or something, which is a lot less than you'd want to get paid for having to run that far.

What I'm trying to say is, my dad is not as awesome as Chuck Norris, but he comes pretty close. (Dad has only two speeds: walk, and chase the bad guy to the point of exhaustion.)

Happy Dad's Day, Dad. (I would apologize for the lateness, but by now my dad should know that I do everything late.)