Blog For My Father

Christmas 2014 has come and gone, and the year is winding down. This was a year of big changes for me, mainly centered around my dad, who passed away in September at the age of 90. Finding myself with a little down time at the moment, I'd like to take an opportunity to talk about what he's meant to me and my music.

Someone wrote lyrics for Horace Silver's 1960s jazz classic, "Song For My Father." They start out like this:

If there was ever a man
Who was generous, gracious and good
That was my dad
The man

My dad was indeed THE MAN. To be sure he wasn't perfect; no one ever is. It took some time for me to wrap my head around that. When you're growing up, your father is your chief male role model. I've been told that Dad didn't get along well with his own dad (my grandfather). Maybe be got the idea from his experiences that fathers and their children were supposed to have contentious relationships. There were many times where I felt that no matter what I did it wasn't good enough. Eventually I came to understand that it wasn't personal, that he was doing the best he could to try and keep me from harm and encourage me to do well. Dad loved us kids, my sister and brother and me. But he never said it. He showed it.

My brother was a sports nut. Dad drove him to football and (especially) baseball games. As I got older, I got to tag along from time to time. Eventually, my brother could drive himself back and forth. As for me, obviously I was a lot more interested in music than sports. In fact, all of us kids had musical interests of some sort, although my sister never stuck with her flute. My brother played guitar, and I played drums and anything else from which I could coax a noise. Mom was more the music lover in the family and had a broader array of musical tastes, as I've documented elsewhere on this blog. But Dad never discouraged our musical interests, even when they were really loud.

When I was just five years old, Dad bought me a basic drum kit. It was really more a patchwork of drums then a real kit, with a Paiste splash cymbal that served as crash and ride. But it was enough to start with, and I still have the snare drum, a 1961 vintage snare with some unique hardware. In about 1974, Dad ponied up some pretty serious money for the time to buy me a professional quality set of Pearl drums, which I played until finally parting with them in 2010. The fiberglass shells on those drums outlasted their hardware, two sets of cases, a number of rims and countless drum heads. Dad drove me to gigs when I started picking up professional work before I could drive, and he bought me an old beater of a '68 Chevy to drive to gigs once I got my license.

From there through college and beyond Dad was always there with help and support when I needed it. That's not to say he agreed with everything I did all the time, and there were times that I disregarded his advice and later regretted doing so (as well as quite a few where I didn't regret it.) But I know that deep down there was pride there, and whatever I've done with music I couldn't have done without Dad's help and encouragement to do the best I could.

Dad stayed in good health right up until his late 80's, but in the end time and smoking finally caught up with him. By the beginning of this year, he was beginning to have trouble with falls. In March, I moved in and became a part-time caregiver, helping Dad get his meals and saving him steps wherever possible. In May, we celebrated Dad's 90th birthday, but shortly after that his health started to go downhill pretty quickly. He had more and more trouble getting around, and in July he began noticeably coughing up blood. Tests in August indicated rapidly spreading lung cancer. Dad passed away in hospice on September 24.

I'm very glad I could be there at the end to tell Dad that I loved him, and to thank him for my life. Part of that life was the chance to have music in it, and I'm thankful that he made that possible as well. By moving in with Dad those last months, I felt I gave something back to him by making it possible for him to stay at home in familiar surroundings until the morning of the day he died. Doing it certainly changed my life around this year. Looking back though, and considering all that Dad did for me, it was the least I could do for my dad . . .

THE MAN.