We celebrated his birthday in the house my father built, which sounds a lot more Biblical than it should, given the proven humanity of all involved.
Still, we honored him the best way we knew with hard work, a little American ingenuity, a big ole fire and corn popped in bacon fat.
That last delicacy was more of a nod to my Dad’s dad, a retired coal miner we called Pap, who dripped bacon fat on white bread and called it a “sammich”. But, Dad would have loved it too.
In fact, I definitely recommend that everyone try bacon fat popcorn at least once in their lives.
We ate ours after spending the afternoon hauling and stacking wood at a cabin my dad designed and had built back in 1981.
In the 25 years since he died, we have honored him in a variety of ways, some extreme, like the time his high school retired his number, and some more mundane, like eating big bowls of ice cream.
Yesterday, we spent a quiet day in the woods and that felt just right.
Note: We’re still at the cabin, enjoying an extended weekend, thanks to a man we all admire, Martin Luther King, Jr. In honor of his holiday please enjoy this piece I wrote a few years ago, and this one I wrote last year.
