Happy Father's Day, Ralph Nase

I won't be around on Sunday to post this so here it is a bit early. My father, now 92, was the 16th of 19 children born to a man who supported the family working in a cigar factor. My father worked from the age of 6 to the age of 89, never for much money or esteem. He served in WW II and was at Nordmandy and the Battle of the Bulge. He received his draft notice on his weddding day and came home four years later to find his father-in-law had replaced him in his job. He never hit me, never yelled at me but we also have never had a really meaningful conversation. He made sure toys were under the Christmas tree, that I never went to bed hungry, that we went to Ocean City, N.J. for a week every summer. When I was getting in with the wrong crowd in high school, he took out loans and sent me to a private school that made me march for Jesus but also provided a good education. It was the only school he could afford. He has never said he loves me, but I know he does.

When I used to write poetry, I wrote one for him. You'll see why I turned to fiction but I'll probaby never write a story about him so this will have to do. (My father never learned to swim.)

Antaeus in the Swimming Pool

Like the figure of Poseidon
in a Woolworth's goldfish bowl,
you stand, legs planted firmly
in the three-foot end of Fisher's pool.
Really you're more of an Antaeus
among the bobbing toys, Never mind,

I'll be no Hercules. Neither of us sees
something foolish in our circumstance.
Instead, I swim, stomach scraping
concrete (for I'm too big here too)
between your pillared legs.
Executing figure eights, eyes splayed,

treading carefully so as not to knock
you down or even skim your surfaces.
Neither of us could bear to find you
helpless in such shallow water, tumbling
frantically, screamine strings of bubbles
among the tiny bodies of your peers.