ii - Daddy
But the east-side world could have been better. There was one serious
deficiency: I lacked a full-time father!
Not long after we moved from the third floor to the second, Daddy no
longer slept in the same room with Mother. In 1928 or thereabouts he was
occupying one of the smaller rooms on the second floor. It was there he taught me
the rudiments of the ukelele when I was seven or eight. Oh, dem golden slippers
went one of my songs.
When I was a little older, Daddy would let me go by myself to Richardson’s
drug store a couple blocks away to return the novels he had rented from the lending
library and to buy a half dozen candy bars for the two of us. (That’s when I must have
acquired my sweet tooth.) The books from Richardson’s were probably current
novels but the only title I remember was Scaramouche by Rafael Sabattini. Daddy
said there was a lot of action in it and thought I would enjoy reading it when I was a
little older. I did read it eventually.
Daddy had a bit of talent for drawing. He once made a pen-and-ink copy of the
great seal of Maryland, which I needed for school. (I still have it, framed and hanging
in our family room.) It is possible that he studied graphic design: I remember later
coming across a textbook of his from which I taught myself to print fancy capital letters.
My father did not have an automobile but friends took Mother and him riding
and occasionally they took me along. One day in the country they stopped to let me
see some cows up close. Sometime later my mother was having a little trouble
combing my hair and blamed it on my “cowlick." I asked what that meant and my
father said, “I guess that day in the country one of those cows stuck her head into the
car and licked your hair!" For years I was sure that was exactly what happened.
Once Daddy took me on a weekend outing with the family of one of his
former Army buddies. I don’t think I enjoyed it very much; I was not avid for the
outdoors, in part because of my allergies. Furthermore, I was uncomfortable because
my mother had been reluctant to let me go since it meant missing Sunday Mass.
Daddy was just trying to be a dad, I suppose.
We were talking in my father’s room one day and he asked me what I wanted
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