This is a bitter-sweet time of the year for me. Spending Father’s Day with son Will and my wife Janet is an annual treat which I cherish dearly. Sharing that same day with Hank, the greatest father-in-law on earth for the last eighteen years was incredibly special to me as well, and something I will sorely miss following his recent passing. Hank was truly a wonderful Dad to me, a sentiment I was gratefully able to express to him during his final days. During my adulthood, however, the missing ingredient on this momentous day has always been my Dad, who passed twenty-five years ago while napping.
(Note: Four generations of men in my family died in their sleep at age sixty-eight, including my father and grandfather, a harbinger that sort of stands-up and demands to be noticed. On December 12, 2026 when I turn sixty-eight, I have decided to forgo sleeping, napping and resting of any kind, determined to once and for all end this dynasty of death. You will find me in front of my TV at 2:30 a.m. watching reruns of “Cheers” and guzzling a Red Bull or two, desperately trying to make it to dawn).
Charming, kind, and honest to a fault, my Pop was a simply lovely person. One of my favorite recollections of spending time with my Dad was the time the two of us decided to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. One of my Dad’s boyhood friends owned a summer home in the small town of Walton, New York, just twenty or thirty miles from Cooperstown, and had offered to board us for the weekend. It was an enormous old home that was rumored to have been a bordello of some note during the Civil War and would splendidly serve as headquarters for the adventure.
Every trip I accompanied my father on was an adventure, for, like me, Pops had no sense of direction. Dad could get lost in a one-way tunnel. Every time we went to Levittown, New York to visit Dad’s friend Nat we ended up at the beach miles from our destination. I started packing a swim suit whenever Dad mentioned Nat’s name. Come to think of it, I am not sure if I ever really met Nat or visited his home.
Unlike his son who has managed to embrace his own ineptitude, Dad took great exception to those who referred to him as “directionally challenged.” He would carefully plot his course with a collection of hand-made maps and written directions, shunning the help of his co-pilot. I had flown second seat enough times with my Dad to know that we would be hopelessly astray within minutes of leaving HQ.
Plowing aimlessly through the farmlands of rural New York, dad and I succeeded in turning an enchanting country ride into the Bataan Death March inside of ten minutes. We were so far off of the beaten path that our only hope would be to find a talking cow that was both familiar with area roads and was coincidently a baseball fan.
While Dad pulled over to check his maps I noticed a small house in the distance. We agreed to abandon our present strategy (pointless wandering) and headed for the farm house. When we arrived, a thin old man appeared in the yard and made his way to our vehicle. Dad rolled down his window and asked the gentleman “How do you get to Cooperstown?”
Asked that same question in my neighborhood that straight-line might prompted a wise guy retort like “Practice, Practice;” however, Henny Youngman most likely had not passed through this remote location during his Vaudeville days and such frivolous patter would be foreign to the hardworking man of the soil standing before us.
The farmer did provide us with detailed directions and punctuated his discourse by spraying my Dad’s light green Ford Torino’s door panel with tobacco juice.
Confident and well informed, we left our friend the farmer and within minutes we were lost again. Explaining driving directions to Kaufman & Son was like describing nuclear fission to a pair of flip-flops. Things had gotten ridiculous to the point of being funny. We were laughing and enjoying each other’s company, barely concerned that the day was getting late.
We spoke about life and about dreams as we drove in circles. Dad was a simple person of simple means. He always considered work as a “means to an end” and believed that he “started” living when he arrived home every night to his family. Often I have to remind myself how fortunate I am to have a family and how lucky I was to have Pops around for as long as I did.
We stumbled upon Cooperstown, purely by accident, sometime around 2 p.m. We toured the exhibits, walked the grounds and stayed until closing. It was a day that lives in my mind every time I watch the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies on television.
Pop and I ate dinner at a local café and loaded ourselves back into the tobacco stained Ford. Several minutes later we were back on the road without a notion as to where we were or in which direction we were going. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
By Jon Kaufman [email protected]