My dad’s birthday is too awesome for a title

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I’m lucky. I have a good, comfortable relationship with my dad that few of my friends enjoy with their own dad. We talk, joke, laugh, talk business. It wasn’t always that way and part of me really regrets the time lost. When I miss a call or a visit, the morbid part of me – with banyan tree roots reaching thick and unerringly to family medical history and age and distance – I ache with a lost opportunity that I will never get back.

So, Today was his birthday, and if you can believe it, while I’m watching a PBS show on genealogy it occurs to me to call him.  He’s home, and we talk for 15 minutes  not a record by any stretch, but as EST fades to late evening and MST sits down to dinner, we keep it brief and light, yet full.

Happy birthday to my Father — Isaac Points, IV.

Happy Birthday, Leader One. I love you.

To counter the inevitable questions, yes that is me and my father, circa 1973.

Dad Circa 1955. He’s the dapper looking gentlemen, not the fat baby about to hit the floor (that would be my Uncle “New Wave” Dave). The girl holding the fat baby is my Aunt Sharyl, and the cutie on the left is my Aunt Tootsie (Christened Audrienne), who passed away in 1996.

Dad and his girls in 1999. Yes, I had braces. No, I don’t want to talk about it.

l. to r. – Me, Dad, Lisa, and Shannon.

I can’t really find any later photos of me and him (that aren’t blurry or make me look like a greased up whale), but he’s due back in town next month and I’ll make sure I get new pics of us. One every decade should be the norm.