Hey there. If we know each other IRL or you have seen my most recent FB post, this newsletter probably won’t surprise you. I have been absent around these parts for quite some time. The Penny had a stroke a little more than three weeks ago. My father was admitted to the hospital December 21. I had been saying they were battling it out for who was going to live the longest into 2021. It looks like the diva dog took that crown.
My father was born in 1922, the year the first radio was installed in the White House. He spent the last five weeks of his life in the hospital, and I have never been more thankful for the technology that enabled us to communicate during that time. I FaceTimed with him from the airport yesterday, en route to see him. He died very early Sunday morning, peacefully and painlessly. (His death was not Covid-related.)
He made the most of his 98 years. He loved jokes, most of them dirty, and he would often laugh the hardest while regaling his audience. A resident of San Antonio for most of his adult life, he loved Tex-Mex and Chinese food (something only a true San Antonioan could appreciate). My well-documented interest in fortune cookie inserts can probably be traced back to him: “Man who lay woman…” (I can’t finish that pseudo-fortune for you. See above w/r/t inappropriate jokes).
He enjoyed sports, playing and coaching and watching. He was an avid vegetable and flower gardener and coin collector. He was a ham-radio operator and TV repairman in the mid-twentieth century. He loved bluegrass music, especially Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and when he was in a good mood you could get him to dance. He liked to play cards and dominoes. In fact, he was counting cards when I played with him just four months ago; you could not get anything past him.
He would drink Bloody Marys or bourbon and cokes but he’d rather have Coors Light. He loved dessert, especially ice cream. He fought in WWII as part of the Normandy Invasion but he was a very humble man. He loved to read, books about the war but mostly magazines and newspapers—the best gift you could bring him from any trip was the local paper from wherever you had been. He worked for the San Antonio newspapers for fifty years, retiring only at my mother’s and my insistence, when he was 75.
More than anything, he loved my mother. He loved all of his family—his immediate family, his extended family, his church family, his softball family—and he loved to have fun. He loved to see the people he loved having fun.
Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, think of your favorite joke (even better if it’s salacious) and have some dessert or raise a glass to Cecil.
I wrote this short essay about my father years ago. I hope to write a lot more about him in the future. All I’ve ever wanted was for the people I love to meet him and know him and love him. To me, Cecil will always be newsprint and Brylcreem and Aqua Velva and yellow roses.
[header image credit: Jay Brown]
Sincere condolences on the loss
of your father, AW. What a wonderful tribute to him here and, over the last decade, all over your Twitter feed. America truly doesn’t make ‘em like this any more, to our detriment. May all your many beautiful memories of this wonderful father, husband, soldier and friend be a comfort to you and your family. Raising a glass to you all as I write, with a dessert on deck. @dandavenport
I'm not on social media that much lately, so I didn't know The Penny and Cecil were both ill. Your posts about your dad made him real for me. Through you, I came to love him, and I am so sorry to read that he has died. But, I am glad he lived a long, full, happy life with the love of his wife and his daughter. I am also very glad you got to stay in touch with him via FaceTime. Sending you and your family love and support. Anything you write about wonderful Cecil I will read with pleasure. Take care, my dear one. xo.