Happy Birthday

I’m launching this website later today. First website, first blog, but that is not the point of this post. Today is my father’s birthday, he’d be 69 (nice) if he were still with us. Rest in peace. For a man that claimed to have read only one book in his life, he was one hell of a story teller. The book was Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House. As a gag for Christmas one year, I bought my dad a plush Kurt Vonnegut doll. I taped a sign to its hands that read: “Will work for food”.

It made my dad laugh, so it goes.

I have the plushy Kurt Vonnegut now. He sits on my bookshelf, sign still in hand. I look at him sometimes, surrounded by books and wonder how my dad got through life reading only Welcome to the Monkey House. He gave me the copy of the book that he had read. The cover had fallen off, but he taped it back on. I no longer have that book, but I wish I did.

I began writing after my father passed. But I bet, if I had finished before then, he would have read two books in his life.

Happy Birthday Dad.