One of the items I inherited from my dad is a guitar. I’m not much of a musician, but one of my goals this year is to learn guitar at least well enough to play some chords rather than just making noise.

I think I inherited that desire to learn, no matter my age, from Dad as well. He made his living as a chemist, but he had plenty of hobbies – photography and clock-making, woodworking and calendar-printing. He knew more about computers than I did, and his skills at keeping cars running were legendary.

I want to write about all these things. I want to find a way to write something cohesive, a full-fledged story, about the man. I tell myself that story will come in time. But for now, I’ll tell his story in bits and pieces.

Wish you were here.

A few years back, at my last newspaper job, I wrote a Father’s Day column in which I pointed out that somewhere along the line, my dad and I had “swapped” music tastes.

I mean, we didn’t really. But I found it interesting how the old man’s interest in music by the likes of Metallica, Guns N Roses and Nirvana grew over time. And likewise, I had a stretch of time where I started listening to Simon & Garfunkel and other music from the 60s and 70s. Broadening my horizons, so to speak.

But however much I enjoyed Pink Floyd’s music, my dad was a much bigger fan. So much so that, when he was putting together a playlist of music to be played at his funeral service — my parents are quite the planners, by the way — the vast majority of the songs were by Pink Floyd.

We didn’t get to play that playlist at my dad’s funeral service, because there really wasn’t one. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the service, such as it was, consisted of his seven immediate family members — my mom, my brother and sister-in-law, my wife and I, and my nephew and his girlfriend — sitting around the funeral home talking for an hour before we went to the cemetery for a graveside service.

It is what it is, of course. But I wanted to say goodbye in some sort of way. That’s why this page is here, and that’s why I made a playlist of those songs to post here.

How I wish you were here, indeed.

Psych.

My dad liked to fish, so by extension, we went fishing a lot when I was a kid. It wasn’t my favorite activity, which my parents used to play a cute little joke on me in the spring of 1980.

The Empire Strikes Back was coming out, and as a certified Star Wars nut, I was counting down the days to when I would be able to see this new Star Wars movie.

But the weekend Empire was supposed to come out, I was told we would be going fishing instead.

What kind of madness is this? There’s finally a new Star Wars movie out and you expect me to go fishing instead?!

Of course not. It was just a chance to egg the little geek on, and I imagine my older brother had a lot of input on this messing with my poor fragile psyche.

Still, given my dad’s wicked sense of humor, I imagine he had some say in it as well.

Good one.

‘I am myself, like you somehow’

There’s a song on Pearl Jam’s debut album that I admittedly didn’t listen to as much at the time. “Release” was the last song on the album and a bit plodding to go out on.

But it resonates with me now, simultaneously one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs while also the one I dread the most. It’s because of those lyrics:

Oh, dear dad
Can you see me now?
I am myself
Like you somehow
I’ll ride the wave
Where it takes me
I’ll hold the pain
Release me

Oh, dear dad
Can you see me now?
I am myself
Like you somehow
I’ll wait up in the dark
For you to speak to me
I’ll open up
Release me

I certainly didn’t have the complicated relationship with my father that Eddie Vedder had with his. But those lyrics (“I’ll wait up in the dark / For you to speak to me”) hit hard.