The day started all wrong. I had no newspaper. I hunted under the car, in the flower bed and along the driveway. No paper. Stolen? Maybe. My newspaper, my Globe, is always there. Perhaps a passing runner or dog walker decided to start the day with coffee and a newspaper. That’s how I usually start my day.

My leg is so much better. It hurts mostly in the evening. The top of the foot and the bottom of the leg are still swollen. That’s where the pain is. I’m tired of this.

Nala stole my new package of paper towels. It was unopened on the floor in the living room near the door. I went looking for it yesterday. I found it on the deck and in the yard, torn pieces all over the place. I cleaned the deck. Today I’ll tackle the yard. This morning Nala grabbed my sandal from the rug by the door on her way to going out for the first time of the morning. She looked at me with it in her mouth. I told her to drop it. She didn’t. Nor did she drop it at my second request. She went to the door where the inevitable dawned. She was not getting out with the sandal so she dropped it. I’m wearing it now. That dog is brazen and funny.

When I was a kid, we did the White Mountains, a one day tour. I remember my father driving up Mt. Washington. I found the trip both scary and thrilling. The road was narrow, just big enough for the two cars with a bit of space between them. I remember how cold it was at the top and that there was snow, a couple of piles of it. On that trip we also saw the Old Man in the Mountain. We went by it in the car. My father slowed down, and we looked out the window. Another spot where we stopped was the Flume Gorge. We got the last bus of the day. I remember walking back to the car.

I remember my first weekend in Accra, the capital of Ghana. We were still in training and were in Koforidua. It is 83km between the two cities, about 50 or so miles. I hitchhiked to Accra with a couple of friends. We got one ride all the way. We stayed at the hostel, the best 50 pesewas I ever spent and would ever continue to spend over the next two years. I remember going to the museum and walking to different monuments. I ate at a restaurant. We rambled that first weekend. We saw as much as we could before heading back to Koforidua and the rest of training. That weekend was the beginning of my love affair with Accra, still very much an old city back then. I loved to wander the streets and markets. I never had a plan except for maybe a movie one night. That was a big city event.

This is my annual Father’s Day post. Many of you read it every year. It is about my amazing father, my funny and loving father. It brings back a rush of memories every time I read it. It makes me smile and long for my father. He was one of a kind in the best of all possible ways. This morning, as soon as I woke up, I wished him a Happy Father’s Day.

In my front garden are a couple of ground cover plants. They have been there for years. My father planted them for me. One weekend he and my mother came down to visit. My dad brought his lawn mower, a hand mower, garden tools and those few plants. While my mother and I shopped, my dad mowed the lawn in the front and the back. Both yards were fields no longer. He weeded the garden. I could see the flowers. The garden was lovely. I get to remember that weekend every time I go out the front gate and see my father’s plants. They touch my heart.

I have so many memories of growing up, of family trips and my dad trying to whack at us from the front seat and never succeeding, of playing whist in the kitchen, with the teams being my mom and me against my dad and brother, of Sunday rides, of going to the drive-in and the beach and of being loved by my dad. Memories of my dad are with me always, but today my memories are all of my dad, and my heart is filled to the brim with missing him. When I close my eyes, I see him so clearly.

On a warm day he’d be sitting on the front steps with his coffee cup beside him while reading the paper. He’d have on a white t-shirt and maybe his blue shorts. He’d wave at the neighbors going by in their cars. They all knew him and would honk back. He loved being retired, and we were glad he had a few years of just enjoying life.

He was the funniest guy, mostly on purpose but lots of times by happenstance. We used to have Dad stories, all those times when we roared and he had no idea why. He used to laugh along with us and ask, “What did I say? What did I say?” We were usually laughing too hard to tell him. He was a good sport about it.

I know you’ve heard this before, but it is one of my favorite Dad stories. He, my mom and I were in Portugal. I was driving. My dad was beside me. On the road, we had passed many piggyback tandem trucks, all hauling several truck loads behind them. On the back of the last truck was always the sign Vehiculo Longo. We came out of a gas station behind one of those. My father nonchalantly noted, “That guy Longo owns a lot of trucks.” I was laughing so hard I could barely drive and my mother, in the back seat, was doubled over in laughter.

My father wasn’t at all handy around the house. Putting up outside lights once, he gave himself a shock which knocked him off his step-ladder. He once sawed himself out of a tree by sitting on the wrong end of the limb. The bookcase he built in the cellar had two shelves, one on the floor and the other too high to use. He said it was lack of wood. When painting the house once, the ladder started to slide, but he stayed on his rung anyway with brush in hand. The stroke of the paint on the house followed the path of his fall. Lots of times he set his shoe or pant leg on fire when he was barbecuing. He was a big believer in lots of charcoal lighter fluid.

My father loved games, mostly cards. We played cribbage all the time, and I loved making fun of his loses, especially if I skunked him. When he won, it was superb playing. When I won, it was luck. I remember so many nights of all of us, including aunts and uncles, crowding around the kitchen table playing cards, especially hi-lo jack. He loved to win and we loved lording it over him when he lost.

My father always said he never snacked, and my mother would roll her eyes. He kept chocolate under the couch, hidden from everyone else, but, we, everyone else, knew. He loved Pilot Crackers covered with butter. Hydrox was his preferred cookie. His vanilla ice cream was always doused with Hershey’s syrup. That man did love his chocolate.

My father was a most successful businessman. He was hired to turn a company around and he did. He was personable and funny and remembered everyone’s names. Nobody turned him down.

My father always went out Sunday mornings for the paper and for donuts. He never remembered what kind of donut I like. His favorite was plain. He’d make Sunday breakfast when I visited: bacon, eggs and toast. I can still see him standing over the stove with a dish towel over his shoulders. He always put me in charge of the toast.

If I ever needed anything, I knew I could call my father. He was generous. When we went out to eat, he always wanted to pay and was indignant when we one upped him by setting it up ahead of time that one of us paid. One Christmas he gave us all $500.00, not as a gift but to buy gifts.

My father left us when he was far too young. It was sudden. He had a heart attack. I had spoken with him just the day before. It was pouring that day, and I told him how my dog Shauna was soaked. He loved that dog and told me to wipe his baby off. I still remember that whole conversation. I still miss my father every day.