A Father's Day Appreciation

I’m taking a break from the regularly scheduled comics program for a brief Father’s Day Appreciation of my dear ol’ Dad – who I’m told also goes by “Salvador” but never “Sal” – and like a lot of people who are dearly loved has a string of nicknames too. To me, he’s simply “Dad.”

If you’ve been lucky enough to meet my father then you know he is a man of letters. He likes to read them, to write them, and to ponder them.

He spent 50+ years teaching and thirty of them was as professor of Spanish Language Literature and Poetry with emphasis on Don Quixote and Golden Age Poetry at Binghamton University. If he had his druthers he would be happy to teach for fifty more.

Retirement hasn’t slowed him down though and he continues to read books and analyze them. I believe he is making his way through all of Chinese history, though I can’t recall what dynasty he’s in at the moment.

There is a New Yorker cartoon by the great Harry Bliss that perfectly encapsulates my father’s love of reading…

My father is not just a reader but a writer too; of many articles and books on scholarly subjects, but namely of poetry and verse.

Growing up my siblings and I would get a personalized poem every birthday, graduation, or other special occasion.

My mother is his true muse though and he has written poems for every anniversary, Valentine’s day, and Mother’s day. They often rhyme; are playful in subject matter; smart but sweet; and always funny and heartfelt.

This lovely tradition now extends to his grandchildren, who get poems of their own. Over the years it’s become quite a collection...the only problem was it wasn’t collected.

So last year I asked my dad if I could collect them. He was befuddled at first – “who the hell wants to read those?” We loudly protested: “WE DO!” So he (reluctantly) obliged.

Now with my father’s blessing and my family’s help, we went about collecting all the cards, notes, envelopes, scraps of paper, and anything else my father scribbled verse on. And it is in fact scribbled, this is my father’s hand-writing…

It takes some deciphering, but like a good puzzle when you figure it out it’s very rewarding.

My father went on to transcribe the poems, edit them, refine them, and ultimately put them in a Word document and passed them on to me where I began to organize, collate, and put them together in book form. I also drew illustrations for many of them which was a fun addition.

Before long we shaped it into a proper collection which clocks in at 268 pages with well over 200 poems. Originally titled The Complete Verse we realized it was not complete since some poems were lost to time and my father actively still writes them. So my mother smartly suggested The Collected Verse.

Here’s a look at the finished book, titled The Tamarind after one of the pieces.

It was a lovely project to work on. I especially enjoyed reading my father’s verse and think about the events and people they were written for.

I also enjoyed reading them from the vantage of not just his son, but with distance as co-editor, which gave me an appreciation for the sheer volume of poetry he wrote, his style, how he thinks, and who is as a person. I really value the love and trust he placed in me to put this book together. For someone who is surrounded by books it was important he had one of his own.

The collection is primarily for family so I’ll keep the contents special for them. However, I do want to share the poem below which he wrote for me on my eleventh birthday. It will give you a sense of how wonderfully specific and heartfelt all his verse is.

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there and to my own especially – I love you, Dad!

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