The Man Behind the (Dried) Meat

I've always loved the fact that my all-business, by-the-book dad is a closet creative.

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The inventor of smile pellets, and the Booby Fairy, and the use of "potlicker" as a curse word, he wanted to be a park ranger, but studied accounting because Ohio Edison would pay for it. Exceedingly (sometimes frustratingly) practical, Dad has always been a little magical to me.

He read me poetry at bedtime and, each spring, plotted our vegetable garden on graph paper. He was briefly the lead singer in a band and played kazoo for Youngstown State University. He can whistle like Bing Crosby, and he always baited my hook so I wouldn't have to touch the worms. Dad gave us kids presents on his birthday and wrapped my Christmas cucumbers and green peppers in the Sunday comics. 

Dad's hobby is antique cars, but he spent a decade without them because Mom wanted to go boating. He is a painter and a wood carver and a storyteller—and the illustrator of my very first book (written in fourth grade).

He can be curmudgeonly and stubborn. And thoughtful in hidden, deeply personal ways. He's old-fashioned and complex. And incredibly generous. He has the most integrity of anyone I've ever known, and if I've learned anything from him, it may just be how to make great jerky.