Wisdom

My father was an accountant, a good one, we've been told. Every morning, he'd get up at 6, take the coffee left over from last night's dinner, place it in a little sauce pan with the flame turned up as high as possible, and then off he'd go to shave or whatever. Fifteen minutes later he'd return to a scalding caffeine crust that had to be scraped from the pan with a spoon. This and a piece of barely buttered toast was his breakfast. Talk about American heroes!

Then we wouldn't see him until the dusk was settling and he would pull up in his wide-bodied American sedan with the fins that could puncture a lung and his white shirt still crisp and glowing after nine hours of financials.

The first thing he'd want is the Daily News, which he'd peek at while he and my mom discussed their day. Then, if the weather was nice, he'd stand on the back porch and throw each of us popups. Tie or no tie, there was always something formal and instructive about these occasions. "Use two hands!" he'd yell as we camped underneath one of his high-arching tosses. Use two hands was my father's idea of the facts of life.