Oh No! Not Another @#%&@# Neck Tie!

 “LOST MUSKET DIARY” Sunday June 21, 2015

Cloudy Followed by Sunshine- High 85°F/29°C in Rancho Santa Margarita

Buongiorno,

Happy Dad's Day, Me!
with Jordan and Jaydan

   Puh-leeze! Spare me the ugly tie! AND… the socks, the golf tees, and the new bowling ball. (I haven’t even bowled in this century), or the ski wax, or that DVD of Sinatra’s Greatest Hits! I’ve already gotten my Father’s Day present. In fact, I have had it for years. It’s something I’ve shared for ages with my late wife, Donna. My first Father’s Day gift came into my life on May 29, 1969-just a few days after a man first set foot on the moon. My Father’s Day gifts all have names: Dana Lynne, Michael, Joshua, Jacob, Jessie Lynne, Jordan and Jaydan. Now, I despise the idea of celebrating Father’s Day

Mikey, Donna and Dana

gumming my way through the Senior Citizen Special at Denny’s. My idea of a great Father’s Day gift is raising great kids…..and grand-kids. In this category, I am wealthy beyond King Midas’ wildest expectations.

   So, today is Father’s Day! A holiday I’ve been celebrating for forty-six years! My anniversary as a familial propagator. (I know my daughter will blush because I just gave away her age, and women don’t like guys who snitch them off like that). But, the fact of the matter is that forty-six years ago today I first heard the words,  Happy Father’s Day, Mike! And, to compound matters, I am also rejoicing in my twenty-second year as a Grandfather. So, I’m the one who’s entitled to celebrate. Not the other way around.

Numero Uno - Dana Lynne

   A long time ago some money-grubbing marketing guys saw how Mother’s Day and Christmas and Kwanzaa and Eid and Chanukah boosted the bottom lines of the world’s peddlers of stuff and provided still more sustenance for the thrift shops and landfill sites of the world, and invented – Father’s Day! So while other families drag their geezers into overcrowded restaurants and shower him with bad neckties, shirts, golf balls and tees, fishing tackle and Lawrence Welk records for the next donation to Goodwill, I’m just going to enjoy the Father’s Day present I started receiving many years ago – my kids! I’m not going to sit in my rocking chair with a shawl around my shoulders sucking on a lemon and telling stories of Oh Mein Papa! Nope! I’m gonna share my Father’s Day gift by showing you a bunch of baby pictures of the very kids that made ME a father and a grandfather. How’s that for turning the tables on the bad necktie brigade.

Dana at One!

First, there’s the Senior Kid, my daughter Dana Lynne. She started life as a frail, colicky little thing weighing just five pounds. Early on being so frail and sickly, she caused enough worry and anxiety for Donna and me to last a lifetime. But, she went on to thrive and eventually grew to be a teenager. That’s when our worries and anxieties really began.

  Junior kid is Michael Stephen. Donna picked his name. Now, Stephen is a name that does not exist in either my late wife’s family, or mine. Donna drew the line at naming our son after me. “I just don’t want our son to go through his entire life being called, “Junior,” she said. So she made up a middle name for him. Michael Stephen Botula! Donna was right, of course! No one calls him Junior. Nope! Practically all of his life he has been called Mikey! Hey Mikey! To this day, (and he just

"Hey, Mikey!"

turned 42), I have to check the spelling on his birth certificate to make sure Stephen has a “ph” in the middle, and not a “v.”

   Right around this time of year, when the first commercials for Father’s Day start blaring out of the TV, I’m prompted to think back on prior years of my fatherhood. My first Father’s Day came just a few weeks after Dana was born, and with her health being what it was, we were worrying that we might not be celebrating it a year hence. But, she came through and she grew into a healthy and beautiful little girl. Five years later, young Michael Stephen joined the family. By then, we had moved up from our mobile home into our first house, where we raised two young native Californians. Even with the five year age difference, Mike and Dana are very close. And, in spite of the geographical distances that have separated all of us from time to time over the years, we are a very close-knit family.

"The GREEN wire, Joshua!"

Jacob and Jessica

Eventually, Dana grew up, married, and began presenting Donna and I with grandchildren. Our first grandson is Joshua, now 22 and a U.S. Marine, who just told me in a phone conversation that he’s in training to be a bomb disposal technician. You know what that is, Grandpa! He said to me, that’s the guy on TV that wears a big suit of blast armor who always winds up cutting the right wire, the GREEN WIRE!  Hey! What can I tell you? He’s a MARINE, not a little kid anymore. There was a long hiatus in the Procreation Game in Dana’s life. After she married Jason, they started their own family. Now I have five grandkids. 

Jacob is nine. Jessica is eight. After a few years went by, they were expecting again. And then, another miracle happened –TWINS! During the first few days in the hospital nursery, the girls were tagged “A” and “B.” “Baby A” became Jordan and “Baby B” became Jaydan.

My dad-Charlie Botula

   So, THAT, gentle reader is my Father’s Day story. No neckties, no shirts, no new bowling ball, just a whole bunch of smiling little faces. That is the best present a guy could get on Father’s Day!

  And, I know that my own dad, Charlie Botula, would approve this message!

Ciao,

MikeBo

©Mike Botula 2015