I lost my father yesterday. He lived a long life that took him from radio-age Brownsville, Brooklyn, to the dawn of AI. When I was a kid, my favorite bedtime stories always involved him recreating his childhood in vivid detail. It was a paradise — the hot dogs at Kishke King on Pitkin Ave., the blackout cake at Ebinger’s, games of stickball, the movie houses. The theaters were one of the few places where he could experience air conditioning. On nights when the heat got so unbearable, he told me, they used to have to sleep on the fire escape. As a result of this experience, we grew up in a house where the AC was always blasting in the summer; one time when it broke down and needed to be replaced, we fled to a hotel lest we experience even one night without it. He also had a thing about wearing only cotton or other soft fibers due to his childhood trauma of itchy wool bathing suits.
He was a lover of history who, when I was growing up, always was working through a fat nonfiction book. One of my indelible memories is him falling asleep on grainy black and white World War II documentaries that were played at a volume loud enough for me to hear upstairs in my bedroom.
His career took him on many different paths — from aspiring cartoonist; to an advertising position during the Mad Men era; to a stint with the New York Jets (when they were still the Titans); to the novelty product business; to time as a candy importer (which went downhill, we were told, when a large shipment of bubble gum arrived from South America frozen solid). He wrote several books, including a novel on the fashion industry under a female pseudonym. But for the later decades of life, he rebuilt himself as a casino executive.
It is pretty clear that I would not be writing this here today if it were not for my dad, who instilled in me a love of learning and intellectual curiosity from a young age. He created a household where there was always vibrant debate. And by vibrant, I mean very loud, with lots of interrupting.
My father had the misfortune of starting a business during the late 1970s period of stagflation and high interest rates. As his fortunes turned around during the Reagan era, I grew up in a home where not only was National Review a regular presence, but where my dad would regularly rant about the disasters of the Carter years. I often tell people that my interest in politics began as a kid, when I was able to extend my bedtime if I convinced my dad I wanted to stay up late to see President Reagan speak. We watched the broadcast news at dinner every night, only for my dad to excoriate the left-wing bias. He did the New York Times crossword puzzle religiously for decades, but later in life he had the puzzle photocopied at the library so he didn’t have to give those libs any money.
He also gave my brothers and me the gift of a strong and stable marriage, which formally began months before the Cuban Missile Crisis. My mom remarked last night that tomorrow would be the first New Year’s Eve she would be spending without my dad since December 31, 1960, as their romance began the following fall.
My dad was especially interested in historical figures who overcame adversity in life through perseverance. This included Teddy Roosevelt and, above all, Winston Churchill. He was fond of repeating the Churchill quote, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty . . .” A sentiment he also echoed by singing, out of tune, the lyrics popularized by Frank Sinatra (one of many entertainers he got to meet in the casino business). “Each time I find myself layin’/Flat on my face/I just pick myself up and get/Back in the race.”
And so my dad lived that way, stubbornly refusing to give in, through all the ups and downs in his life, and through his more recent battles with various health issues.
God gave my dad 90 beautiful years. I celebrated his final birthday with him just last Friday by bringing him his favorite meal — takeout Chinese food. I feel blessed to have had so much time with him. But also, today is the first day of my life that I won’t have my father. That’s gonna take some getting used to. May he rest in peace.