Words and Music – #FathersDay #LoveLetters #Legacy

  Image by Petra from Pixabay

I’ve blogged before about my Dad – how much I loved him and how in many ways he’s responsible for my becoming an author.

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2019/06/second-generation-storyteller.html

Dad was a word guy. Though he was Jewish rather than Irish, he had the classic gift of gab. He could talk to anyone, convincingly, about anything – even topics about which he knew very little. Meanwhile, he wrote for the fun of it, not just stories but also poetry and songs.

But music was in his blood, as well as language. He was playing in a “Big Band” group, along with adults, when he was only ten. Although he never went professional, he was adept at half a dozen instruments and participated in community orchestras throughout his life.

Both the words and the music are his legacy to me. They come together when I write. While I am typing away at my computer, pouring out words, I’m also hearing the melody of the phrases and sentences I create.

I began writing poetry when I was in first grade. These days, I produce prose more often than poem. Read my paragraphs aloud, though, and some of them, at least, sound like blank verse.

Thinking about him today, Father’s Day, I remembered a snippet of his history that you may appreciate. Dad served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, providing training in aircraft maintenance. Fortunately he didn’t see any combat. Anyway, given his glib sociability, he was apparently quite popular. His fellow servicemen would come to him for assistance when they wanted to contact their distant girlfriends. Before long, my father had a flourishing business writing love letters for his friends.

I wish I could read some of those letters now. I suspect that he was both eloquent and convincing. Meanwhile, I can’t help but be struck by the fact that more than eighty years later, his daughter is still writing about love.