Today would have been my late father’s 60th birthday.

I’m not yet a champion when it comes to planning content ahead of time – the realization of today’s meaning struck me an hour ago – so I wanted to spit out a few words and memories about the (6-foot-9) Big Man while I have enough coffee in my system to think straight.

I knew my father when he was between the ages of 28 and 46. Now being 31 myself, I feel like I’m just starting to understand so much about him.

At times, it was very difficult to grasp my father’s personality because of the schedule he worked in order to support Mom and us kids. It was usual for him to be up at 3 a.m., chugging black coffee and driving his Ford pickup to the family welding shop. He’d be back in the afternoon around 12 hours later, clearly drained, but steadfast enough to hang out and humor my elementary-school conversations around the TV until his body finally gave out. He often fell asleep in front of the tube, rising again from the armchair itself a few hours later to start the marathon workday anew.

As such, the way I got to know Dad best was on the weekends, when he ran the satellite television package like an MVP quarterback in the West Coast offense, hopping between The Twilight Zone, classic movies, fishing coverage, the Weather Channel, and of course, every live sports program he could find. I would ask him questions about the game, or work, or school, or life in general, as he popped between college hoops, pro football, and the occasional Austin Powers movie.

I never saw him laugh as hard about anything as he did watching the third Austin Powers movie, “Goldmember.” I’ll never understand it – I just know that I inherited his ability to scream while laughing at the same time.

His favorite snacks were cigarettes, usually Cambridge 100’s and Camel Blues, and a can of Budweiser poured directly into a Packers highball glass. Occasionally he munched on “Puffcorn Delites,” a faux-popcorn experience he preferred to most chips and popcorn because nothing got stuck in his teeth afterwards. On rare occasions, he busted out the grill for steaks. He took pride in his ability to make the LaFave family legacy Caesar salad, which naturally, I never tried while he was alive due to my picky palate.

(I heard it was really, really good.)

In the 13 years he’s been gone, I’ve had plenty of time to think about my father’s legacy. The basketball side of it, I’m pretty much done telling. At this point, I’m more intrigued by the softer side of the mustachioed behemoth I watched eat deli meat straight from the refrigerator at 2 in the morning. Maybe it’s because I’m in my 30’s now, and I’ve become that same graceless monster, but he’s not around for me to use as a generational measuring stick, so to speak.

It was one thing to lose his wisdom before I went to college, Dad being the only family member that had chosen the higher education route, but where the fuck is he now that I need to have conversations on gray hair and adult acne?

(Don’t be mad at me for swearing – he’d find it funny that I actually let an F-bomb go.)

Dad was a bit of a prankster. His signature move was to interrupt a pick-up game of basketball in the driveway with the classic “give me the ball” pose and scream “I’M OPEN.” We’d excitedly rocket the ball his way so he could play – at which point, he immediately no-sold each pass by walking away disinterestedly, letting the ball pass by him untouched.

The ball would bounce about 100 feet away into the yard or down the driveway, and he’d say “you touched it last” before skirting into the house with a grin on his face.

He was a really thoughtful guy, too: Dad once bought me a set of tools at the hardware store because I was curious about learning how they worked. We were on a random Saturday morning trip to buy air filters in 1999. He ended up buying me a $100 starter set on the spot, which I knew even in that grade-school age was exceptionally generous. In the car, I asked if he could afford it. He clocked me with some life-changing wisdom: never worry about the price of something you’ll use every day of your life.

It’s a total cliché for the son-father relationship, but my Dad was a real wisdom machine:

“I’d rather have it and need it, than need it and not have it.”

“If you’re not having fun, then why are you doing it?”

“Tell them you love them while you can.”

Dad was weirdly ominous about his life in the few weeks before he died. He kept talking about how his funeral needn’t be anything more than a picture of him smiling and holding a beer, with RUSH playing on repeat in the background. 

When he died two weeks later, I made sure we played RUSH at the showing. We buried him in a Packers jersey, too. Everything he would have wanted. 

I bawled my eyes out, but it felt so very right. He was a deeply genuine man whose pleasures were among the most simple. 

Obviously, I wish he could have stayed around to have some cake (or a Bud or some Puffcorn) to celebrate 60 years this evening. Odds are good he would have been asleep in the armchair by 6 p.m. anyways.

I think I’ll get up to some scream-laughing tonight in his honor. Maybe listen to some RUSH, too.

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-moose