Reflections from Modern Memoirs Client Kenneth Kaplan, M.D.

Kenneth Kaplan, M.D. published his book entitled The McGill Years: Je Me Souviens with Modern Memoirs in 2023. This Assisted Memoir took one year from the day he first contacted us to the day books arrived on his doorstep. We asked Kaplan to reflect on what the publication process was like for him, and what it has meant to share his book with others.

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1. Your book is a true memoir, focusing on a specific period of time in your life: the seven years that you lived in Montréal, Québec as an undergraduate and graduate student, before attending medical school in New York. Why did you choose to write a memoir, as opposed to telling the entire story of your life in a full autobiography? Who are your intended readers?

Kenneth Kaplan: I consider myself a scientist with limited artistic skills, so when I embarked on writing my first book, I really wanted to limit the scope of the subject in order to give myself the best chance to achieve my goal. In fact, I never considered writing an autobiography because of the grand scale of such an undertaking and the fact that I don’t consider my life to have such a unique or extraordinary quality to warrant an autobiography. Therefore, I stuck to a time in my life that is truly near and dear to me and encompasses experiences that energized, refined, and ultimately shaped my adult life going forward. My intended audience is very basic: family, friends, and anyone else who has a fond connection to McGill University and Montréal. In my case, the connection to McGill and Montréal includes my wife, my son, and my daughter-in-law.

2. Describe your writing process. Do you have journals from your McGill years? Or did you rely on memory and other sources?

Kenneth Kaplan: Well, I really didn’t have a structured writing process but rather a simple desire to accomplish the goal of writing a memoir so that I could share my experiences and talk about the people I love the most, my family. As I state in my dedication, the memoir evolves into a love story about my wife, Johanne, and me. I didn’t keep any journals during my McGill years, so I relied completely on my memory, which took a lot of intense recollection, reflection, and extraction of events from 40 years ago. Of course, on occasion I did resort to Google to ensure the accuracy of some of the historical facts and events in my recounted memories. But the thoughts, words, sentence structure, and organization are all my own, for better or worse.

3. What inspired you to write this book about your college years when you did, in early retirement at the age of 60?

Kenneth Kaplan: In the early 2000s I decided that I would write a memoir about my McGill years. In fact, I started a Word document in 2004 in which I typed the title and prologue. I saved it on every new PC that I purchased over the years, knowing that I would return to finish it when I had the time. That time finally came shortly after retiring in 2018 at age 60. I just had to keep all of those memories bottled up for 14 years before unleashing them! While my recollections may have been buried a little deeper over those 14 years, the ultimate telling of my story probably benefited from the deferment. With the perspective of time, I was better able to appreciate how setbacks ultimately served a purpose in shaping my life’s journey, in which I truly have no regrets.

4. You are an American who chose to study in another country, albeit one that borders the U.S. What have you learned about yourself—as a learner, a writer, an American—as a result of writing a memoir about your education in francophone Canada?

Kenneth Kaplan: I was the only student in my high-school graduating class to study outside the United States, and I was undoubtedly rewarded for making what seemed like a bold and unconventional decision at that time. While moving away from family and friends and the familiarity of American culture was at times difficult, it taught me that I was able to stand on my own and adapt to unfamiliar and challenging circumstances. Notably, my time in francophone Canada resulted in meeting my future wife, getting an unrivaled university education, having the chance to live in an incredible and beautiful multicultural city, and getting exposure to a culture and language that I would not have been able to experience anywhere else in North America.

5. Would you say that publication feels like the completion of something in your life, or the start of something new?

Kenneth Kaplan: The publication of my memoir definitely feels like the completion of a goal that I set for myself many years ago, and I could not be more pleased with the final product created by Modern Memoirs. While I don’t think it will lead to any additional publications, I won’t completely rule out the possibility. However, right now I’m just concentrating on enjoying life in retirement while keeping fit both mentally and physically.

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Liz Sonnenberg is genealogist for Modern Memoirs.

What’s in My Book of Delights? My Dad’s Knack for Joy

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My dad, Miguel Solis, and me at my graduation from Smith College, May 2023

 Soon after my graduation from Smith College in May 2023, I joined the online alumnae book club. The very first title selected for the group has turned out to be a book I know I will always cherish. The Book of Delights is a collection of lyrical essays by poet Ross Gay, though I strongly believe the project could be called a memoir. Gay wrote the book by observing and exploring the concept of delight through daily essays written over the course of a year, many of which weave in elements of his personal history. Reading this exuberant, provocative work is like a slap of fresh wind to the face as it defies a world that so often devalues and dilutes delight. It challenges us to nurture delight when we are constantly told that it is trivial. Inspired by Gay’s fierce declaration of this ethos of delight, I decided to start keeping a book of delights, too, for my own remembrance and enjoyment.

“sticking out like a lit match in a room of mild-mannered adults.”

My dad showing off his “Smith College Dad” T-shirt, October 30, 2019

My dad buckling in my sibling Rafael for a 5th grade class trip, May 17, 2017

I also drew inspiration from my father, Miguel Solis Jr., since he embodies Gay’s ethos of delight in his own way, as a Mexican American man from El Paso, Texas. He possesses an amazing ability to delight (there’s no better word for it) everyone around him while being nothing like them, sticking out like a lit match in a room of mild-mannered adults. Put another way, he’s always been comfortable with, or has even delighted in, being the odd one out. For example, despite coming from a culture of machismo, my dad never had any issues joining me in girly activities, or talking about being my stay-at-home parent for my first couple of years. I remember walking into a new Girl Scouts troop meeting as a little kid and finding I was the only one with a dad in tow instead of a mom. But soon my dad was wowing the crowd, milking his outsider status to provoke everyone’s raucous laughter, and finding camaraderie and solidarity with the moms. Any nervousness I’d felt about being the different kid melted away.

My dad has always followed wherever laughter led him, taking my siblings and me along for the ride. A few years after that Girl Scout meeting, he attended a “bike rodeo” event at school, at which he jumped on one of our small bikes and zipped up and down the asphalt, looking much like a gorilla on a tricycle (he said so himself). My teacher and classmates shrieked with laughter, and my siblings and I felt giddy with pride in our fearless, funny dad. Another time, in the humid hallway where kids crammed together waiting to get picked up after school, everyone had tuned out the urgent monotone of names called for dismissal over the loudspeaker. Then we snapped back to attention when we heard, “Mickey Mouse!” “Donald Duck!” “Spongebob Squarepants!” and I grinned with my friends as we realized that the call was for me.

My dad on a swingset in Austin, Texas, January 11, 2015

“I’ve come to see his knack for joy as a superpower of sorts. He lives with delight, no matter how persistently the larger world ignores or discourages it”

Perhaps the greatest power of delight is that it does much more than brighten up a slightly boring day; it helps us live, and it helps us connect. I was surprised to learn recently about the Latinx Paradox, which highlights that Latinx Americans generally live longer than non-Latinx white Americans, despite having higher health risks and lower incomes on average. One of the proposed explanations, which has been supported by small studies so far, is that Latinx people laugh on more occasions and live closer to family on average, leading to happier, healthier, longer lives. I can’t help but think about my dad and the rest of my Mexican American family in this context, boldly inserting themselves into the non-Latinx social fabrics of schools, jobs, and neighborhoods with joy and openness; but this paradox can remind everyone of the concrete power of delight. As people, we are meant for delight. Our physiology itself rewards it.

Through reading Gay’s book and thinking about my dad, I’ve come to see his knack for joy as a superpower of sorts. He lives with delight, no matter how persistently the larger world ignores or discourages it, and I am profoundly grateful for his example. And so, in his honor and inspired by Gay, I share my delight of the day, the one I’ve written on the first page of my own book of delights: the delight of laughing along with my dad and the rest of my family.

Now it’s your turn: What will be at the front of your own “Book of Delights”? A person? A place? A hobby? A memory? Write it down in the comments if you’d like. Then get a journal, or open a new document on your computer, and keep on writing—and delighting in doing so.

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Emma Solis is publishing associate for Modern Memoirs.

Seizing Joy at the Start of School with a Schultüte

A sampler stitched by Megan St. Marie’s mother hangs above a lamp in her Modern Memoirs office, 2023

This post is the eighth in a series-in-progress by company president Megan St. Marie about heirlooms and objects related to her family history that she keeps in her office to inform and inspire her work at Modern Memoirs. 

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Sampler closeup

Megan St. Marie’s son Jesse sits at his desk for remote kindergarten in her former Modern Memoirs office, with the sampler hanging over the coat hook, fall 2020.

Megan St. Marie holds a Schultüte that her neighbors gifted to her son Zachary to celebrate his first day of kindergarten, 2023

Schultüte closeup

Zachary opens his Schultüte, 2023.

Zachary follows big brother Jesse onto the school bus for his first day of kindergarten, 2023.

When I was a child, my mother was an avid cross-stitcher who made countless projects to decorate our home and give as gifts. One such item now hangs in my Modern Memoirs office, an alphabet from a pattern based on a sampler dating back to 1838. I’ve read that such pieces were often made by young girls as they learned to stitch and to read and write. When my now-eight-year-old son, Jesse, daily came to my Modern Memoirs office for remote kindergarten classes at the height of the pandemic, I hung my mother’s sampler by his little desk as a symbol of her encouragement and love, and as a handy visual reference while he learned his letters.

Remote schooling is thankfully a thing of the past, but the sampler still hangs in my office, a reminder of when children couldn’t go to learn and play in person with their classmates and teachers. Jesse, now in third grade, joyfully boards the school bus each morning, and this year, his little brother, Zachary, joined him as a brand-new kindergartener. While no part of me misses remote schooling, I had many big, mixed emotions in anticipation of the start of this school year as I prepared to send my “Last Baby” (as I affectionately refer to Zachary in our family of seven children) off to school. Then, an act of neighborly kindness helped me seize joy, even as I grieve the end of a precious chapter in my life as a mother.

“Growing up is not a tragedy; it’s a birthright.”

The afternoon before the first day of kindergarten, a friend in my neighborhood texted to ask if she and her family could drop off a gift for Zachary. No one was at our house at the time, so I told her I would stop by to pick up the present when I walked home from work. When I arrived on their doorstep, these incredibly kind, generous, fun neighbors presented me with a Schultüte, which is a festive paper cone filled with little treats, toys, and school supplies to celebrate a child’s first day of kindergarten. Isn’t that just wonderful? And guess what? They made one for all of the kindergarteners in our neighborhood!

As a person of Irish and Franco American heritage, I’d never heard of this German tradition before, but I am officially integrating it into my gift-giving life from this day forward. Beginnings are as important as endings, after all, with A just as necessary as Z in the sampler my mother stitched. So, like we mark high-school graduation with pomp and circumstance, a Schultüte heralds the start of elementary school as a milestone worth celebrating, too.

I admit, I burst into tears after the bus pulled away with Zachary ecstatically off to his first day of kindergarten; but remembering his huge smile as he waved to me through the window helped me recover pretty quickly. As I write in one of my Book Bonding essays, “Growing up is not a tragedy; it’s a birthright.”[i]

Zachary may be my last baby to start school, but thanks to my wonderful neighbors, I can look forward to celebrating all the future kindergarteners in my life with a Schultüte. Yes, in the A to Zs of life, beginnings are as important as endings, and I’m embracing this time in the middle as the heart of it all.

i Lambert, Megan Dowd. Book Bonding: Building Connections Through Family Reading. Imagine Publishing, 2023.

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Megan St. Marie is President of Modern Memoirs.

Reflections from David Gryboski, Son of Modern Memoirs Client Robert André Gryboski, MD

Left: My Autobiography (2022) and right: Me and Shakespeare: Personal Interpretations of Twelve Plays (2023), by Modern Memoirs client Robert André Gryboski, MD

Robert André Gryboski, MD published two books with Modern Memoirs. The first, entitled My Autobiography, came out in 2022. The second, entitled Me and Shakespeare: Personal Interpretations of Twelve Plays, came out in 2023. Robert’s Assisted Memoir took four months from the day he first contacted us to the day books arrived on his doorstep. His collection of essays took just three months. Sadly, Robert passed away in May 2023, shortly after approving the final draft of his essay collection and two months before it was printed. We asked Robert’s son David Gryboski to reflect on what the publication process was like for his father, and what it meant to Robert to share his books with others.

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1. In his autobiography, your father says his mother taught him “the joy of learning, of acquiring knowledge, and of intellectual pursuits.” His resulting well-roundedness is evidenced in the fact that he majored in English at Yale before entering the university’s medical school. How did he share a love of learning with you and your siblings?

David Gryboski: One of our father’s favorite sayings was “the ways in which people differ are far more important than the ways in which they are alike.” We learned that this was one of the principles upon which Theodate Pope Riddle founded and built Avon Old Farms School, the all-boys boarding and preparatory school our father attended and credited for shaping the rest of his life. Staying true to this principle, our father always encouraged us to explore different things. From an educational standpoint, he encouraged us to explore different topics, helped us cultivate a sense of curiosity and an open mind in all subject matters, and he made great personal sacrifices to provide us with the best education possible. He really recognized and nurtured each of our unique interests and talents. The result? All four of us do four very different things professionally, and we couldn’t be happier with the love and support our father provided each of us.

2. According to your father, it was “preordained” that he would write his autobiography eight decades ago, when he attended a friend’s birthday party and received a fortune card that said he would do so. What inspired him to fulfill that destiny when he did?

David Gryboski: Ha! I actually found that “fortune card” while going through his personal belongings after he passed. I feel as though many factors inspired my father to fulfill that destiny when he did. He had ALS, which I think helped prompt him to reflect on his life, his countless achievements, and also his regrets. He wanted to share these reflections with others, and what better way than writing them down? This process accomplished two things: 1) it allowed him to fulfill a long-held belief or premonition, which gave him a tremendous sense of personal fulfillment that was incredibly rewarding given that he could not do much physically; and 2) it provided him with a sense of purpose and closure.

3. Your father said he began spending most of his time reading in his later years, when ALS prevented him from engaging in physical activity. It was then that he returned to a study of Shakespeare’s plays that was launched during his undergraduate years. In the Afterword to his essay collection, you and your siblings write, “His interpretations were not merely academic amusement, but rather windows into his soul…” What of your father’s soul do you see in these essays? What moves them from academic amusement to achieve spiritual significance?

David Gryboski: My father’s interpretations are a reflection of his values and his inner emotions. My father wasn’t just dissecting the plays for intellectual satisfaction; each interpretation became a canvas, so-to-speak, on which he was able to project his own journey, struggles, aspirations, and so on. His interpretations offer a unique perspective—as unique as he was—and bridged the gap between literature and life.

4. What has it meant to your extended family that your father worked hard to complete both of these projects at the end of his life? What advice do you have for others who may be contemplating similar undertakings?

David Gryboski: Remember I said that my father credits Avon Old Farms for shaping the rest of his life? Well, the school motto was, and still is, “Aspirando et Perseverando,” Latin for “to aspire and to persevere.” My father would always say that the most important word in the simple three-word phrase is the conjunction “et” because one who aspires without persevering is a dreamer, and one who perseveres without aspiring is a fool. So you must do both—you must aspire and persevere. Completing these two projects at the end of his life, at a time when things couldn’t possibly get any harder for him, was a clear demonstration of his perseverance—his resilience, his determination, and his unwavering commitment to fulfill something he always aspired (or was “preordained”) to do. It was also a clear demonstration of his genuine love for sharing his experiences, his insights, and his knowledge with others. To us, these books will forever serve as lasting legacies that will allow us and our extended family to connect with him on a deeper level, even in his absence. And, lastly, they will inspire us to be the best version of our unique self that we can possibly be…just as he would have wanted.

For those considering embarking on similar undertakings, my advice is to remember the conjunction “et.” If you are considering it, you have already aspired to do it, and now you must persevere. And don’t wait! We all know life happens, life gets in the way, and, regretfully, life comes to an end. There is no doubt in my mind that your project, whatever it might be, will leave your family, your extended family, and future generations with a meaningful and lasting legacy.

5. Given your father’s health, we fast-tracked both of his writing projects. What can you share about your experience in helping your father with the publication process?

David Gryboski: Helping my father with the publication process of “My Autobiography” and “Me and Shakespeare” was an emotional and transformative journey. It truly was. It reinforced the power of collaboration (between Modern Memoirs and us), the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring impact of storytelling and sharing and connecting with others. My father’s legacy lives on through these books, and I am honored to have played a role. Our partnership with Modern Memoirs was instrumental in bringing my father’s vision to life. The staff’s willingness to fast-track the publication process demonstrated a profound understanding of the significance of these works to my father and to our family. The team at Modern Memoirs, with their expertise and sensitivity, helped shape the final versions of both books in ways that exceeded even my father’s expectations (which was hard to do!).

Robert André Gryboski, MD, and his son David Gryboski

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A Delicious Rite of Passage: Making My First Spanish Tortilla and Becoming My Own Adult

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During my summer 2022 internship with Modern Memoirs, I wrote a blog post about my grandparents’ house entitled, “A Comic, a Bomb, and an Essay: Finding Stories in My Abuela’s Stuff.” Writing this piece inspired me to start interviewing my abuela and documenting her experiences so I could continue learning about her and from her. Almost right away, I noticed that one of her favorite things to talk about was food—the stew she ate with neighbors, the croquettes made by the nuns at her secondary school, and of course, the burgers and hot dogs she first tried in the United States after emigrating from Spain in 1966. While it was sometimes hard to get her to share specifics about people or places, she never skimped on details about food, and I especially loved hearing her talk about dishes from her native Spain.

Spanish tortilla is a dish I will forever associate with my mom’s entire side of the family, who have all made or eaten it at several points; these include my stepfather, a Rhode Island native who has perfected his tortilla technique over the years of being married to my mother, and whom I consulted for his recipe. Unlike the flat Latin American version used for quesadillas and burritos, Spanish tortilla is best described as a thick, savory cake made up of liquid eggs and soft sliced potatoes (some add onions and delectable bits of chorizo, as well). There is an irony to the food’s status as a quintessential Spanish dish since the recipe could only go back to the 1500s when potatoes were sourced from American colonies under Spanish rule. I know of two stories about its inception. The first states that around 1835, during the first of a series of civil wars that rocked the Iberian peninsula throughout the nineteenth century, a housewife whipped up the first tortilla when a general made a surprise visit at her door. The recipe’s other origin myth states that a different general invented the dish to feed his many troops.

“food can act as a sanctuary, a point of rest and return, within the chaotic passage of time”

Without a definitive record to prove them, the stories strike me as equally dubious. And yet, like birth and death records, recipes hold valuable clues about where we come from and where we’re going since each of us holds a veritable menu of foods that have united our families and given shape to our cultural identities. The inclusion of a particular ingredient may evoke the tastes savored by our specific clan, or the volume of a recipe may recall the large gatherings of people fed by this particular food. The culinary history of the Spanish tortilla, with its Latin American potatoes, stories set amidst battles, and the dish’s very simplicity, prompts me to look past my own comfortable childhood memories to examine how tortilla reveals a legacy of colonialism, war, and poverty. After all, this food isn’t something you make to show off; it’s a food that could be thrown together by anyone with a chicken around, something you make to quickly feed people good food in bulk. And for me, tortilla is above all a family dish. I read the recipe like a vital record and grapple with my position at the end of a long line of family history that includes both Latin American and Spanish ancestry.

In my first year being fully moved away from home and living in an apartment, not college-dorm housing, making tortilla signifies the crossing of a threshold. I am now someone who can make and serve this family recipe, not just a kid who just eats it. The night I planned to make my first tortilla, my girlfriend arrived at my new apartment in the midst of coming down with a cold and fell asleep at 9 p.m. With a bowl of sliced potatoes rapidly softening in the fridge, I went into the kitchen on my own and followed the family recipe as best I could. The late hours slipped by as I worked in silence, imagining my parents and other family members acting out my same motions in their small kitchens. My arms strained as I lifted a pan full to the brim with tortilla filling and placed it atop the low heat of the stovetop burner. A second pan on top, attached by a clasp, ensured only a slightly challenging experience of flipping the pan to cook the other side. (A special tortilla pan can come in handy, and I’ve provided a link below.)

When the clock showed 11:58 p.m. and the second side was done, I unclasped the top pan and lifted it to reveal a beautiful golden behemoth. With effort, I carefully (but clumsily) slid the tortilla onto a large plate. Then I cut uneven pieces and devoured a slice, trying to memorize details of taste and texture to later describe to my family on the phone. Exerted, full, and happy, I collapsed into bed. The next morning, feeling much better, my girlfriend tried the tortilla for herself and happily took half of it back home. I might not have cooked for a family of six, but all the same, I got the calm sense of accomplishment and familial connection I was after.

No matter how much things change as people grow up, move away, or when new families are formed, food remains the same. In this way, food can act as a sanctuary, a point of rest and return, within the chaotic passage of time. Having crossed the threshold to become a maker of my family’s tortilla recipe, I realize that this dish doesn’t just bring me back to fond memories, it cements new ones, too, and it lets me anticipate future times when I will make it again. I can see the many tortillas I will someday make and the many people with whom I will someday share them.

Try the recipe for yourself if you’d like, with compliments from my abuela:

Abuela’s Tortilla 

Ingredients

• Olive oil

• 5 decent-sized russet or Yukon Gold potatoes* peeled and sliced between an eighth and a quarter of an inch

• One medium-sized yellow onion, chopped

• A decent amount of ham, sliced into cubes, and chorizo, roughly cut into chunks (optional)

• 7–9 eggs (depending on size of eggs and desired size of your tortilla)

*I asked both my stepfather and abuela for their recipes. My stepfather swears by russets while my abuela prefers Yukon Golds for their firmness. This time, I used russets (sorry Abuela!)

Steps

1. Fill a pot with a generous amount of olive oil and begin to fry the sliced potatoes.

2. When the potatoes seem half-done, throw in the chopped yellow onion.

3. When the onion begins to turn soft, add the ham and chorizo, if using, and continue to cook.

4. Whisk eggs in a separate bowl.

5. When your potatoes are soft enough to break apart when pushed, generally after 12–15 minutes of cooking, strain out your oil.

6. Place potatoes/ham/onion into a large bowl, ideally glass, in order to draw out heat.

7. Makes sure that the potatoes aren’t too hot before pouring in the eggs (you don’t want to cook them by accident! Try adding just a bit of egg first, to make sure they will stay liquid).

8. Gently mix eggs and potatoes together

9. Pour mixture into a pre-heated, oiled tortilla pan.

10. Attach the pre-heated top pan and flip, cooking the other side for roughly 5–8 minutes.

11. Slice into wedges, as you would a pie, and serve.

Cook time will depend on your stove, the size of your pans, the size of your tortilla, and your preferred level of doneness. (My family likes ours a bit runny, which is more common in Galicia and Madrid.) My tortilla took around thirty minutes total over medium-low, but I would reduce this next time.

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Emma Solis is publishing associate for Modern Memoirs.

Dad’s Sunglasses

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I COULD WRITE about the ocean and spazzles of sun on salty ripples on the hottest day of July, or a head-on dive into the embrace of a cool wave, or the sensation of people all around and their voices all together with radios and gulls and swishing sand. But what I really want to write about is my father, and leading up to the dive into the water. Because without my father, I would not be at the beach on this weekend that I take every summer with my three daughters.

When I call my father ahead to say we’re coming to his house, he writes it on the calendar even though I’m never sure of the exact date until the day before. Plans with teens, after all, can be impromptu at best. My three teens don’t want to do or plan anything, just hang out at the beach all day, and the same goes for me. We imagine that Grandpa Bob will never want to join us in the hot sun and crowds, at a state beach 40 minutes away. But when I confirm with him—the night before—of our arrival time and plans, he says, “You’re going to the beach? Hm. I’ll go with you.” And I feel a mixture of sweet comfort and slight burden.

I know he’ll go shopping before we arrive: cold cuts—turkey, roast beef, Swiss cheese. Iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, rye bread. Dinner—some frozen meat thing, one baked potato each, frozen vegetable. For the kids (and himself) he gets 2 boxes of frozen blueberry waffles for breakfast. Makes sure the large plastic bottle of Mrs. Butterworth maple syrup isn’t getting low. Frozen blueberry bagels, English muffins, cream cheese, orange juice, and his regular grapefruit juice.

When we crankily pull into the driveway of his house, a pale blue Cape with black shutters, I immediately get the time-travel feeling, not particularly positive, and not negative either. Limbo? I left this house when I was 14 years old, and thus I am eternally 14 when within its perimeter—so, basically, another teenager.

 At once I spy, leaned up against his car in the driveway, Dad’s beach umbrella, a stained camping chair, a mini duffle bag, and an old mini red-and-white cooler, just big enough for him. Sleepy teens emerge from our car. Dad comes out the front door and calls each person by name as he greets us with his version of a bear hug, maybe more like an owl hug, his head held back and turned slightly, with a smile.

“Aleeeeeee….”

“Angelaaaa….”

“Viiiiii-olet…”

“Lilaaaaa…..”

(He will do the very same hug for the farewells, smiling the same way, and it will sometimes feel to me, for just a millisecond, like he might not let go. But that is not so. It’s me.)

“We can take our car to the beach,” I suggest, hoping he’ll let me drive.

“I’ll drive,” he insists quietly. “I have the in-state sticker for parking.”

With little further ado, we head off in his 6-speed car, and he points to the gas station with the cheapest gas, tells me to fill up there when I head out. He’s put on his oversized sunglasses, and while he checks the radio and the AC levels, I come to notice that one of the lenses of his glasses has fallen out. How did I not notice that before? I feel that sunken embarrassment when I realize he doesn’t even notice the missing lens. I cannot, will not tell him! But after looking out my passenger window and mentally squirming for a few minutes, realizing there’s no way out, I finally say it. Quickly. Quietly: “Dad, you have a lens missing!” I feel even worse now.

“Huh?” he says softly. “Gee, what happened here? Must’ve popped out. Hm. Luckily I have an extra pair with me.”

Phew. I appreciate the forethought of absent-minded, dusty, musically inclined engineers who remember all things numerical and collect clocks and occasionally cats. He has me reach into his mini duffle, at my feet, and get out another pair of sunglasses that look just like the ones he has on.

We drive for 40 minutes and then wait in an endless long line of scorching cars all going to the one parking lot we are going to. It takes about 20 minutes to traverse one mile. Dad hums to himself. He says not a word, except a few comments about how they more than doubled the fees this summer, from $7 for seniors to $14, and to $28 for out-of-staters. He retrieves a $20 bill from his wallet and puts it in a crack in the dashboard long before we reach the parking lot booth.

Rare sidelong glances at my father give me a funny familiar feeling. It’s the same thing that people wonder about their cats: What does he think about as he sits there?

Eventually, finally on the beach, we spread the blankets and towels to earn our various supine, prone, and sitting positions in the sun. Next to me is the compact space occupied by my father and his things: camping chair, sunshade umbrella, a newspaper, and 2 towels. In his cooler: a thermos of ice water, 2 O’Doul’s non-alcoholic beers, 3 oranges (for the kids), 1 apple. Dad sits and stares at the water most of the time. Reads the newspaper. He gets up twice to walk the long walk to the bathhouse restroom and back. He says one or two sentences in the hours that pass as imperceptibly as the revolving of the earth.

The teenagers do their own thing; I ignore them as I am used to doing now.

Rare sidelong glances at my father give me a funny familiar feeling. It’s the same thing that people wonder about their cats: What does he think about as he sits there?

At the end of the salty day, we head back home, and maybe a bit sun-struck, I daringly suggest going out to eat. Unheard of for my father. He pauses, then replies.

“Hm. Well… maybe we can go to the fish place on the way home. It’s at the fork off Route 1.”

I feel a grand accomplishment has just been made. I hold my breath.

“Hm, it should be on the right, coming up here,” he says to himself.

There it is. A little fish shack, off the side of the road. A nice shack, for locals. I’ve never been there although I grew up in this town.

Dad orders for himself. “I’ll have fish and chips. Flounder. And a Bud.” His impish grin—he usually drinks the O’Doul’s.

On impulse I order $78 worth of overpriced, heavenly fried fish for the famished kids and me, and as I go to pay, Dad hands me some cash: a $10 bill and a $5 bill.

“Here’s for my dinner, $15. Wait! Whoa, the beer costs $4! Arg!” He gets that look of shock when something doesn’t cost what it did in 1960. “Give me back the $15 — here’s a $20.”

I take his money reluctantly, greedily. I daresay my sisters will be jealous when they hear that I got him to eat out.

When we are all back at Dad’s house, wiped out and in our beds, I stare at the ceiling of the room I occupied for my first 14 years. I hear the bellyaching of crickets, a train’s distant whistle, then Dad’s slow footsteps coming up the staircase. From the top stair, he calls down at the cat to join him.

“Kitteeeeee…”

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Ali de Groot is director of publishing for Modern Memoirs.