Dan and I have carved out a few, small traditions, but they can be hard to stick to given that our immediate "family" consists of just the two of us. While we try to have a thankful jar each November, it's always at least a week or so into the month before one of us (usually me, but Dan is a good sport about it) remembers to put out a pen and cut-up paper. We cook our own private but massive waffle breakfast and spend a morning tearing open our gifts to each other two days early to celebrate Christmas because the 24th and 25th are filled with bigger family gatherings. We try to buy a lotto ticket every January 1st, but have actually forgotten to do this a few years, and just purchased a few days later. Our traditions are sweet and very us and a little lazy... no big deal if we forget once in a while because, hey, it's just the two of us anyway, and we can always do a rain check for the next year.
But yesterday, we started a new tradition that I hope we'll try to keep up. It took us six years of marriage to think of it, but this year, we declared that every April 20th to now be "Celebrate Dan's Dad Day." You see, Dan lost his father to Lou Gehrig's Disease almost fourteen years ago, two years before the two of us met. I've listened to years of stories about this immeasurable presence in Dan's life.
I heard about the time where he went to "Bring Your Dad to School Day" and rocked the history category in the class's trivia contest, much to ten-year-old Dan's awe. (Dan now teaches history, the same passion for visiting nerdy sites very much ingrained in him.)
We've laughed about his idiosynchrasies, like how he would walk away from the tv if there was a scene with adultry in it. He was loyal through and through and didn't appreciate watching "garbage" like that.
He loved smoking the occasional sweet-smelling pipe on Sunday mornings, reading historical biographies, the movies Animal House and Rocky. and eating Italian food. He thought that his mother made the best homemade marinara sauces and his aunt made the most sublime homemade pasta, so he would somehow get them to occasionally collaborate on spaghetti together to create perfection.
He used platitudes, both serious and hilarious, which Dan still recites ("You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit." "When you got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.")
He was emotional, a hot-tempered driver, always affectionate, a man not afraid to hug his kids often, even when they were embarrassed because teenage friends were around.
I never got to meet him, but I feel like I partially know him. I've always been hungry for details, stories, anything to feel more connected to this presence in my husband's life.
I don't know how the idea of a day to celebrate him originated. I think Dan mentioned someday wanting to start a small scholarship in his Dad's name for a selected student at his high school to help buy books in college. "After I present this to the student, maybe we could have a big Italian meal where all of my family attends and could, you know, talk about my dad." One of us suggested that until we begin the scholarship that we celebrate him on his birthday: April 20th. Dan said that our inaugural celebration could be Italian food and a movie and toasting his father, so that's just what we did.
I cooked way too much food:
pesto tortellini
penne with puttanesca sauce and Caesar salad:
and an amazing recipe I borrowed from a friend for something called "proscietto pie." I'll definitely share the recipe this week because it is damn good, even if it's not a traditional Italian dish. I guess the proscietto made it fit the theme enough for our feast.
Fresh basil for the pie:
My veggie filled one:
Dan's meat and cheese one:
Sunflowers for the table (and an excuse to try my new camera lens):
Lastly, I went to a specialty store to buy Dan some Peroni. He drank it when we were in Rome, so I thought it would fit. And he needed something to toast his dad.
After dinner, we went through one of his family photo albums, and then we watched this:
I'd never seen it before, but I've heard it's one of his father's (and family's) favorites. It always made me laugh that his wholesome family is into a movie about drunken frat boys. If anyone brings up the movie, even my mother-in-law will break out with, "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son!" quickly followed by a barrage of quotes from Dan and Jacob...
"Laugh now, but you clowns have been on double-secret probation."
"You fucked up. You trusted us."
"He had a face like a pepperoni pizza."
It wasn't my kind of movie, but I found myself laughing out loud a few times, like at, "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"
It's hard for Dan to talk about his dad without inevitably circulating back to his long and horrific illness, so we made a very deliberate point for April 20th will be a joyous night, be a celebration about him, about his life. So that's what it was: just us mauling pasta, laughing about the time his dad corrected a docent at Monticello, and capping the night off with Belushi chanting, "Toga! Toga!"
