Father’s Day.

All hail to the good ones, you know, by blood or by fire baptised into the guild.

For Lee, whose father means a lot to him in some strange ways. Like the time Mary gave Vern twenty bucks to get the kids’ hair cut. Vern’s buddy gave the kids buzz cuts for free so Vern could drink his way through twenty bucks. Lee has a million stories about his father. But — stories like that don’t tell the whole story, do they?

Lee. He’s been here. Diapers, baths, pureed pears, bonks on the head, days when you just don’t want to care but you do anyway — when Ray needed her bangs cut, he did it himself. Twice.

And for my father, too, about whom Lee pays a high compliment: “He’s a pretty good guy.”