My stickiest memories of Dad
are of him drunk or sleeping one off,
reclined, feet up on the Lay-Z-Boy,
snoring to peel the wallpaper,
Mom knitting Christmas stockings in the sun room,
and me turning the volume up
so I could hear surrogate Cronkite
give us the black and white —

sometimes a great nation,
sometimes all you can do is shake your head
and wonder —

so that now, all these years later,
when my daughter asks
what her grandfather was like,
I fall back on my training
not to sugarcoat or cherry pick,
but factually relay:

people will disappoint,
you can love them anyway.