I was trying to figure out what to do with a bunch of family stuff I managed to hold on to when I found the pile of yearbooks. Some were mine, some were Mom's, some were Dad's. I'd found a few notes to Mom from her friends when she was a kid, so I was looking for them in her yearbooks to put a face to the names. I didn't find any of them, but I looked through Dad's for . . .
You know how I say that the universe sends you messages all the time? I got a pretty big message once. Waaaaaaaaay back when, when I was drinking heavily and dating a woman I'd been with on and off for about 20 years at that point. She was always trying to get sober, always trying to drag me to AA. I was perfectly happy drinking like I was, but I agreed to go with her to meetings provided I could drink from my flask as soon as we were done.
So I went to AA with her this one time, and she said when they ask if it's anyone's first time, I should raise my hand so I could go through the welcome process. I would also get the Book for free, and I was to read from it whenever I got the chance. And I did read it. The stories are the best part. Everything else? Including the steps? Not so much.
I raised my hand, and these two guys took me upstairs to introduce me to the AA life. I had no intention of following through (and I never did; I'm a non-AA recovering alcoholic, 3 years and 194 days), but I heard them out as I'd promised, and I kept an open mind.
We started making small talk, and it came up that I lived in Elmhurst. One of the guys said he grew up there. I told him I'd graduated from York, and he said he had, as well. "Class of 1996," I said.
He made some self-deprecating comment meant as a joke about being much older, and then he gave me the message from the universe: "Class of '76."
The year Dad graduated from York. Holy shit, this guy went to school with Dad!
"Did you, by any chance, know Frank Bruni?" I said.
He got this grin on his face and nodded. "I knew him well."
I told him that was my dad, and he went crazy with laughter and exclamations before asking the inevitable: "How's he doing?"
I told him he'd just passed away. We talked about Dad for a while, and he said, "I once saw your dad out by the smoking area, and he had this tab of acid. We had to go take a test, so he just popped it in his mouth, and we went to class."
Which sounded like a very Dad thing to do. I asked him about Mom, but he didn't know her. "The name sounds familiar," he said. He also asked if Dad was an alcoholic. I think he expected me to say yes. Dad loved his booze, but he wasn't an alcoholic. There are some alcoholic problems on that side of my family, but I explained that it was my mom who was the alcoholic.
But what are the odds that my first real AA meeting would put me right next to someone who was friends with my dad in high school?
I wanted to look that guy up. I suspected he didn't know my mom because he didn't go to school with her. She'd graduated the year before Dad. Sure enough, I didn't find him in those yearbooks.
What I *did* find amused me to no end, and it brought back a memory from my own time at York.
Sophomore year. All my yearbooks are signed back and front except for that year. The reason is, it got printed late that year, and school was already out. I felt kind of bad about that because I'd wanted all my yearbooks to be signed. I'd told Dad about this, and I said, "I might sign it myself. Just so I have something in there."
He got this smile on his face. He had a great smile. I remember thinking back then, I wish I'd gotten that smile instead of the one I had. I'd find out decades later that I inherited my maternal grandma's teeth. I'd only known her when she had dentures. But that was my thought in that moment.
He told me I should do it. And now I know why:
I'm just noticing now, but it's also a little weird that I got someone else signing "DAD" in there, too.
If ever you wondered where I got my sense of humor, I LEARNED IT FROM YOU, DAD!
