HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN

HAPPY 28TH BIRTHDAY DAN.

Twenty-eight years old. What a wonderful age to be. In many ways I feel honored that God entrusted me, with my shit background, to be your Dad, and to make damned sure you didn't get any black marks on you.

Reviewing all your outstanding achievements and accomplishments, throughout your life, I can see in you the grade God has given me. You are proof that I made sure you got the very best teachers, in all things for you, especially in how to fight any kind of fight and how to win the fight every time.

When the other fathers conspired among themselves to "sic" their bully older teenage kids on you, when you were only 8 years old, they always did it in such a way that I could not interfere. That is why, to be fair, I would not let their fathers interfere when you started kicking the living shit out of their kids.

Let's face it, since they made the challenge, they could hardly beg their fathers to come to their rescue from you. Not with me around.

I have also seen you show mercy when you had your opponent in submission; like when you won the Junior Olympic Boxing Championship, for both New York and New Jersey, and when you saw that your opponent could not continue, you let him surrender, with honor, grateful for your compassion.

I wrote this some time back with you uppermost in my thoughts. What it lacks in poetic brilliance, I tried to say it "like it is."



The Fighting Man
by Dad

There is a man who walks among us, the most respected of us all;
He is not the politician nor the guy who bats a ball.
He is not the teacher or doctor, the scientist or the priest;
And certainly not the critic, that pusillanimous beast.
No! It is the Man of True Authority, the One we love and revere;
The One who reigns in His own Light, the One we hold so dear.
Cowards honor the diplomat, whose words inspire flight,
Substituting dishonorable wrong in place of honorable right.
We are for that Fighting Man, that One who is standing tall,
Whose courage, strength, and love for us brings Freedom to us all.
--

With all my love,
Dad