Fridays with Kenny

Tonight, in the unlikeliest of kitchens under quite unlikely circumstances, a warm and funny acquaintance of mine started singing the novelty song "National Brotherhood Week" by Tom Lehrer. The song is at least fifty years old, and so is the acquaintance, but he was shocked when I joined in singing. How could someone my age know it? My dad is how. By the way, when you are done reading this post, check out the song here, http://t.co/LtAMYkz.

Of all the things imprinted on me nature- and nurture-wise by my dad, the most direct link I have with him, and with his dad for that matter, is a deep appreciation for humor. And on many a Friday night while I was growing up, we took time to work on it. I can't look back and pretend that either of us had any agenda beyond sharing some laughs together, but it does seem like he opened an avenue of literacy for me. These are some of the most important and best memories I have of my growing up years.

Late on Friday nights over games of Scrabble and Monopoly in his den - it wasn't THE den, it was DAD's den - we would get into all kinds of TV shows and comedy albums. The Honeymooners, Carson's Comedy Classics, Carol Burnett, every George Carlin record from the 60s and 70s, Lenny Bruce, Stiller and Meara, and albums by guys I didn't know even had stand-up careers. People like Gabe Kaplan, Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, and more. Some of the material flew over my pre-adolescent head, and some was wildly inappropriate, but he trusted me to handle it, and I did.

More special to me now than was the comedy itself, was that he shared it with me. He let me discover it. It was our time together even if he was tired from a long week or had other things he needed to do.

And while I remember it as an endless string of Friday nights stretching out over a few years, I am sure he would tell me that it all ended too soon. At some point, in accordance with the same stupid narrative convention that will rob me of time with my kids, I grew to feel like it would be dorky to sit home on a Friday and hang out with my dad. Like so many things we do and do until we don't, I can't remember the last Friday night we spent together like that, and I am sure neither of us realized at the time that it would be the last.