HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

 
There's no photos of me alone with my father, but of ones we're both in, this is my favorite. Taken down the Jersey shore in Belmar, around 1952 or so, with my mother and her mother (who lived with us) and some of my siblings, I love the way he's being so tender with my brother Robert (who would have still been a Teamster but soon would be a cop) and me (with my summer tan) only a few years before my father and me began arguing as often and as virulently as he did with Robert when he was in his teens.