1.  Today is my father's birthday.  The fact that he died seven years ago doesn't take that away from me or from him; he would've been 85 years old today, had he lived.  I remember his music, his jokes, his pig-headed pain-in-the-ass stubbornness (that I inherited in droves) and his optimism; he damn well wasn't any sort of saint, but he was a good ( Read more... )