Thinking back, my father had a good personality and tried to be a good parent most of the time. The only thing missing was that he really lacked father figures because he really didn’t have a family to speak of. He was really clueless on how to be the head of a household, but in true Dad fashion, he would fake it ’til he makes it. Boston Bob was not handy around the house, nor did he seem to understand or care about anything that involved manual labor. I didn’t take him to be an elitist, he was just a guy who grew up in a privileged situation who had enough emotional intelligence to get through the day. He was very smart about a number of things though — I figure that expensive private school education helped in that department. While in Upton he had several jobs. The earliest one I remember was with a security company where he sold alarms systems. Then he had a short stint selling Ester Williams swimming pools at Shopper’s World. Dad finally scored a good job with Cardox, a company that provided carbon dioxide to manufacturing companies. The parent company was Chemetron Corporation, then a Fortune 500 Corporation. He was a salesman at first and then rose to the level of sales manager. The only things I know about what he did was that he drove a company car, which was changed every two years or 60,000 miles, he spent a lot of time traveling in airplanes, he also spent a lot of time drinking and eating fancy meals in restaurants, while donning an expensive business suit every day. He like to read the newspapers, news magazines, and even picked up a book or two. Because I was interested in traveling to other places, he would always bring back a matchbook from a hotel or restaurant for me. I had quite a collection. He enjoyed watching the political programs like Face the Nation, but also laughed through The Jackie Gleason Show and The Bugs Bunny Hour. Dad always seemed to be smoking a Kent cigarette, and often had a vodka and soda nearby. Always the preppie, even on the weekends or on vacation, I never saw him in anything other than a collared shirt and either Oxford shoes or penny loafers. He didn’t own blue jeans or a t-shirt. His idea of a casual outfit was chinos and a dress shirt without a tie with the top button unbuttoned. Sundays, Dad would easily complete the crossword puzzles in The Boston Globe and The New York Times in pen. He seemed very worldly to me and always shared his knowledge and opinions with us at the dinner table. Dad had pet names for all of us. He called Mom “Potty,” Kent was “Orties,” Brad was “Diffy,” and I was “Feebee” or “Feeb,” named after baby chimp Phoebe B. Beebe with J. Fred Muggs on the Today Show with Dave Garroway. Later my little sister would gain the moniker “Winning One,” or “Lovable Type.” I think it was about 1960 when Dad was elected the President of the Board of Education for the Grafton-Upton Public Schools. I didn’t really appreciate it until I suspiciously earned straight A’s in second and third grade. I recall mentioning to everyone at the dinner that crabby old first grade teacher Mrs. Timon (we called her “Timebomb”) made one of my fellow students clean up the throw up from her sick younger sister who was in the first grade classroom. Apparently the first grader had asked to go to the nurse or the bathroom but was told with contempt to stay in the classroom. Mrs. Timon was gone by the end of week.

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