so today is the anniversary of the birth of my father. i'm not sure what to do about it all alone here in port woebegone. last night d & i went to see spiderman 3. great cg effects and unbelievably corny and predictable. also a little long. but we had fun. on the way home i realised that the last e-mail i ever received from my father was about spiderman 2. i had taken auntie d to see it, and he asked if she was old enough for such entertainment :-)in the above picture, ahf is reading leo baeck in the desert. let me tell you the camel story.
so my father was going to lead a group of german theological students through the desert to mount sinai, following in the footsteps of moses. during the day they would hike, and in the evenings sit by the fire and discuss the torah. i was absolutely dying to go with, but could not as i had to work. when he came home i rushed to him and asked, 'what did you learn in the desert?' his answer was: 'never pee on a camel.' this was not exactly what i had been expecting to hear him say. apparently, they were sitting round the fire, doing their thing, when he needed to relieve himself. now my father was an extremely short-sighted gentleman (despite which he left his eyes to medical science). he slipped into the shadows behind a large rock, and began to pee. all of a sudden, the large rock screamed. my father screamed. everyone screamed. and so he learned some of the wisdom of the desert.
UPDATE by some strange coincidence, auntie d was also at the cinema watching spidey 3 last night. she said she liked 2 better.
That, my friend, is a good story. My father died two summers ago, abruptly, while away on business overseas. I believe the last e-mail I got from his was a thank you for his father’s day card. I am thankful every day that I got it into the mail on time.
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