In honor of Father’s Day, I asked writers in my memoir classes to put together 500-word essays about the traits they share with their fathers. After reminding them that a trait is a particular talent, characteristic, quality, or tendency someone has, I gave some examples. “Do you and your father share a similar outlook on life? Did you both like to dance? Play cards? Read newspapers? Drive too fast? Tell jokes?” I wondered out loud if writers in my classes are stubborn/fastidious/considerate/kind/open-minded/short-tempered like their fathers were.

Sharon’s father, taken when he was in his 80s.

This prompt was difficult for many writers. Ones who disliked their fathers felt they had nothing to write about. Ones who worshipped their fathers said reminiscing through writing made them miss their fathers all over again. Most found that reading their essays out loud to supportive listeners in class helped them embrace what the struggles with fathers had taught them, and celebrate what strengths the fathers they loved had given them.

Sharon Kramer is one of the writers who adored her father. This playful approach she took to writing her essay helped her — and those of us fortunate enough to be in class and hear her read it out loud — smile to think of him. Now you can smile, too — here it is:

Just riding around
by Sharon Kramer

If I could paint a picture of my father, I would use primary colors with very little shading. I would paint a handsome man of medium height, a bit chunky due to wolfing down the foods he loved (which was all food) curly black hair and smooth skin that was envied by most women who met him — even into his eighties. He would be looking at you directly, with a smile that was warm but slightly controlled, possibly due to feelings of inadequacy because of his short-circuited education. He quit school at 16 to help support a family of 10 brothers and sisters.

In his right hand, he would be holding a 16-millimeter home movie camera ready to focus on whatever looked interesting — and a lot of stuff that wasn’t interesting at all. Scenes of his daughters playing piano, his aproned wife setting the table for dinner, an extended family gathered for a holiday. After the home movie was developed, we set up a movie theatre in the basement and laughed to the point of tears at seeing ourselves on a big screen.

The edge of the film had teeth that were supposed to fit into the projector’s sprockets but would often get stuck and need realignment. Sometimes, the film fell off the reel into a giant pyramid on the floor. My job was to untangle the mess so we could continue the show.

My love of the camera and the miracle of photography comes directly from my father.

In my painting of my father, his left hand would be holding a hammer and a box of nails, ready to use when any of his relatives or neighbors needed a quick repair — a squeaky door, a child locked in the bathroom, a toilet that didn’t flush. Although he grumbled about being asked to fix things (especially at dinner time) he was always generous with his time and skills. “He has more book learning than I do,” he might say afterwards. “But he can’t even fix a toilet.”

My respect for men and women who work with their hands began with my father.

My painting would have a table to the side with a large map of the United States and assorted yellow trip cards from the American Automobile Association on it. Whoever sat in the front passenger seat became the navigator and reader of the vignettes describing the places we were on our way to see.

I traveled much further than my father, but my love of adventure and travel came directly from him.

On a Saturday, my father might say to me, “Come on, let’s go for a ride.” I didn’t know where we were going, and neither did he. We could end up at a farm in Indiana, buying fresh eggs, or at a diner on the West Side of Chicago that boasted the best French toast in the world. These mini-adventures made me feel special, like a co-conspirator.

When we got home five or six hours later, my mother would scold, “Where were you?” Winking at me, he’d say, “Nowhere, just riding around.”

I loved having a secret with my dad.

Sharon Kramer compiles essays by writers from the “Me, Myself and I” class I lead at the Chicago Cultural Center at a blog called Beth’s Class. Visit there often to find essays by Sharon and her fellow Wednesday writers there.

Beth wrote about my sinus surgery last week—first, thanks for your thoughtful comments. They cheered me as I breathed through my mouth in pain-reliever land. Second, this surgery went a lot better than it did 21 years ago. (Still, I don’t ever want to do it again.) Third, my Wednesday surgery was the most mundane medical news in our extended family.

Early that morning, Beth’s nephew Ben, a vital 47-year-old father of four, was playing soccer to get some exercise before work. Ben doesn’t remember what happened, but he collapsed. Luckily, the facility had one of those AED (automated external defibrillator) things you see all over the place now, and someone there knew how to use it. Ben needed it to stay alive and get to the hospital.

Ben’s home already, and resuming normal activities. But hearing the story, even knowing in advance the outcome, made the ground shake under the feet of Ben’s friends and family.

I immediately got the same paralyzing fear I had a few years ago when I was told Beth’s heart had stopped, that she had been shocked back into rhythm, and that she was headed to emergency open heart surgery.

I can’t know, but Beth’s brothers and sisters had to have thought of their father—who at 47 had a heart attack and died shortly thereafter at home.

Ben’s immediate family was left to contemplate what had been imaginable—that the ever-reliable coach, devoted father and spouse was this close to vanishing from their lives.

I think we all contemplated what might have happened if the event had taken place elsewhere—some place where CPR and AEDs weren’t at the ready. I know I did—just as I did when Beth had her incident. And then I realized, as I did then, that the only thing that matters is that it did happen and life went on.

But not the same. Not for me, anyway. This happy ending had the healthy effect of reminding me that our lives, even when they feel like mundane grinds, are miraculous.

Ben and I always talk baseball and sometimes a little business at family gatherings. I always look forward to seeing him, now all the more. Ben’s one of those solid, low maintenance guys that are easy to take for granted—because that’s really the way they want it.

Sorry Ben, but those days are over.

Just got news that the Library of Congress Talking Book Service has created a Braille version of Writing Out Loud — it’s available free of charge to Americans who are blind or visually impaired. The Library of Congress administers the National Library Service (NLS), a talking-book and Braille program available for free to those of us whose low vision or blindness makes reading regular print difficult. This translation is especially important to me: I want Braille readers to learn how I manage to lead my classes — and my life, for that matter! Who knows? Maybe some of them will start similar classes of their own. I’ll say goodbye here and leave you with an excerpt from Chapter 67 of Writing Out Loud that explains why, even with new technology and fancy speech synthesis, Braille is still so important — especially to children who are blind.

Chapter 67: Introducing Bennett

So let’s talk about Braille. Here’s a little-known fact: less than 20% of the 50,000 blind children in the United States are proficient in Braille. The American Foundation for the Blind reports a severe shortage of certified teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs), especially in rural areas or in small school districts. Without qualified teachers around, it can be a lot easier for parents of children who are blind to just let their kids listen to books on audio or hear words on a talking computer.

You might think that’s no big deal. Isn’t it a good thing that technology is doing all the heavy lifting for these kids? But think about it. If children who are blind never learn Braille, how will they ever learn to spell correctly? How will they know where to put commas, quotation marks, paragraph breaks, and so on? How will they be able to write clear communications for sighted people? And what if they want to be writers?

The last time Mike had out-patient surgery, he called the hospital ahead of time to explain that his wife was blind and would accompany him to a cab to get him home afterwards.

That was eight years ago, when I was still working with Hanni, my second Seeing Eye dog. The staff member who answered the phone wanted to know what his wife would do if her guide dog needed to go outside. Mike told her I’d be able to handle that.

The hospital staff member put him on hold.

When she returned, she asked if they could just call his wife at home when the surgery was over. That way she could come in the cab and just wait downstairs, they reasoned. “We can bring you down to meet her there.”

Mike told them his wife wanted to stay in the waiting room during surgery. “You know, if something goes wrong, she’d like to be there.” The woman listened, then put her hand over the receiver and called out, “He says the blind woman wants to be there!” She took her hand from the receiver then and told Mike it should be okay, as long as he understood he might not be feeling that great after the operation.

She was right about one thing: he didn’t feel great after that operation. But I did stay during the surgery, and once the staff said Mike was fine to go, Hanni the Seeing Eye dog and I walked outside with him to catch a cab home.

Fast forward to 2018. Remember that post Mike wrote last month about sinus pain? He had sinus surgery yesterday, we didn’t let anyone there know ahead of time that his wife is blind, and the medical staff seemed indifferent to my disability. I was told ahead of time that he’d need post-surgery prescriptions for home, so Whitney the Seeing Eye dog guided me to the second-floor hospital pharmacy while we waited. Once they said Mike was fine to go, Whitney and I walked outside with him, the valet hailed a cab for us, and now we’re home.

The patient is doing remarkably well, but he’s on house arrest for the next few days–doctor’s orders. One of the scripts we picked up was for pain and seems to be doing the trick, but every hour Mike has to change the tight roll of gauze pads taped under his nose.

One of those rare occasions where I benefit from not being able to see.

It’s late spring going on foggy London town here in Chicago—it’s been warmish, it’s been coldish, and it’s been foggy the last few days, sometimes all in one day.

But that did not stop the Printers Row Lit Fest from its appointed duty.

The view on Friday night, everything’s ready to go.

It used to be called the Printers Row Book Fair, a tip of the hat to our neighborhood’s rich past as a center of printing and publishing. The festival started in 1985, when this neighborhood was, by all accounts, a lot different. But the renaissance had begun in earnest by then, and the Book Fair was a great way to let everyone—well everyone who loved books and writers—know that the area was trending up.

The Chicago Tribune bought the fair lock, stock and barrel back in 2012. There have been changes, good and bad, including the name. The only thing I like about Lit Fest vs. Book Fair is that our dear departed Hackney’s used to outfit bartenders and servers in T-shirts emblazoned Get Lit each year.

Beth and I have been here 15 years now and lots of our friends predate us by years, and despite the changes, there is a familiar, comforting rhythm to it all every year.

As early as Thursday, tents, tables, and other equipment are dropped off in the little park under our unit’s window. Dearborn Street and the parallel Federal Street and Plymouth Court are closed by dawn. No cars, just the sound of aluminum tent poles being unloaded onto the pavement. It’s sort of like an industrial wind chime.

By Friday evening, all the tents—which provide cover to an absolute menagerie of specialty and used book stores, niche publishers, academic publishers and authors’ guilds—are up and ready for Saturday morning.

All the while: No cars. We walk with abandon, and without the sound of vehicles. Whitney and Beth don’t have to wait for the light to change to cross Dearborn.

The kids’ area is in the park right under our unit.

On Saturday morning Dearborn is teeming with bookies (I know, but I’m stealing it for just this one time). They wander the vendors in between speaking sessions at local venues by famous people like Joyce Carol Oates and Frederik Backman.

Our less famous Beth Finke has given several sessions at past festivals but this year she had no such responsibility, and that lack of responsibility made this past weekend nicer than most. Along with neighborhood friends, we participated in what’s become a Saturday evening tradition. The Lit Fest closes up for the day at 6 p.m. but in the little park where they hold kids’ events and have kiddie rock music during the day, the management leaves out some tables and chairs. Now, some of the chairs are of the tiny-for-toddlers size, but our own camp chairs fill whatever void there is.

We fill the chairs with ourselves, and the tables with some cheese, Italian meats, and whatever someone decided to make—which this year included some roasted vegetables and homemade chutney.

The view from my camp chair Saturday night. Wish I could share the sound.

There is also wine and beer which we try to enjoy clandestinely so as not to disturb the peace.

And we blab into the summery (usually) night and just watch the lovely little fountain we sit by, the sound of which can be heard in the absence of the usual vehicular din.

I wish I could bottle that feeling, and I’m glad it hasn’t gotten old.