Happy Father’s Day!

This is my dad.   He gave me both my poor vision and my innate Russian sense of melancholy and the feeling that we’re all going to die soon.  I love him anyway.  He not only painted a whole piano for me (a piano I stopped playing after about a year), he also made me breakfast almost every morning I went to school, reminded me gently to put on a jacket (by telling me he would beat me if I didn’t), and taught me how to drive, an experience that I’m sure contributed single-handedly to an increase in blood pressure on his behalf.  I’m so lucky to have a dad who not only loves me so much, but can cut a mean turkey.  Spasibo, Pap.

If you also have a Russian father that has raised you by threats of beatings, please tell him how grateful you are that you are now an upstanding, fine citizen.