I swear it was father’s day when I started trying to type this. But then… computers.

My father really was a computer nerd. Of all the things he got called in life, computer nerd seems the most unlikely. He grew up as that little kid from the Grapes of Wrath. Honest… I have the pictures of him, somewhere, looking like an Illustration from my grade school history book’s section on the Dustbowl. And with the military, and the drinking, and the women, and… I don’t know how computers ended up in there.

Then again, I’m pretty sure if they’d come around a bit sooner, my maternal grandfather — Papa — would have been all about personal computers too. This was a man with a workbench. This was a man, we found out after his passing, that helped build medical tools for the hospital, when they didn’t exist yet. He was also a great man of the community. Church member, Danish Brotherhood, etc.

I don’t know that I could call my father a great man of the community. I’m sure he had his social circles. Most of the great stories, though… most of the memorable moments… they were solitary actions.

(Then again… great stories about less than wholesome moments my grandfather had, also exist. But they scandalize my aunts every time I mention them.)

I came from these men. And there are times I can’t seem to escape that, not that I try. But suddenly, it’s like their ghost seizes me and I find myself doing or saying something, and realizing it’s some aspect of them that I barely realized was inside me. I am stubborn, and I persevere. I try my best to help those around me.I am both closed off, and an amazing extrovert. I get drunk with friends, and I wake up at 5 in the morning to shovel my neighbors’ walks.

I am very lucky to come from these men.