I am fortunate to know a lot of superb fathers, but instead of recognizing them all as Father’s Day approaches, I’d like to single out just one: my Daddy.
Suffice to say this apple didn’t fall too far from that tree. I started out life with blonde Cohen genes, and grew up to be built like a Cohen. I got my love of cooking from my dad, as well as my love of a wide variety of music (we got tickets for just the two of us to see Manhattan Transfer at Great Woods back in the early 90s!). I’m pragmatic like my dad, decisive, calm, politically incorrect, black-and-white, conservative, easygoing. We share a sense of humor, a sense of direction, cuddliness and silliness. And we’ve always been able to talk about anything…and anyone!
He makes legendary Bloody Marys, unrivaled clambakes, and his two dessert specialties are “mishmosh-mookie-mosh” (ice cream with everything in the cabinet mixed in) and Rice Krispy treats. He introduced me and my friends to “Imus in the Morning” on WNBC way back in 1981. And onewild and crazy night when I was about 15, he gave us a cryptic list of things to gather—a deck of cards, raincoats, toast, rice, newspaper, toilet paper—and took us and our teenage buddies to a midnight showing (is there any other time?) of Rocky Horror.In fact, David will tell you that he married me for my legs—and for my dad. And not necessarily in that order.
Like many other dads I’m sure, my dad has always been full of “Dad-isms”—rules, adages, proverbs, catch phrases— essentially words to live by that he has repeated over and over (and over again) throughout the years, much to our amusement. Some of them are from our toddlerhood and some of them date back to college days (and some even originated in his own youth), but all endure, and I have found myself perpetuating some of them with my own kids:
• It’s good to be king!
• Don’t shame the Cohen name.
•The masses are asses.
•Don’t mess with the driver.
• The peaks are short and steep, and the valleys are lonnnng and lowwww.
•Stop the dilly-dallying!
•Buy low, sell high.
•After all that laughing, there’s going to be crying.
•Kick ass and take names.
•That stuff is purrrre sugar.
•A little deprivation is good for the soul.
•You can’t drive faster than the car in front of you.
•Don’t take your half out of the middle.
•It’s better to be a leader than a follower.
•You can have 50¢ or all the change in my pocket (jingle, jingle).
•Put your eyes in your hands and look!
•Whatcha using for money these days?
•Shecket bavaka shaaaa –HEY!
• How’s the money holdin’ out?
•As long as I pay the tuition bills, I get to give the lectures.
•Left-wing liberal commie pinkos.
•Keep it down to a dull roar.
•I’m through paying for your oh-shits.
•Straight, square and smooph.
•I-G-N-O-R-E.
•‘Tis many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.
•Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
•I’ll bet you dollars to donuts…
•Stop the hiney-whining.
•Get out of the bushes!
•No eating in the den.
•We wanna go home! We wanna go home!
•One, two, three…come to Daddy!
•Home again!
•Draw a magic circle and in it place a dot.
•Heenja-heinja, heenja-heinja, cootchie cootchie cootchie coo.
•Ahhh, ahhh, baby. Ahh, ahh baby,
•Drum playing stops at 10.
•Soup? Soup? How many hot and sours?
•L-M-N! L-M-N! L-M-N sycongo ishkie boom boom echis pechis puddin’ pie. Hit a malarky in the eye.
•Say goodbye to the nice people.
•Rope has a personality all its own.
•Shit flows downhill.
•I have a brain.
•Hi! Howayou?
•A pint’s a pound the world around.
So even though he’s not a big celebrator of Hallmark holidays, I raise a glass of “Papa Juice” and say with lots of love: Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!
