That I write this now suggests that I beat the odds and survived those early struggles for breath. But, I always wonder…was it just dumb luck? Was it fate? Was it destiny? Or something else altogether?

Having a wife who specializes in bringing new life into the world, I have learned about all the amazing technological advancements that have enabled us to lower the fetal mortality rate. I have also learned about the power of human touch and skin-to-skin contact, all things that increase the chances of early birds like me living long enough to get the proverbial worm.

But back in the 70s, at least in the US, we were shipped off to specialized hospitals and severed from our parents. I can imagine the whirring of incubators, the sounding of various alarms, the incessant flashing of warning lights, and have to wonder about the effect those lights and sounds had on my development, my shyness, my seeking out quiet in most noisy social situations. How did I last through that mad cacophony?

There are tales that my dad visited me, making the 3-hour round trip drive to the city and back again, everyday while I lay prone beneath the various gizmos of the NICU. Having no real memory of these early days cannot stop me from stitching together a likely story — how my very emotional and passionate father watched from behind glass, compulsively picking at his cuticles, pacing restlessly in a brown sports coat a shade too big, willing me to breath, to live, to feel as he feels.

None of that may be true, but then again it may. In any case, despite our many troubles as I grew older, I want to believe it; especially now. I want to believe.

I want there to be a special connection between us. I want to believe in those special moments forged at the hospital and affirmed as he would cradle me tightly in blankets and take long walks around the house in the bleak midwinter. I want to feel the walls of our house and my heart shake as he stamped my new life with his passionate shouts:

“Bring Me My Boy!”

But the 32…

What could it mean?

It is a unique emotion that fills one when sorting through a dead man’s belongings. Part macabre curiosity and part hopeful rummaging, one flits through piles of stuff in a quest for a kernel of understanding about the deeper parts of a person, a clue to explain away a recent and unexpected decline, a spark to fire memories long lost,

Did the stack of financial documents piled atop the pool table suggest that my dad was anticipating and preparing for the end?

Did the fact that my painting of a cowboy had been replaced by a mirror mean that my dad and I still had tension between us when he fell ill?

Did the pile of 17 Swiss Army knives strewn across his ottoman imply that his compulsive cuticle trimming and nail cutting had reached debilitating levels?

Did the pages from various photo albums strewn about have some sort of order that could explain how my dad’s mind was working and what he was remembering in those last days?

Were they good thoughts?

Were they happy? Were true?

Were they about me? My sisters? My brothers? My kids? My wife?

His sister? His mother? His father?

Our family?

Or were they darker? Confused? Lost?

Alone?

And so I opened the envelope and found…

…his tooth, root still intact, wrapped in a note stating that this particular tooth was number 32.

And that is when I realized stuff is stuff, a missing paintings is just painting, and a pile of knives are simply knives. There is no insight to be gleaned, no deep character key to be found and understood, no real way to get at what my dad was feeling or thinking.

For a tooth is nothing more than a tooth.

He was rude. He was vulgar, and to many (especially his kids), quite embarrassing. And yet, beneath that vulgarity, there was a childish charm and naiveté that somehow made it alright.

Or, at least, mostly alright.

Sure, my mom wanted to kill him for his antics, and some of his friends would refuse to speak to him for months (or years) at a time. But his delivery was so toddler-esque at times, so honest and mischievous, he would eventually win us over.

When we were kids, he knew we lusted after all things adult, particularly grown-up drinks. Coke. Coffee. Beer. So whenever he had a glass of beer at dinner, he would lean close and whisper behind a hand:

“Don’t tell mommy…”

There would be a long pause.

His eyes would dart to the left. Then slide to the right.

Suddenly an exuberant throaty shout would fling his head back:

“Drink beer!”

The excitement he felt at giving his kids something forbidden, something naughty, shattered any feeble attempt at concealment; never mind the fact that when he pulled these sorts of shenanigans, my mom was frequently right beside him.

She would glare as we chugged the beer down. His eyes would sparkle as he reveled in the outright audacity of his corrupting acts. Sometimes my mom would slug him in the shoulder, which of course only encouraged him further.

And when encouraged, my dad lost all perspective and frequently forgot to brake before he smashed into something.

When I was about 9, my sister 6, and my brother perhaps 3, I remember one dinner in particular. It was one of those thick, steamy evenings in August as we lounged around the kitchen table in our somewhat garish orange-upholstered booth. My dad, having just spent the last hour grilling steak and sipping beer, was wearing a white tank-top, stained with grime and smelling of smoke. More than likely, he had just pulled the “Don’t tell mommy…” trick, of which my youngest brother was especially fond. I can still see my brother’s small hands wiping the froth from his lips and grinning like he just swiped a canister of Nutter-butter.

My mom whacked my dad’s shoulder.

Hard.

The beer spilled. And my dad grinned.

“Hey,” he said. “I’ve got a great joke.”

Now we were not a particularly proficient joke-telling family. Our timing was always off. Our punchlines were always a bit confused. We couldn’t remember whether it was oranges or bananas that were knocking at the door. We couldn’t grasp that a chicken would do something other than lay eggs, let alone cross the road.

So, when my dad announced he had a joke, we were all ears. We knew this would be good.

“What do you get when you cross a chipmunk with a moose?”

“A Moose Monk.” My sister shouted before anyone else.

My dad shook his head and looked around the table.

Everyone was stumped and silent.

“A chipmunk with a really big cock!”

Our mouths dropped. Time slowed just like in the scene from a Christmas Story when Ralph blurts…”Fuuuudddge!”

As his kids, we knew he had not just crossed the line, but completely pulverized it. This was wrong in some deep way that we couldn’t quite grasp. Vulgar. Base. Completely inappropriate.

And yet, as I look back now, that joke laid a germ in me, a need to push social convention, an uncontrollable desire to make those around me slightly uncomfortable, an itch to be the gladfly. There was freedom and mischievous joy in that role. I saw it in my dad. And I, too, want to uncover the honesty that is revealed when one is riding that edge.

Thinking back on that joke now, I hold the picture of my daughter in my mind. There have been so many times when I have almost told her that joke and then stopped myself. For in that moment of joke telling, my dad taught me about lines.

We are so similar, she and I and my dad. Much of the time we hide ourselves in shyness, but when we are comfortable or slightly ill at ease, we both can say some truly outlandish, vulgar, and just plain rude things. Just like offering beer to toddlers. Just like chipmunks and moose.

Whenever I think of that joke, Shakespeare’s 94^th sonnet comes to mind.

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

“With base infection meet…”

Was that my dad? Was he the sickness that makes the summer flower sour? Or was he the weed that outshone the sickened flower because he never pretended to be something other than what he was?

That joke told when I was nine molded me in some fundamental way. He shaped me, as all fathers do to their sons in subtle and mysterious ways. He taught me about lines to cross. He taught me to be vulgar and warped and crass.

So yes he was inappropriate.

But I too am inappropriate. That is one of his many gifts to me.

Just don’t tell mommy…

…while the latter was his suggestion — he persuaded us by singing That’s Amore at the top of his lungs at the theater entrance and refusing to stop until we acquiesced. Needless to say, that was the last time we saw a movie together for quite some time.

I can’t remember precisely why we decided to go to a movie together on that day. Perhaps, I was girl-friendless at the time. Perhaps, the phase of the moon reduced my teen-angst for a few hours so I could actually be in the same room with my dad. Perhaps, he just offered to pay.

But for whatever reason, we climbed into his ridiculous gold Grand Marquis, rolled down the windows, and jammed to the high-falsetto of She Drives Me Crazy by the Fine Young Cannibals as it blasted from the stereo.

Everyone had been talking about this movie. Part thriller, part love story, we had heard that this tale, opening with an IRA kidnapping, would shock you with a twist unimaginable and reaffirm the true power of love. At the time, anything with a shocking plot bend and the IRA would captivate me. For my dad, I think he heard love story and Ireland and immediately thought of redheads.

He always had a thing for redheads.

In any case, for maybe the third time during my teenage years, we agreed on something and decided to go see this movie together. Early in the movie Jody, played powerfully by Forrest Whitaker, tells Fergus (played by Stephen Rea) the story of the Scorpion and the Frog and persuades Fergus to seek out his girlfriend if he died. We were both riveted during the scene and found ourselves lost in the movie.

I imagine my dad was slightly disappointed to learn that the girlfriend, Dil, was not a redhead. But she was a singer, so I think, all things being equal, he was ok with that. As the movie progressed, we both felt the tension and love grow. That they would sleep together became inevitable, and despite that, I did not feel terribly uncomfortable  sitting next to my dad.

And then it happened.

The twist.

Just as they were about to make love.

Popcorn flew into the air as my dad jerked spastically in horror, shouting at the top of his lungs.

”Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

It was primal and uncontrolled and mirrored Fergus’ reaction on screen exactly. The entire theater turned to us and stared.

My dad was shaking with feeling. Repulsion maybe. Love lost perhaps. But raw unfiltered feeling.

And in that moment, I realized I would never be embarrassed by him again.

For he knew how to feel. To truly feel. And he didn’t care who knew or who saw. His feelings were free. His most important parts were always open to the world, whether it was his joy, his anger, his shock.

Unlike me, he could feel deeply. He could cry. He could hate. He could love.

Even during the Crying Game.

It is part of the American pastoral, that great Norman Rockwell painting for which the suburban family strives. A father taking his son to the game on a lazy summer afternoon, both dreaming of hot dogs lathered in sun-warmed mustard, iced coke tickling their noses with each sip, and the snagged fly ball over the third-base rail.

A father splitting a rock hard piece of pink gum with an excited son as he slowly peels the waxy paper from a ten pack of Topps, the son and father both praying with half-squinted eyes for that rookie card of Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, or the latest new arrival tearing up the Majors.

A son and father, elbow deep in saddle-soap or shaving cream or just plain mud, rubbing and pounding the stiff leather of a new mitt before binding the webbing around a ball with some old twine to store beneath a mattress, forming the perfect pocket.

These are the memories of all American sons of their perfect fathers.

I too have some of those memories, and as I look back at them now, it is quite surprising to me that I never played organized baseball. It is a lazy man’s game, and my inherent aversion to expending energy would have seemed to make me a perfect match for America’s great pastime.

Even before I was old enough to have my first real mitt, my dad and I would spend hours going over our stash of baseball cards, which ones should be trade bait, which ones were duplicates and suitable for bike spokes, which ones I should let no one ever touch under any circumstances, which ones were rubbish because of a player’s poor showing on the field but, nevertheless, worth keeping because of a crazy mustache or monstrous afro.

I have memories of the first balls I threw to him as he crouched behind an imaginary batter (probably it was Reggie Jackson or Dave Winfield); how when my wobbly throw was engulfed in his mitt, he immediately flung the glove to the ground, howling at the top of his lungs and shaking his hand as if I was throwing heat reminiscent of a young Nolan Ryan.

More than that, though, I remember him allowing me to use his glove the first time, the worn leather burying my too-small hand so that every time I reached for a ball I felt as though I would topple over. Seriously, the glove was bigger than my head. But, still, he knew how much I loved that glove, how much I wanted to play catch with it, how much I wanted to show him I could shag fly balls like Gary Carter or Mookie Wilson.

And so off we went.

First in our front yard with soft lobs.

But then as I became more proficient, my dad would stand across the street, and I would crouch ready on the neighbor’s sloped front yard. My dad would then kick his left leg high, practically scraping his knee on his chin, and fling his arm in some cockamamie windmill movement to launch balls as high as he could. With that huge glove swallowing my hand, I would leap and dive, each catch more worthy of Andre Dawson than the last. I never tired.

Nor did he.

But, like I said, I never actually played baseball on a team, and for that I think I was a disappointment to my dad. Or rather, I feel like a disappointment to him now when thinking back on the hours spent catching those moon shot throws of his. Sure he claimed he could toss a rock across the Hudson, so such subatmospheric throws were no problem at all.

Yet, as an adult with a son and daughter of my own, I know differently. I know about the concealment necessary to make our exhausted and worn out bodies twist and turn in play with our kids, whether it is wrestling or dancing or a simple game of catch. Kids just happen to be tireless, and to give our kids the memories that we ourselves had, we too need to be just as tireless.

He sacrificed for me to give me such memories, and yet I wasn’t able to give him the memories of the perfect American son, the one with a crooked baseball cap and dirt caked on the chest from stretching that single into a double, that special excitement and unique joy of watching his son play the sport he absolutely loved, and through watching, his brief return to his own care-free and golden-tinged childhood.

I wish I could have given that gift to my dad.

Now, it is too late, and all I have left is the scent of saddle soap on worn leather, and the memory of my dad’s crazy windup as he aimed for the heavens.

I understand the piles of pictures. I get the drawers full of forgotten keys from houses long-burned down. The stacks of yellowed report cards. The baseball cards from our shared dual childhood obsession. The squirreled away bits of letters and memories.

But, seriously…bamboo, dad?

In my first year of marriage, my wife, Mary had to complete an intensive language course for grad school. It was in Rhinebeck. I had to stay in Baltimore for work, so Mary headed up to Poughkeepsie and my dad insisted she stay with him to save money. Of course.

For nearly a month, my dad and Mary lived in that enormous house on Scenic Drive. Even though she had been his daughter-in-law for less than a year, there was not one moment of awkwardness. No pretense. Just acceptance. When he accepted someone, they were part of the Habers. Period.

For 29 days, knowing that my wife loved his garlicky steak, my dad made London broil every single evening for dinner, until the last night when Mary gently suggested they go out to eat. You know, maybe for a something green. He surprised her with a piping hot bucket of…Kentucky Fried Chicken. And so, when Mary returned home, my 18-month spiral into vegetarianism began. Thanks Dad.

Mary’s trip taught me something about my dad. It showed me what loyalty meant. What family is. You see, when I was younger, I don’t think I really knew my dad, nor do I think I really understood him. Our relationship was always awkward and somewhat strange. He scared me I think. The loudness. The outrageousness. The bombast.

Sure all that racket was embarrassing as heck, but it wasn’t the noise itself that was particularly frightening. What terrified me was becoming that loud, that outrageous, that out of control. Like my dad.

Mary’s stay with my dad made me see something else, too. Parents aren’t really meant to be known or understood by their kids. But, they are meant to be felt. That is his legacy to me. He taught me to feel. To love with a passion, unchecked. A good kind of madness.

But, still, dad, what is the deal with that bamboo pole?

And then, just yesterday looking at pictures, suddenly we figured it out. That piece of random bamboo was not so random; it had held a corner of the chuppah under which Mary and I were wed thirteen years ago. To think, he had kept it all these years. And everything clicked. Finally last night, I was able to stop thinking about the puzzle of my dad. And instead starting feeling him and his deep love.

It is that wild and craziness for which he will be most remembered during his 68 years living in Poughkeepsie, New York. From the moment his father Jacob Haber took time from Haber’s Toy Store to teach him to drive at age 8, his wild spirit guided him on adventures his five children (David, Rachael, Ben, Sara, and Zack) and seven grandchildren (Esther, Ella, Elijah, Caleb, Xander, Grace, and Jack) admire with mischievous awe.

Gary “borrowed” the car at the ripe old age of 14 and high-tailed it to Florida with a $1oo dollars in his pocket and a multistate police search following in his wake. He still holds the record for suspensions at Poughkeepsie High School with 78. Even at Vassar Nursery school, his restless spirit needed corralling; as his friends napped he happily cleaned the brick buildings with an old tooth brush, which may explain his great brushing habits as an adult. Let that be a lesson to us all.

The memory of the various Haber’s Toy Store fires heated his childhood, and it is not surprising that as an adult he found himself learning the ropes of the insurance adjusting industry from his sister’s (Thayer Hochberg) husband Ed. As a public fire adjuster, he channeled his wild emotions into a charisma of hope, a hope in which he helped those broken by their burned past rebuild what was lost.

That charisma and charm helped him distract those gathered around the poker tables at Mohegan Sun, finessed him toward collecting numerous trumps on route to various Bridge championships, and assisted him in his quest of hustling every pool player on the east coast from Chevy Chase to Willie Mosconi. But, above all, Gary’s charm snagged the most beautiful seventeen-year old he had ever seen at Bard College, Martha Simpson Haber, whom he married and started a legacy that will pass on through his children and grandchildren. He later captured, these past 18 years, the patient, enduring friendship of Eleni Vlamis whose caring heart helped Gary through his most physically trying times.

Many a day, he could be found lounging in the grass, his bright white tee-shirt playing a stark contrast to his sun-soaked skin—with a glass of scotch beside him as his mysterious marinade worked its magic on a steak, without a dream in his heart—until it was time for the Blue Moon to rise.

If you feel compelled, in lieu of donations or flowers, place a bet with your bookie in Gary’s honor.

To view the guest book, visit his obituary on legacy.com