Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's 75th birthday. Russ....big Russ....Rusty. A man of simple tastes. His favorite dessert in the whole wide world is vanilla ice cream. I'm not kidding. Recently, my Aunt Mary and I took him and my mom to one of the Detroit casinos for an afternoon of losing. We had accumulated some points over the year and were eligible for a free meal at their buffet. Holy Shmoly! You could not believe all the fancy and various desserts that were available to us. Anything you could imagine was dipped in chocolate. Cakes, pies, tortes, flans, and gelatos. Fancy cookies on a stick. Fresh fruit tarts, creme brule, and it went on and on and on. I came back to the table with one of everything. What does Big Russ come back with? A dish of vanilla ice cream. The only thing that surprised me more was that he didn't put ketchup on it. Did I mention he LOVES ketchup?

In 1973, when I was in fifth grade, I discovered that President Richard Nixon had the same birthday as my dad--January 9. So, I proceeded to write him a letter inviting him and his wife to our house for a little cake and ice cream for a joint birthday celebration. I'm sure when I told my mom I was writing him a letter she probably said, or at least thought, something along the lines of "yeah, yeah, whatever...now go away, I'm watching Perry Mason." I was fortunate that she was gracious enough to actually drop it in the mailbox for me while I was at school.

A few weeks later, when a large manila envelope arrived addressed to me with a printed return address of "The White House" she snapped to attention. I distinctly remember getting into the car as she picked me up from school and her looking at me and saying "what did you put in that letter?" She then handed me the large envelope and instructed me to "open it." She probably thought I was in trouble, or she was being shipped back to the Philippines, or who knows what.

Anyway, it happened to be a lovely one page typewritten letter signed by Tricky Dick himself. The White House letterhead looked (and still does) so impressive. It simply stated that while he and Mrs. Nixon were quite pleased by my gracious invitation, "their schedule usually did not permit them the pleasure of accepting personal invitations." Nonetheless, they were "deeply grateful" that I took the time to think about them. Perhaps I should have stipulated that we would probably be having chocolate cake with homemade buttercream frosting and vanilla ice cream! That might have made him think twice. On the otherhand, maybe I DID tell him that and the vanilla ice cream was the deal breaker.