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date: 2019-08-20
weight: 3
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The one thing we did together that we both seemed to earnestly enjoy was skiing.

> There were other things you enjoyed.

Together?

> Reading, perhaps?

He tried to get me to read *Flowers for Algernon*, but I wound up skimming parts, enough to keep him happy when he asked me about them, all while reading the copy of *Mossflower* I'd hidden down the back of the couch. The closest we got was reading *The Dark Tower*.

> Catch?

One-sided and short-lived. We played a few times. Then, after telling me to "get under" a fly ball, it hit me square on the forehead and he laughed, telling me I was supposed to get my glove up, too. We never played again.

> The dogs?

<div class="verse">Dad used to punish the dogs
    by locking then in the basement.
If he was really mad,
    he'd toss then down the stairs by the scruff.</div>

> School? Math? Computers? Being smart?

Listen.

You have to understand that there were only two valid emotions for my dad: pride and anger. Being good at computers and math was not something that was enjoyable in its own right. Not for the both of us. The part that we shared there was that we had to have something we could declaim about. Something we could pull out and show that we might be proud of it.