My two teenage sons recently cornered me to ask what I wanted for Father's Day. A canoe trip down the Russian River? Handmade cards? A "bro tank"?
Their generosity reminded me that it is time to visit my own father, who died of hard living in 1991 at the age of 67. With his ashes scattered to the wind, the only place I can visit Gordon Wright Senior is to visit John's Grill, the venerable bar and grill off Union Square where he spent much of his workday playing dice and hustling up business for his legal practice.
John's Grill is dark, welcoming and wholly of a different generation. It's where a savagely smart, profoundly troubled man can lose himself. It is, as they say in the South, a good place to get "crying about your Daddy drunk."
But I don't imbibe at John's Grill. Usually, I just slip a $100 bill to the bartender and tell him to spend it on the regulars until it runs out. Tell them that Gordon Wright picked up the tab. Then I walk over to the northern wall in the dim light of the bar, and stand for a while staring at the photo of my dad, hung there decades ago. It was hung, I guess, to honor him as some sort of Drinking Hall of Famer.
And then I leave.