My dad is a complicated man. I know less about him than I would like, but his secretiveness is part of the enigma. He opens his life in carefully measured bits and pieces, often telling you that he'll never tell you about this or that. He is gentle with animals and children, though he was not gentle with me. He misses my mother greatly these past four years. I don't know how he goes on day to day after the end of their fifty-six year marriage which ended with her death Oct. 27 of 2003. He has little shrines to her around the house and keeps the living room as she had it with her best furniture and the piano.

Dad has lasted a long time. He'll be eighty-five on September 30. He lives alone like a hermit on a woefully unkempt, sixteen-acre tract in Waycross. But he drives, half blind as he is (he had a mini-stroke on the retina of one eye years ago and can't make out anything with it). He makes his own meals. He takes care of a dog and a cat, both of whom wandered into his care. He makes his own agenda. He punches out emails and watches the weather channel on dial-up because he doesn't want the expense of DSL. He also doesn't want anyone coming to his house either, another reason not to have DSL--they have to install it. We harassed him until he bought a new fast computer--a year ago, and it still sits unconnected in his living room. He refuses to use it or it's flat screen monitor and don't ask to help him. Lord knows that he doesn't need help with anything.

We'll have a party for him soon to celebrate the milestone of his age, but he shows no signs of not continuing on his merry way until he's at least 100.