Last Call

My father had a long and glorious retirement, during which his personality blossomed and the strain of a career that culminated as a Deputy Fire Chief melted away. He loved being a grandfather. He became a bit of a rascal, the darling of the younger wives in the neighborhood and the favorite of waitresses in hash houses around the city.

During the months before he died, I tried to get Dad out of the house for some last adventures before his illness weakened him too severely. One destination he picked out was an out-of -the-way little town in Rhode Island called Wickford. To that I added another town, Tiverton. Both towns were noted for art colonies and galleries, and Dad had always liked buying original art from struggling artists.

On this particular trip, his blue eyes were flashing with a bit o’ the auld country charm. By the time we hit Route 95 south, we were no longer father and son--we were Buz Murdock and Tod Styles, getting our kicks on Route 66. We’d gotten our motors running, we had headed out on the highway, and we were looking for adventure.

Upon our arrival in Wickford, the two of us needed some breakfast. The Wickford diner, housed in a tiny Quonset hut, was so ridiculously quaint that it had to be authentic. The pretty-but-down-on-her-luck waitress seemed almost typecast. Never one to disappoint, Dad chatted her up, the blarney flowing free and easy and sincere, bringing a smile and a wink from the thoroughly charmed woman. He gave me his “I still got it" look and tipped, as always, generously.

After a few hours in Wickford, we crossed the bridges to Jamestown and Newport and headed north on Aquidneck Island to Tiverton. We arrived at lunchtime and headed to the Four Corners Grille, a local restaurant well known to me but new to Dad. As luck would have it, our waitress was attractive and about my age, so this time it was my turn to flash the grin and pour on the charm. Dad would have been disappointed in me otherwise. The waitress good-naturedly played along with this time-honored tradition of harmless flirting, almost as if she instinctively understood how important this outing was to my father. Women can be so perceptive sometimes. Dad was glowing. I was a chip off the old block. We were cruisin’.

After a lunch of homemade Portuguese kale soup, a gallery tour, and ice cream at Gray’s, we were ready to head home. Dad slept from Fall River to Quincy--being the essence of cool had taken a lot out of him. On the front porch he locked eyes with me and shook my hand in his big, meaty one. He knew there might not be any more days like this. Sadly, there weren’t.