I once asked my dad if he believed in Karma. He said, “Well, I don’t know. What’s your definition of Karma?” I said, “You know. When you do good things in the world, then good things will come back to you.” He said, “Oh, I believe in that, I just don’t call it Karma.” I said, “Well, what do you call it?” He said, “I call it statistics.”

Just a week ago, my mom sent me a box of letters that she and my dad had written to me while I was in college. I found a bunch from my dad. Mostly tips on how to be responsible with a credit card, a lot of algebra and calculus riddles, and some inappropriate jokes. But what made me smile the most was how he would position the stamps on the envelope. He would put them in a long line down the side, hoping that the machine that marks the stamps wouldn’t detect the stamps that were farther down on the page. Every single letter that I received was filled with 8, 15, sometimes 25 cents of un-marked stamps. Just between you and me, I know I was his favorite kid, because I cut them out of the envelopes and sent them back to him to re-use. In fact I still do it to this day. These are all the stamps I’ve saved for Jerry just in the past six months.

When I was a kid my Dad had a pet name for me, he used to call me Shith-ead. I never knew where it came from, but he said with such warmth, that I loved having a special name that he used only for me. Shith-ead.

When I was old enough to read, he would leave me notes, and one day I saw the word written out on the top of a piece of paper: “Dear Shithead,” and I thought, “Oh my God, It spelled ‘Shit Head’ without the space.” When I told him I knew what it meant, he said, “I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out. Not bad for a 9 year old.”

When I was in elementary school, my dad sent a note to the school saying that I wasn't allowed to say “The Pledge of Allegiance.” He said, if they took out the words “under God,” he would consider it. We lived in Peoria Illinois at the time. It was 1969. - He made it hard for me to make friends.

On red, white and blue day, I decided to wear a flag to school. We actually called the police dept and asked if it was legal.  They said, as long as I didn’t sit on it and deface it, I could wear it. When I was sent home from school that day, my dad drove me back and told the principal that is was my constitutional right to wear a flag, and he’d be willing to call the ACLU to prove it. - Again, hard to make friends.

I remember in high school, I wanted to leave my classroom to go to the bathroom, and my teacher told me I couldn’t go - so I jumped out the window.  I was suspended, naturally.  When I brought the suspension slip home, there was a little box checked next to the infraction that I committed.  It said, “Suspended for repeated defiance.”
My dad actually argued in front of the school board that it wasn't repeated defiance; that I only jumped out the window once. My Dad always stood up for me.

When I was eleven, I borrowed a fancy Canon camera from my dad. I developed the photos and then gave it back to him. Three months later he said I hadn't returned it and that the right thing to do would be to work after school to pay him back for the camera I lost. It took me a year to pay him back, and when I did we had a little ceremonial dinner and my dad was really proud of me. Five years later when I was rummaging through his closet for a costume for one of my plays, I spotted the Canon camera on the floor in the corner. I was so pissed off.

I called my brother who was practicing law at the time and he said, “Your dad owes you the Canon camera, the 200 dollars that you earned to pay for the lost camera, interest, and compensation for emotional distress.  When Jerry refused to pay up, I sued him. The case was Manheim vs. Manheim. The judge was perplexed.

When I won, my dad said, “That’s my girl.” He had 30 days to pay me or I was going to put a lien on our house. On midnight of the 29th day, he slipped a check under my door. He signed it: “ Proud Papa.”

When I was 22 and changed my name to Camryn, I was worried he’d be upset, but instead he said, “Good.  Debi's a crappy name.”

And when I was arrested in college for civil disobedience for participating in a pro-choice rally, I called my mom and Dad and had the following exchange:

Me: Ma, Dad, I'm in jail.
Mom: You're what?
Me: I'm in jail, Ma.
Mom: Oh my God, what for?
Me: I was arrested for participating in a pro-choice rally.
Mom: Jerry, Camryn was arrested for civil disobedience.
Jerry: Oh, honey, that's wonderful. Mazel tov!
Me: (screaming) Ma, Dad? Get me out of jail!
Dad: No, sweetheart. You stay in there and make your point.
Click.
Some people may think that’s horrible parenting. I think of it as my legacy. And I’ve been fighting ever since.

Seriously, you can’t make this shit up.

Which brings me to one of the last emails I got from my dad.

Cam,
I have 2 things to say to you.

1.  I can't open your message.  How come?
2.  Those of us who breathe the upper atmosphere never, ever end a sentence with a preposition.   Try,  "You can't make up this shit."   You can never tell when, in the midst of a large circle of cognoscenti, you will drop a preposition at the end of a sentence and be forever shunned.  As Winston Churchill famously said in Parliament to the man who upbraided him for ending a sentence with a preposition in his speech  
"This is the kind of errant pedantry up with which I will not put."

Pretty good , eh?
Love,
Jerr4y (the 4 is silent)

I'm a lot like my dad.  I had a huge gap in my teeth, until I could afford veneers.  I love medication, and tapioca pudding.  I love to argue; to read plays: Tom Stoppard and Ionesco. I love small claims court. I believe in back up plans.  I love to purchase things on the 1st and pay the bill on the 30th.  I've never paid a late fee, EVER. I write letters when I’m pissed off and I write letters when something really moves me. And we both believe that everyone is born right handed, and only the greatest overcome it.
 
The morning my dad died, I sat on his bed and could smell the overwhelming odor of black licorice. There was a Costco sized bag of it on his night stand. And next to the licorice was a stack of books and magazines. Not your regular night time reading fare, but:
Stephen Hawking - The Grand Design
Arianna Huffington - Third World America
Billy Collins – Nine Horses
Diderot – This is not a Story and other Stories
The Theory of Numbers
The British Documentary Film Movement
The Fundamentals of Lobachevskian Geometry
The Multicultural Challenge
American Sex Machine
The Artful Universe

The magazines were dog eared on articles like:
Preventing Hospital Errors
Be Alert at the Pharmacy
It Pays to Complain
Psychic Mary Occhino Doesn’t know Best
And then I found this bumper sticker: “Who would Jesus Bomb?”
And it reminded me of all the other bumper stickers he had on the back of his car.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican..
My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma
Born OK the First Time
 
My Dad loved to read, to learn, and mostly to find materials to prove he was right.
My mom and dad, on teacher’s salaries, sent three children to graduate school. And when I told him I wanted to study acting, he never once asked me to pursue something more promising. He made my dreams possible. And even though my dad was a true scholar and never let me watch TV when I was growing up, when I finally made my living by being on television, my parents would call me every Wednesday morning with the Neilson ratings. I don’t know how they did it, but they knew them before they were ever even published.
Every child wants to know that their father is proud of them. It is a beautiful comfort to know that he was really proud of us all. I know it, because he told me so. He lived to see his three children embrace the ideals that he believed in, he saw us become important members of our communities, and he got to see his three grandchildren thrive. Yes, it’s great to know your father is proud of you but, in truth, I am proud of him. I’m proud that he was a forward thinker in scary times - I’m pretty sure his phone’s been tapped since Joseph McCarthy called him a communist. I’m proud that at every dinner conversation there was a heated discussion of world events, a lesson in finances, or a quiz about political leaders. I’m proud that my dad championed the underdog, and had the same best friends for 70 some odd years. I am proud to pass it down to my son.
This is one of my favorite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
My Dad did all of that and more. Whatever is true: God, no God; afterlife, no afterlife. I know he’s going to be okay.
Because Jerry’s got really good statistics.