Mon Papa

Mon Papa

by Nicholas Andrian on Sunday, March 8, 2009 at 5:21pm

My father was always a tiger for his kids, a Greek-American John Wayne. Whenever I got into a scrape, he never failed to bail me out. Once, when I was 12, an adult neighbor used the f-word at me. My father caught up with him in the playground of our housing project in Newark and said, quote, "If you bother my kid again, I'll deck you so fast you won't know what hit you." He always had a strong sense of justice. Back in the 1980s, he was in court on a family matter when an unemployed African-American guy, a complete stragner, who had fallen behind on child support, couldn't raise bail and was sent to the county jail. My father went home, got the money and bailed him out. Larger than life, a patriiot as well as a patriarch, he'll soon be with the Lord. When I finish my book the world will know what the word "father" is supposed to mean. I hope I have inherited some of his traits and values. My daughter tells me that I have. When I couldn't get home from Jersey City once due to a snowstorm and sought shelter at my mama-in-law's, my daughter told me the next day that she was nrevous all night, "I don't feel safe when you're not around, Daddy." Just thought I'd share that.