PopWars

That title is a lie. The summer calendar is just jam-packed. And on top of the social events we have the World Cup and Jazz Fest at the same time. The weather is telling you kick back and get out there at the same time. I can handle it.

Got to get down to the garden and check on these wispy little leeks that we put in before the thunderstorms.

The guy in the center here is Paul Dodd, my great uncle. I wasn’t named after him. I was named after Saint Paul of the Cross, on whose feast day I was born. The guy on his left is my father’s father, my grandfather, Leo Dodd. My dad was named after him. And the fellow on the right is their brother, Gus Dodd.

Leo owned a restaurant on the corner of West Avenue and Thurston Road. It was a speakeasy before it was a bar. Paul played semipro baseball as a catcher for Gilsons. My Dad, Leo Jr. sent me a 1906 newspaper article recapping a game in which Paul hit a home run at Sheehan’s Field, where the twelve corners in Brighton is today. 300 fans were in attendance and Gilsons won. Gus was by all accounts a fun-filled, free spirit. His granddaughter, Judy Farrell, (sort of a cousin of mine) sold my parents’ house a few months back and she told us a few stories.

My dad also found this POLICE COURT entry on Paul Dodd from Rochester’s Democrat & Chronicle:
Paul Dodd. arrested a week ago on a charge of violating section 3 of the city ordinances by shooting craps on the street claimed in police court yesterday that he was not playing a the time, and Judge Ernst let him off with a caution. When the case was first called, last Friday, the judge wished to have it established that the game was one of chance, but no one could be found who would own up to knowledge of it. Yesterday Detective McKelvey took the stand and demonstrated that fortune plays an important part in throwing dice according to the rules of “seven-come-leven.“

It is no secret that the older you get, the closer together your medical appointments are. You need a good calendar to keep track of them all and someone to take notes. I am that someone, taking notes on my iPad when my father meets with his doctor. After our last visit we stopped by CVS to fill a new prescription and I picked up a New Yorker from the magazine stand while the pharmacist filled the order. I had already looked at the issue and took a chance that my father would like the long excerpt from Roz Chast’s brilliantly honest, graphic memoir on aging, Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?. I quietly checked back for a reaction and found my father almost doubled over with laughter.

After today’s appointment my father told me he had finished her book and it wasn’t pretty. He had seen the author on Charlie Rose and ordered the book. But I got the clear sense that he liked the book because he wanted to talk about it. That would be the dark comedy factor working. We have the book too and Peggi finished it the other night. She read whole sections aloud to me because they just couldn’t wait. Funny thing is Peggi’s mom used to say exactly that (title of the book) to us when we talked about something unpleasant.