Eggs and Gratitude

Happy Easter, Dad. From you I learned irreverence. From you, I learned the universe.

I want to retire like the Roman poet Ovid, writing racy sonnets and teaching the art of seduction before being sent into exile.

My challenge: I know nothing of eroticism. But I’m learning, I’m learning. I shop at L.A. boutiques, I watch a lot of Starz.

Honestly, I don’t know a streamer from a channel anymore, or a mood from a vibe, or a server from a waiter.

Beware: Every word eventually gets a cool new sister wife that becomes all the rage, when really that new word is just describing the same old stuff.

That’s the paradigm in which we now live.

FYI, I am best with the same old stuff. I’m built of spare parts and Silly Putty. That’s why a goof like me could one day succeed at eroticism.

Meanwhile, half of what happens on my computer seems to be by magic.

Magic. Miracles. Good fate. We don’t respect them enough, especially when it comes to cheap foreign electronics.

Sometimes I think magic and good luck are actually God’s caress, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

Faith is faith and we’re lucky to have it. Love is love, hope is hope — all those abstractions that go unseen. Yet they are the most-powerful possessions we own, if own is the proper word.

Who owns love? Not me. At best, I get a six-month lease.

Yet, the really good concepts — Hope. Love. Gratitude. —never go out of style. Call them the holy trinity of a really solid life.

Look, who am I to give advice? I sleep on a pillow stuffed with old sports sections.

Is that a tribute? A bribe? A so-called baksheesh?

My latest fascination: The idea that there’s no edge of the universe, just as there is no flat Earth. Every delicious thing in the cosmos seems conical or elliptic: Easter eggs, pizzas, Dolly Parton.

Why not the universe?

So, if you rocket off into the stars one afternoon, heading straight up, wouldn’t you maybe just circle back and end up where you started, like a space-age Magellan?

If you walked the Earth, heading straight north around the poles, you’d eventually end up back in Glendale, right?

Same with the Cosmos. In the end, you get Glendale.

Imagine heading off to map such a universe, brushing the hair from the eyes of angels, smooching them softly on their sun-burned lips? Would that be erotic or spiritual?

You decide.

This concept of an oval universe, gleaned from physicist Carlo Rovelli, blows my mind a little.

Obviously, I hail from a different world from everyone else. Suzanne teases me over all my Tony Bennett references, my fondue jokes, the ascots I wear to workouts.

She is essentially — please keep this between us — dating my father.

Ewwwww … ick.

Two other things that are the same thing: Me. My father.

Early on, I adopted too many of his mid-century tastes. We both loved my mom, for instance. And we both got all pie-eyed over Angie Dickinson (please note that Suzanne has Angie’s car-fender cheekbones. Coincidence? Or a cheekbone miracle?).

Like my dad, I adore rental rowboats and crisp autumn days. Half his face was forehead, just like mine. Dad also had a bunch of Donegal in his Irish grin, every wink a pub.

From my father, I learned what was funny: Ted Baxter, Tim Conway, Don Rickles.

“Know who was really hilarious?” he used to ask. “Rasputin.”

From him, I learned irreverence; I learned the universe.

From him, I also learned to tie a fish hook and knot a tie. I learned how to curse other drivers for not using a turn signal.

Dad hated phonies. He loathed cheats.

Best of all, I learned from my father a love for family.

Dad used to say, “If you have kids, you have everything.”

I’d say, “Cool, Dad. Thanks!”

“Well, I wasn’t talking about you specifically,” he’d say. “Just kids as a concept.”

Man, I miss his laugh, especially on holiday weeks like this. I miss his love for hard-boiled eggs and good sports sections.

That’s where the revolutionary writers of his day lived, on the nation’s sports pages, surviving on jabs and wisecracks.

Maybe that’s why sports sections are still stuffed in my pillow?

On this holy week, here’s to fathers everywhere, the ones who push the strollers on Saturday mornings so Mom can sleep in.

Here’s to the dads who rake the infields, pour the pancakes, set up soccer goals, fix the stuff they didn’t break.

Love all you dads.

As a concept, anyway.

Coming Saturday: Eat a Peep. Cave to the Candy.

Some thanks are in order.

First, thanks to all who are supporting me now on Substack. Note that even if you’re a so-called “free subscriber,” you can get one free post a month. That kicks in April 11. If you prefer the twice-weekly posts, please subscribe.

Secondly, thanks to all those who supported the Erskine Family Compassion Fund, honoring my late wife and son. You pulled together nearly $15,000 to help families across Los Angeles. Still like to help? Please make checks out to LCPC Parent Ed, and send to LCPC Parent Ed, 626 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada, CA 91011. Or click here: LCPCparented.org/give/

If you have problems on the donation site, or with Substack, please email me at Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com

Thank you. And Happy Easter from our home to yours.