Habits I Picked up From My Father

Two people now have mentioned the book "Shit My Dad Says."  Mistakenly remembering the title as "Habits I Picked Up From My Father," I thought about habits I picked up from my father, among them:

a.) a tendency to scribble notes to myself on scraps torn from other bits of paper. Do I do this for economy's sake? That was his motivation. I do it, I think, simply because he did it.

b.) settling down into a chair with a pile of reading matter. I was about to settle into a favorite seat the other night with my own unwieldy pile when it occurred to me that I was doing exactly what he had always done. And when I made that association, I was flooded with warmth and love. Why? I suppose because I felt connected to him. Funny -- because my father isn't dead. I can call him or drive the hour it takes to see him any time. And yet, seeing a quality of his in me made me feel closer to him than when I do actually call or visit him. Which reminds me of something he often said: Both the memory and anticipation of the event are often better than the event itself.