75
Three quarters of a century with Jay Young.
When your Dad hits a milestone age like 75, you can’t help but reflect on the fact that you were born when he was 50 or something…because you’re like 25 and 75 minus 50 equals (roughly) 25. I don’t have a calculator handy but that’s pretty close. But as much as I want this to be about me because of my recently diagnosed megalomania, this is about my Dad, Jay Young.
Known to friends and mortal enemies alike as “Jaybird”, “Juicy Jay”, “Chick”, “Um, Dad, I need some money to fix my shitty early 90’s car” and “Pop Pop”, my Dad was born on September 6th, 1950 in East Orange, NJ (or maybe West Orange, whichever one was more embarrassing to be born in at the time). Not content to raise their children amongst lowly New York Giants and Jets fans, his doting parents soon moved to a suburb of Minneapolis where his father worked for the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing company, better known today by its abbreviated name: “Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing” (and by uneducated dullards as “3M”). By age 12, young Jay and his family relocated to southern New Jersey to be closer to strip malls, one way streets that make it really difficult to get to businesses on the opposite side of the road and 56 years of misery as Philadelphia Eagles fans before the Philly Special and the greatest backup quarterback of all time Nick Foles put an end to that. South Jersey was also where he met my mother which led to my birth and (less importantly) the birth of 6 siblings whose names and genders escape me at the moment.
In the interest of our collective pitiful attention spans, he then spent 43 years working at Goulds Pumps in Seneca Falls, NY and retired to a life of leisure comprised almost entirely of watching shows on all 6 of the major streaming services with his loving and VERY patient wife Helen. Which brings us to the present.
Happy 75th birthday to the man whose exquisite tastes in music and comedy have defined and shaped my life from the very start and whose neurotic tendencies have made me keenly aware of the current status of my basement's sump pump. Here’s to the ultimate caretaker and provider who will (and has) done ANYTHING necessary to ensure his family is taken care of, regardless of the damage to his credit card balance and sanity. We’ve had our battles over the years, particularly during my “terrible teens” (is that a thing?), but he’s always been in my corner, whether I realized it or not.
Since I became a father a decade or so ago, I’ve entered my very favorite iteration of my relationship with my Dad. One where he tells stories of his youth both happy and sad (and in between), where his emotional guard has withered to a lone sentry pacing the shadows of the castle walls, where his relationship with his grandkids is unencumbered by the stresses of work and finding ways to financially support a family of NINE. He’s still my Dad and my kid’s Pop Pop first and foremost but despite my displeasure with such a hackneyed statement, he’s truly and unabashedly my best friend now. And that’s the greatest gift/praise/declaration of love he could ever give me. Happy birthday, Pop.
