This blog has been about my patrilineal ancestry, but I haven’t written much about my grandfather or father. Perhaps because I know them firsthand, and all the other people I’ve written about have been almost like fictional characters I’ve had to develop a world and backstory for. I don’t know if I’ve done good research on them, but I’ve tried to make them real.

I don’t need to reconstruct a reality for dad: he’s alive and kicking at the awesome age of 84, and today is his birthday. Happy birthday, Charles Robb Cromar, Jr.!

Out of respect for his privacy, I won’t go into many life details here — I’ll ask his permission to do so for a later post — but I will post one picture and tell one story. I hope he won’t mind.

Captain Billy’s

One time, when I and my wife were young and in love — we’re old now, still in love — we met up with my parents at a place in Virginia called Captain Billy’s. It’s a waterfront seafood joint on the Potomac River, the kind of place where more patrons pull up and dock boats than park in the car lot. I can’t remember other folks orders, but I remember my dad getting a surf and turf number that included a mess of ribs.

We chose to sit on the covered outdoor porch adjacent to the river, an idyllic setting for sure. At least until a typical summer afternoon thunderstorm started heading down river toward us.

This storm was moving. No sooner did we see it than it lit upon us. But we weren’t worried because we were under awnings. We confidently continued chowing down, until the wicked wind started driving the rain horizontally. I swear none of the raindrops were hitting the ground. They were in orbit around the earth, parallel to the planks in the porch. I’m sure a tornado was nearby.

We all ran inside, except my dad. Maybe it’s because the wind was at his back, though I don’t think so. He was methodically dismantling his ribs, and he was not going to let anything — rain, earthquake, apocalypse — get in the way. He was the definition of unflappable.

I realized this was the way he had always led his life. His family put him through a lot. His childhood was a tough one, my mom suffered from depression after losing her dad, and of course, my sister and I at one point became inflicted with that horrible disease no one who survives to adulthood can escape: teenage idiocy. Through all the nonsense we collectively threw his way, he was — and still is — patient, kind, never quick to anger. We call this kind of person a saint.

Sitting with his ribs, patiently eating them through a tornado. That’s my dad. Happy 84th, man.