I've been procrastinating, avoiding, refusing to do what I know I have to do. The thing is, that when my father died I was left with a terrible guilt and sense of loss that went far beyond losing my dad. I still carry the pain of all that with me, and I always will.

My dad, Ogden, Og, or Oggie, was one of the great guys. He was probably the most charming, gregarious, fun, funny and warmest people you'll ever know. His mother, my Grandma Bertha, was one of eleven children of Ulysses Samuel Grant Fashbaugh and his wife Fannie. Every one of those eleven was full of fun, charm and warmth, and I dearly loved them all. My dad carried on that tradition and enhanced those attributes. Everybody loved Oggie! As a restaurant owner he was liked and admired by all who came in contact with him, and that was one huge bunch of people.

Dad gave me my first job. At the age of 14 I was hired to peel potatoes, honest. Seventy-five cents an hour to sit on an old orange crate outside the back of our downtown Santa Rosa, California restaurant, at the end of a block long alley. On one side was the walk-in refrigerator and on the other was the walk-in freezer. I sat just outside the kitchen door on that crate with a hundred pounds of spuds in a burlap bag, a five-gallon bucket of water next to me and a hand peeler just like the one in your kitchen. It would take me hours to peel the goddamned things, and then I'd do the fun part: push them one-at-a-time through the French fry cutter (designed and built by my grandfather) and into another bucket of water with a good dose of sta-white in it. On several occasions I had a .22 rifle leaning against the wall next to me so I could shoot the occasional rat. Never even fired it.

I loved hanging around with all the kitchen staff - the fry cooks, bakers, dishwashers and waitresses. I thought they all liked me, but I was the boss's son and I suppose they tolerated me. But there was no doubt they all loved my dad. Those were great years as I was growing up and going to public school. By the time I was in Jr. high the business was in trouble, and Dad had to sell it to keep from going completely bankrupt. I guess it was changing times. People's tastes in dining out were changing, and folks stopped going downtown to Eisenhood's. Instead, new places were popping up in the outskirts of town, in the woods, in more scenic areas than our old-fashioned downtown setting. There were more trendy places too, and the old formula just stopped working. So Dad had to sell the beloved restaurant. Eisenhood's Fine Foods was no more!

But there was an exciting new thing about to hit Santa Rosa: Bowling! Until around 1955 the only bowling alley in town was a four-lane downtown place where a guy worked as a pin setter. Now, two big new bowling alleys were going to open in Santa Rosa, and Dad was able to transfer his liquor license and buy the bar and coffee shop in one of them. So that's where the family business moved. Sure, it wasn't fine dining anymore, but it was a really nice bar, and we served really good bar food with Dad's touch, and of course his marvelous personality.

He loved the San Francisco Giants. I can remember like it was yesterday, seeing Dad through the big plate-glass window in the center of our H-shaped house. There he is, sitting in the back yard in a lawn chair under the cool shade of his prized ginkgo tree, a high-ball and a pack of cigarettes on the little round, metal table next to him and the portable radio with the game on. Behind him is the huge sandstone barbecue, built from spare stone from the construction of our house. He's still wearing the short-sleeved dress shirt, slacks and his ancient wing-tips. And he's hollering, "ALL RI I I I I I I GHT! YOU CAN TELL THAT ONE -- BYE-BYE-BABY!" And he laughs victoriously.

So Eisenhood's Holiday Lounge was born, and it opened with great fanfare and a lot of hopefulness. I'm not sure if the business was ever really viable, but over the next several years Dad got more and more in trouble financially, not helped at all by his persistent love of booze and horse racing. So eventually Dad was bought out and took a job at a nearby bar as a bartender. He was soon hired back at the bowling alley bar by the man who bought him out, this time not as the boss but as a bar tender. But retirement was right around the corner and I think part of him was glad not to have the headaches of the business. But it was a bitter pill. He and Mom had already taken some great trips, to Hawaii and Italy, and were planning one to Hong Kong as soon as he retired, at the age of 62.

They never made it to Hong Kong. Dad was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his throat just months after retiring. I have no doubt the cancer was the result of a lifetime of cigarettes and whiskey, often straight. Everything got put on hold as Dad underwent radiation and chemo, and all the horrors that came with those treatments. After some months the tumor disappeared, an apparent remission. Joy! Mom, my sis and I were elated. It wasn't easy though; the radiation destroyed Dad's salivary glands, which made him very uncomfortable, but otherwise all looked good. But it didn't last long. In a matter of months Mom called me in tears, informing me that the tumor had returned. One possible treatment was to remove his vocal cords, but Dad rejected that idea right away. So he kept getting sicker and sicker.

Then one night I got the call I was dreading. Dad had been admitted to the hospital and wasn't likely to be leaving. Mom, how bad is it? Really bad, she said. So the next day I was on an airplane. He looked terrible - the whites of his eyes were yellow, and his skin had a yellowish tint - the result of his liver shutting down from the spreading cancer. It spread to his brain too, and he started acting sort of loopy. 

One day, while a bunch of family were visiting Dad in the hospital, I got the high sign from my uncle from the corrider just outside the door. He wanted to start making arrangements. Made sense, especially since my mom was pretty useless about then. I told Dad we had some errands to run and we'd see him later. His response, "I'll wait here for you." So we went to a funeral home and started pricing caskets. To this day, 28 years later, I still feel guilty for that deception.  

Four days later Dad died. More guilt for me: I couldn't stand sitting there, listening to him moaning and moaning, so I went home and smoked a joint. Then Mom called to tell me he was gone, and I rushed over to be with Mom. I still recall the cute young woman in the elevator who smiled at me and asked if I was visiting someone. My retort: No. My father just died. She looked like she wanted to drop through the floor, poor thing.

Mom never really got over Dad's death. I lost her in 2005. But the Hong Kong trip didn't die. Five years after Dad left us Mom asked if I wanted to go with her. She had the money and the time, and we had a ball.