A Father's Retirement

Excerpt

Ames, IA 50010

Dear Dad,

"I am going now to make you a new pair of shoes" you told me when Gas-tro-enter-olo-gy had five too many syllables for the vocabulary of a four-year-old.

That answer never truly satisfied me because rarely did you have shoes for me at the end of the day! Soon you moved to satiate my curiosity, escorting me through rooms and rooms of equipment on wheels, and blinking lights, and tubes in faces, and needles in skin, and "This is my son, Eric," you would say; and I saw faces of fear and joy, of complete