I'm kinda stressed today, since I've got 14 pages of photos to find, edit and lay out for a special photo section for SGN's Pride edition by Wednesday, and am also shooting the Seattle Pride Pageant this evening at Neighbours, but what better way to procrastinate than wish my dear old dad a Happy Father's Day! I don't know a single person who would've went through the late nights he did to help get me through hard times over the phone during college at Indiana. I never understood him wandering back to his shop in the middle of the night to work, and now I understand perfectly. I love you, Dad!
Here's my favorite photo of him - I think from his first year down at IU. In the-year-before's high school senior photo, he'd dressed like a republican. I'm glad he shed that look and grew a mustache to achieve the penultimate Bruce look. As my sister Lauren said when she posted this on facebook a couple weeks ago: "He was/is a really cool dude."
Bruce, circa the late 60s
Then when I thought I was headed toward graphic design, I did a type specimen for a typography course I was taking - it's a compilation of photos through the years and excerpts of my dad talking about what he does for a living. Years later, I'm glad we did it. It's one of those things you look back on and you're glad you took the time to do.
Typography project, May 2008 (click to enlarge!)
And here's a picture of him I took this past Christmas that means the most to me. His mom had given him a look, showing us that she was still with us at a time she was becoming harder to reach, when he joked that he didn't know which Caleb he liked better - his dog in the 80s or my sister's boyfriend. It's the last photo I snapped of Dad and his mom - shot from the hip, like he always does but I still haven't gotten very good at. Grandma Helen passed at the end of April at the age of 99, and Bruce and I wrote her obituary.
Grandma Helen, Mom and Dad, December 25th, 2014