July 12 would have been my dad’s 80 th birthday had he not checked out seven and a half years ago. One of the things he frequently said in his later years was “Do stuff for me while I’m alive, don’t bother visiting me when I’m dead because I won’t care.” In his honor, I will not go to the cemetery tomorrow and weed the small garden plot we have there. Instead, I will talk about him here since he was never really “into” the World Wide Webs much so he probably won’t notice this. And even if he did, he’s dead so what the hell is he gonna do about it? Haunt me? Too much work. He probably couldn ’t be bothered to put down the pulp sci- fi paperback and get off the Heavenly Couch. “Dad”, “Pop”, or “The Old Pain in the Ass” as his kids knew him, “Tex” as my mom knew him was born on July 12, 1928 in Lufkin Texas. Find that on a map without using Google, I dare you. From what I was told growing up, he bounced around the Midwest with his stepfather as he moved from job to job. We e...