Dear Tiger
It was a special thing—seeing my dad with a cat. He was an animal lover. My dad had a great deal of respect and admiration for all animals, plants, and even insects. He had a very Zen-like way of looking at the world, even though he may not have been familiar with that term. Shortly after my dad retired from Dobbins Air Reserve Base, he took up several projects in his tiny house. I think he would have called it his shop, but it was—and is—much more like a small cottage than a shop. He had a radio and a small TV out there. He also had his favorite rocker. It was the same rocker his mother rocked him in in 1928, when he was a baby boy, living out on Lowery Road in Rockmart, Georgia. Daddy had acquired an old iron stove from somewhere—likely a teardown—and he would keep a fire going throughout the winter. If you were fortunate enough to know him well, you could step into his shop and have something like a religious experience. On the radio, Música Mexicana would fill the room. That...