Patti and John had a really good dad

Patti and John had a really good dad. It’s terribly sad that he’s gone.

We spent so much time with their family that no one ever thought to take pictures. A different era.

I don’t have a single picture of Big John, which is what we called him to distinguish him from John, his son. Although we didn’t call him that to his face, my sister reminds me: for years, when speaking to him, we addressed him as Mr. Long.

I took this pic on a special occasion in 1978, when Little John and Patti took 3rd place — admittedly, out of 4 — in a local canoe race. It’s a reminder that Little John actually was once little.

I remember when Big John’s father passed away. I was eavesdropping, I must have been, poised on the stairs from the kitchen down to the rec room. Now that his father had died, Big John said, he wasn’t John Vincent Long Jr. anymore; he was John Vincent Long II — there was no longer anyone to be Junior to. I couldn’t imagine him being junior to anyone.

R.I.P., John Vincent Long II.

About the author

I like sitting in Jack Webb's booth.