Short And Sweet



By Tony Kornheiser



Sunday, February 9 1997; Page F01

The Washington Post 



Last week I went to Florida to visit my dad. My dad isn't as young as he used to be. In fact,

at 86, my dad isn't as young as Gabby Hayes used to be.



From time to time I've written about my dad, and how he tends to be obsessive about saving

certain things, like the styrofoam trays that supermarket meat comes in; how he washes them,

and stacks them by the hundreds in his pantry -- you know, in case there's ever a worldwide

styrofoam meat tray shortage. LIKE YOU COULD GO TO A SUPERMARKET

ANYWHERE AND GET A PIECE OF CHICKEN WITHOUT ONE. I'll say, "Dad, what

are you planning to do with these things?" He'll say, "You never know when they'll come in

handy." And I'll say, "You never know when meatballs will come in handy, but you don't put

them in the linen closet." 



Have I told you about my dad's dishes? No, not the china. The china is all packed up. My

dad doesn't use the china. "Who am I entertaining, the King of England?" (I told you he was

old.) My dad now proudly serves guests on plastic plates with dividers for meat, potatoes

and vegetables. They're plates he borrowed from the airlines 25 and 30 years ago. Last week

we ate dinner off "Braniff." 



When I stay with my dad I sleep on a foldout sofa that sags alarmingly in the middle, so I'm

tucked into a tight U. I feel like Wally Schirra in his Mercury capsule.



When you get old, one of the first things to go is your personal thermostat. It's so hot inside

my dad's apartment it's like being in Indonesia. I'm waiting for Sukarno to come out of the

bathroom in flip-flops with a towel around his head. I'll say, "Dad, why is it so hot in here?"

And he'll say, "Hot? I didn't notice that it was hot." This is like not noticing that your hair is on

fire. It is so hot his clocks are melting off the wall. He lives in a Dali painting. 



Anyway, I hadn't seen my dad in almost a year. And what I noticed this time was how short

he'd gotten. Not that he was ever tall to begin with; in his prime he was only 5 feet 6. But now

he's five feet tall. And the thing is, he's still wearing the pants he wore when he was 5 feet 6.

Except now, he pulls them up to right under his armpits. When he sits down, all you see of his

shirt is the collar. "When you get old, your body settles," he said. I said, "Dad, it's a body, not

a compost heap." 



My dad lives in a retirement condo. You know the place. Women walk through the halls in

housecoats. Men walk through the halls in pajama bottoms and bedroom slippers. It looks

like a slumber party in a supermarket, except instead of shopping carts, everyone is pushing a

walker. There is status to walkers. People look and compare and envy, like kids with

designer sneakers. Oooh, Ethel's got herself a six-wheeler! 



Out at the pool, they blare music continually. Guess what kind? Wrong. Not Tommy Dorsey.

It's '60s rock! That's right, it's the stuff their kids -- like me! -- loved, and they hated when it

came out. I sat there, among these 70- and 80-year-olds sitting like flowerpots, baking in the

sun, and I actually heard "In a Gadda Da Vida" on the PA system. And they play it loud

because everybody's going deaf. It makes me think that in 30 years, when I'm sitting around

the condo pool in my bathrobe and slippers, I'll be listening to Gangsta Boyzz II Booty Menn.



My dad loves having me visit because I can drive him places. He had to give up his license a

few years ago when his eyes got bad. This is true: One day he drove my aunt to the doctor,

and on the way he pointed and asked, "Is the light red or green?" You think that's scary? He

was pointing to a mailbox. 



So I drive him around. Last week he insisted I take him to a particular spice store, because

he wanted a small jar of minced onion. This particular spice store was eight miles away. I

said, "Why don't we just go to a supermarket? There are about 20 of them between here and

your spice store." And he said, "Because I can get a good price at this store, 69 cents." How

much can it be at a bad price? This is minced onion, not Chanel No. 5. Safeway won't be

selling it for $340 an ounce. 



So now I'm going eight miles to save two bits, max. And I'm driving in Florida traffic, which is

to say I'm creeping along behind a row of cars driven by people whose heads don't extend

over the steering wheels, and they're going five miles an hour. Everything is in slow motion.

It's like I'm driving through cream of mushroom soup. I'm burning $4 worth of gas to get to

this place, and I wanna kill myself. We go in the spice store, which is simply a small grocery.

And my dad knows right where the spice rack is, walks over and triumphantly plucks a

canister off the shelf, and says, "Okay, let's go."



He is holding a can of shoe polish.



My first morning with my dad I squeeze some grapefruit to make juice. He insists that I take

the grapefruit rinds and put them into the disposal and grind them up. But he says, "Don't do it

before 8 a.m., because it makes a terrible noise, and it will wake people up." It is true, the

walls are very thin in his condo. They appear to be made of Zig-Zag papers. 



Anyway, I'm impressed that my dad is trying to keep the noise down in consideration of the

other residents. So you can imagine my shock the next morning at 5:30 when my father's

radio blasts on so loud people in Atlanta's Centennial Park ducked and cringed.



I ran into his room, panicked. "What was that?" 



"Oh, that's my alarm. It wakes me to music," my dad said.



Remember, it is pitch black outside, still 11 hours before the early bird, and I said, "Why do

you need an alarm? Are you going somewhere? You got a date?" 



"I like this station," he said.



"What's so special about it that it has to come on at 5:30?"



"It gives the weather," he said.



It gives the weather? Everything in Florida gives the weather! Every TV station. Every radio

station. All you get is weather here. So wherever you're from, you can rest assured that the

weather here in Florida is better than where you were. Everything that plugs into a socket

gives the weather. I could get a weather report from a hair dryer. 



"What could there possibly be about the weather at 5:30 in the morning that interests you?" I

asked. 



"I like the weather on this station," my dad said.



And I grabbed my dad, whom I love with all my life, and hugged him, and stared into his

eyes, and he stared into mine, and, speaking with the wisdom of age, he said something that

filled me with awe, and affection, and mind-boggling terror. 



"You know, Tony," he said. "I think you may be getting a little shorter." 

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