Papa Juan


I couldn't ask for a better father... His name: He was "Da" for the first few years of my life. But then I started calling him "John" when I was about three, although I can't remember why. Maybe because I thought it was grown-up to use real names. When I refer to him as "John," it means "Dad" to me.
You wanna see something interesting? Go back to my dad's youth.

Here he is riding his bike in downtown Ashland years ago.


John, sitting on our front porch.


from my journal, Oct. 10, 1997

I just read an e-mail from John, and it made me cry. Not that it had any big news or anything unusually significant. The details of his news just seemed especially poignant, making me miss home a little. John mentioned familiar things that struck all my chords. My god, he's an incredible person. I don't think I could have a better dad in any way. I feel like I could tell him almost anything, and I love our e-mail correspondence. John has so much creative vitality in many different ways. He's suddenly trying a brand new career (if one could call it that) at web page design, never having done it before. That's inspirational! He's doing it because he wants to. I hope I'm like that when I'm 56 years old... or even now. John is constantly there for me, interested in what I do. He's also always willing to share what's going on in his life with me. How many people have fathers like John? Not many. I'm very lucky, and every once in a while I just need to stop and appreciate him.


John with Phoebe (on right) and I in downtown Ashland.





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