My father died 24 years ago today.

Today is the 24th anniversary of my father's death.

He can be seen in this photograph a a very young boy using a frying pan as an instrument.

His brothers are accompanying him with their instruments. Perhaps those earlier musical endeavors gave my father his apparent "love" for pop music. Most people when recalling my father's antics will remember him for having his own takes on "Top-40" music hits.

For example, with the song, "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," the lyrics go,"I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden . . ." but my father's take on it was,"I beg your pardon, I never farted in your rose garden . . ."

As for the once-upon-a-time hit song,"Bad Moon Rising," the lyric-line is,"There'a a bad moon on the rise."

My father's version? "There's a bathroom on the right."

And with Paul McCartney's,"Band on the Run" my father's rendition was,"band with the runs."

My father's sense of humor, and apparent relationship with songs, remained with him throughout his life.

Even at the very bitter end, when he had hoped to be out of a hospital where he had been for treatment due to severe consequences of emphysema, he recorded a tape giving Louis Armstrong "a run for his money."

In the tape (which I referred to in a recent entry here on Blogger) my father expresses what the doctors had hoped to do: have him out of the hospital the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Sadly that was not to be, as he was still in the hospital the "Monday after Thanksgiving" and declining quickly: dying exactly one week after Thanksgiving (11-30-1995).