For all his faults, Dad had a great vocabulary. Like Donald Trump, he knew all the words, great words. Only Dad really did know the words, and used them daily and generously on us.
Dad knew virtually nothing about fishing, hunting, the internal combustion engine, baseball, popular music. He knew nothing about dancing, girlfriends, prom, smoking, drinking, football, curse words, but he knew those things were bad and forbade all of them. So Dad was pretty much useless in my development as a teen. He actually wanted me to become a minister, of all things, exhibiting a horrible lack of insight.
But he did have a fantastic vocabulary, and every day he used it on us, unsparingly. So often when I do the daily New York Times crossword puzzle and have to dig back into all the synonyms he put into my brain, I have to acknowledge that fact. I still know little about women, fishing, hunting, the internal combustion engine, etc, but I have self-taught many other skills and have done ok at some of them.
And I am one helluva crossword solver. Thanks, Dad.
