Hal

After the army (he was ROTC at Johns Hopkins University), Hal went to work as an engineer for the navy, where he remained his entire adult working life. He used to get up at 4:30 am for his daily commute from Baltimore to Washington DC. He didn't really talk about his work. He refused to eat anything with poppy seeds, which ruled out pretty much everything in the freezer (Coincidence? I think not.), for fear of testing positive for opiates. And, every now and then, the next-door neighbor, Mr. Gordon, would let him know that the FBI had come around again, asking questions (routine security clearance). Which often led to the "let's pick up the lamp and talk into it" game.

At age 56, he took early retirement, and lied about his age to get into some senior citizen watercolor class at the Jewish Community Center. Way to buck the system, Hal! Oopsie. Hope I didn't just get him blacklisted from the JCC. Anyway, it was to be his very first art class of many. Now he's an award-winning watercolorist and pastelist. Who knew?!

Hal's my dad, and today's his birthday. He's pretty old, so he doesn't have to lie anymore.

Here are some of his originals (the first is a pastel, and the others are watercolor):