This is my dad. He gave me both my poor vision and my innate Russian sense of melancholy and the feeling that we’re all going to die soon. I love him anyway. He not only painted a whole piano for me (a piano I stopped playing after about a year), he also made me breakfast almost every morning I went to school, reminded me gently to put on a jacket (by telling me he would beat me if I didn’t), and taught me how to drive, an experience that I’m sure contributed single-handedly to an increase in blood pressure on his behalf. I’m so lucky to have a dad who not only loves me so much, but can cut a mean turkey. Spasibo, Pap.
If you also have a Russian father that has raised you by threats of beatings, please tell him how grateful you are that you are now an upstanding, fine citizen.
