Over the years, from time to time, I took a few moments at work, using my electric typewriter, to finger-plink a special letter to family and friends about something that I’d seen, or something that I’d done, or best of all, someone special whom I’d met or been affected by.

But in all of my 59 years, I have never received a card, a note, or a letter from my dad.

I learned almost all that I know from my dad, standing across the workbench from him, as he philosophized about all matter of life’s mysteries, far, far beyond the confines of a simple baker’s life, but never a pen to paper.