Breakfast

As long as I can remember my dad has LOVED to go out for breakfast. When I was a kid he used to come into my room at like 4am to see if I wanted to go to breakfast with him. It was always a special treat to go to breakfast with dad. He would alternate between the four kids so that we all got a turn. When we got into our teenage years dad continued to come wake us up at all hours of the morning looking for a breakfast buddy. It became somewhat less cute to have him wake us up at 4am though and you could usually hear him going from room to room trying to coerce someone into getting up.

Finder of Great Things

As long as I can remember my dad has been unable to pass up "freeway finds". A freeway find is usually something that has fallen off of someone's moving truck, been thrown out of someones window or otherwise left for dead on the side of the road. One day many years ago my dad had a dream that there was a bag in the middle of the road. In the dream he passed up the bag and then the next car behind him stopped only to find that the bag was full of money. From that time on my dad NEVER passed up a freeway treasure. I remember numerous embarassments during my early years when my dad would suddenly pull over to the side of the road and jump out of the car to retrieve a "great find". I can't tell you how many broken lawn chairs, life jackets, barbeques and once even a fax machine (which we do actually use...to his credit) my dad has rescued from abandonment. Many called him a "highway whore" but he always claimed that he was "a finder of great things". One man's trash...

Family

Anyone who knows Dad knows that he lived for his family. His favorite topic of conversation was his kids. He couldn't be more proud of us. He also adored my mom and lived to make her smile.
Few people in the world make me feel as loved.

Coke

The first item on Dad's favorite things list has got to be coke. Now I recognize that we all have our little addictions, but my dad's relationship to coke borders more on obsession. When my dad became confused, one of the few reoccuring coherant themes has been "I want a coke". He got so desperate in the hospital when he couldn't eat or drink that we actually took the sponge we were using to wet his mouth and dipped it in a coke. "That's the good stuff" he says "Now let me have the whole cup".
Several months ago my dad had a dream in which he went to heaven and discovered that there was no coke. He was extremely distraught by this idea. The next day at church my dad lost the ability to speak and had to be rushed to the hospital. On the way to the hospital he started to point to a gas station, indicating that my mom should pull over. My mom, worried that my dad was going to be sick, pulled the car into the gas station, at which point my dad went inside and got a coke. Who stops on the way to the emergency room to get a coke? I guess he didn't want to risk dying without one last fix.