My dad had a terrible singing voice.
He not only admitted it, but I think was a little proud of how bad he was.

One of our favorite activities to do together was sing. We had a repertoire of mostly Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Beach Boys.

On our better days, we would do really horrible harmonies and scare anyone who was within hearing distance – which was often, since we had a tendency to sing at the top of our lungs in public places, like while waiting for the elevator in his condo building, or when walking down the sidewalk in front of a cafe.

We especially liked to sing the Beatles “Yesterday.” I think because it has the odd notes and is actually a rather difficult song to do well. Whatever the more difficult path, we tended to wander down it.

As the eighth anniversary of my dad’s death approaches (April 9th), my thoughts have been increasingly of him.

This morning, I woke up with one of his favorite songs in my head and was missing our off-harmonic caterwauling.