IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY DAD, who turns 90 in a few days. He’s a devoted TV-watcher whose heroes ride horses, seduce sexy spies with ’60s-style gadgets, and body slam other men in skimpy tights; a man who prefers the company of dogs to most people; a devotee of apple pies, banana pudding, and – of late – tamales; a man who’s possibly happiest when he has something to worry about: his grandkids, the weather, the dogs, his prescriptions, his grandkids some more.

He’s much more than the sum of this blog post, but words might be the best thing I have to offer for a man who asks for so little – although you can bet your mustache that cowboys, sweet treats, and dogs will play a role this week as we celebrate Papa Bear rounding the corner toward the century mark.

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FLOYD BROWN, no middle name, probably never had a childhood. He was born two weeks before the stock market crash that birthed the Great Depression, when the life expectancy for U.S. males was 55 years. He grew up fast in the hills of East Tennessee surrounded by poverty and not much else. He never knew his father, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was young. “We watched our whole house washed away in a flood,” he told me once, the memory making his eyes tear up. His education ended in elementary school, and he began building a hardscrabble resume and work ethic that reveals itself even today as he insists on doing the daily dinner dishes.

One of his early jobs, at the local roller rink, taught him to be a graceful, first-rate skater. His love of movies took root during a stint as a movie theater usher. Amid the many menial jobs, he found time for fun, sneaking off with cousins and friends on beer and moonshine runs.     

Unlucky in enterprise and denied entry into the military (4F because of an inner ear problem), he found solace in the arms of a woman who wasn’t really right for him. With a steady new manufacturing job and a newly adopted son (me!), they started a life in Memphis in a home where he would live for 60 years. 

Soon enough, he would divorce her but keep me. 

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MY CHILDHOOD YEARS spanned the ’60s and ’70s, a period ushered in by JFK and the Beatles with serious detours through Vietnam, civil rights, disco, and Watergate – a challenging time for any single parent, much less a newly divorced one who had barely been parented himself.

Early on, Papa Bear relied on the kindness of relatives (divorced in-law relatives, at that), a smart move that put me in the company of an aunt and cousins who knew a little something about nurturing a kid. I shiver now as I remember walking – or being carried – through the cold, pre-dawn mornings to my aunt’s house before Dad would catch a bus to work. 

Segue to my high school years, when he worked the graveyard shift, leaving me overnight to myself. Luckily, by then, I’d gained enough discipline to stay clear of the teenager minefield of opportunity lost. Still, it was a lonely time, for both of us.

We seemingly parted ways for some years as I made my desperate escape into college, career, and my own parenting venture. Me the occasional son, he the occasional but devoted dad and grandpa, it took a health scare to reunite us for good.

Eating like a college freshman for decades caught up with Papa Bear when his body finally said, “Enough!” and blessed him with a minor heart attack that led to triple-bypass surgery. If I hadn’t already realized he was a 5-foot-4 bad ass, he proved it over the next three months. For an 86-year-old, that kind of surgery is an ass-kicker, but it’s the recovery that shows if you’re made of the right stuff. After 15 days in ICU post-op and another three weeks in the hospital and a rehab center, he came to live with our dogs … and us. But mostly the dogs. 

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ALMOST FROM THE MOMENT he moved in, he and our pups, Abby and Rocky, were like infatuated teenagers who couldn’t stand being out of one another’s sight. Most mornings, they hang out on the back porch, watching for the mail lady’s truck to appear on the next street over. When it does, Dad makes his way up our long driveway to greet Cathy and swap stories. It wasn’t long before she was delivering cupcakes and gifts on his birthdays. 

We could never get him interested in the local senior center, but he finds comfort in his routines around the house: Eating the same lunch each day, playing fetch with Rocky from the shallow end of the pool, asking when the grandkiddos are coming over again, and watching reruns with Perry Mason, John Wayne, and James Bond (when WWE isn’t on).

His legacy isn’t one of work but of kindness. Despite a rough beginning and some lean middle years, he’s always been an optimist with a strong will to do the right thing. He says he wants to live to be 100, so maybe I’ll update this in 10 years. Until then, cheers, Papa Bear!