On Father’s Day (and hopefully on every other day as well), we honor our fathers, who both gave us life and hopefully set an example for us of what they most wanted for us to be and to achieve. Even with their shortcomings (and none of us is a perfect parent or a perfect son or daughter), we can thank them for that most precious gift of life! We can also thank them for other “gifts” they gave us.

For example, my father, Paul Wagreich, DDS was a wonderful storyteller – he used to mesmerize my brother Carl and me for hours on long trips to our summer home. Primarily to keep us from squabbling, he told us tales of “The Mooganoogan Man,” the story he created about a young boy from the Moon, whose parents gave him permission to come to earth on a special rocket ship to visit two children – with remarkably similar qualities to my brother and me. He created this story in a continuing adventure for years. I recently told my granddaughter, Lilith, about the story, and she asked me to tell the whole thing to her. So every time we are in a car together now, she now asks me for the next installment in “The Mooganoogan Man.” She even helps me create it with her own imaginative additions to the young boy’s adventures. So my father’s story lives on, even though he passed away in 2008. He was a much better story teller than I am, but the story now has a life of its own. Thank you, Dad!