By the Time I Met Her Father   By the time I met her father, he was already a thicket of details: wealth as birthright, the blessings of home and health and loving wife, a life sunny because it was life, because life seeks out the sun. By the time I met her father, I knew him as fisherman, family man, who’s who of connections, relations, and money — sometimes it came, and sometimes it went. By the time I met her father, he had a century of stories — the war, bad breaks, islands of repose. He was a gentleman, a prince of New York. By the time I met her father, I knew all his songs and his jokes and his wonder all day long — spending his spirit down to the last dime.                                                     for Nathan     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont January 2015