Three Father’s Day Shout-Outs

For Father’s Day, I’d like to salute three dear friends regarded by their own families as extraordinary dads.

In no particular order:

Dev Samaddar

Dev is a photographer, poet, publisher, blogger, and social-media maven. He’s also an engineer with a penchant for philosophy and metaphysics.

Possibly best of all, the letters in “Dev Samaddar” rearrange to spell “mad dad raves”. A Father’s Day anagram if I ever saw one! You’ll need to ask his family whether this dad really is a raving madman, or whether that’s just a spelling coincidence. (Hint: They’re his biggest fans, with the possible exception of me.)

Better still, decide for yourself by subscribing to his blog, DevSamaddar.com. Or to his Twitter feed, @dsamaddar (where he spells his name upside down; seriously, go check it out). Well worth a read!

Craig Hammer

Craig is a man-about-the-planet who works for the World Bank. The letters of his name rearrange to spell “arm mega rich”.

To be fair, arming the mega-rich isn’t what the World Bank does. (Though I’m aware of cynics and protesters who apparently think so.) In any case, it isn’t what Craig does: He equips and empowers people in the developing world to lift themselves economically.

In witness thereof, his name also rearranges to spell “H’m! Rare magic!”, “richer gamma”, and “charm imager”. The latter reshuffling aptly describes his Instagram presence, where he shares photos of his family and (sometimes) of his exotic travels. (You’ll have to look him up there; I can’t tell you the exact link since I’m not on Instagram.)

Ed Cromer

Ed and I had been out of touch for more than three decades (or is it now four?). We first became friends in the mid-Seventies as reporters at The Tullahoma News in Middle Tennessee. More than half a lifetime ago, that still feels like yesterday.

He went on to a career in big-city political journalism; I moved into printing and computer graphics. When did we lose contact? I’m not sure; possibly during the time Cheri and I lived in the Caribbean during our Peace Corps stint.

No matter. A few days ago, seemingly by accident, I came across an article about Ed’s retirement, last year, after 20 stellar years as editor of The Tennessee Journal, a Nasshville-based periodical about government and politics. One Internet search later, we were catching up by phone.

Ed is busy these days reinventing himself as a novelist. Since he isn’t currently into blogging or social media, you’ll have to follow him on Amazon once his book is published. (Stay tuned; I’ll announce details here.)

Will Ed succeed in his new endeavor as a creator of fiction? Certainly, for two reasons: (1) He’s a terrific writer, and (2) the letters in “Thomas Edward Cromer” rearrange to spell “charmed word-maestro”. (Anagrams sometimes lie, but this one doesn’t.)

It’s worth noting that this year, 2019, also marks the 20^th anniversary of my own dad’s passing. Felix Grundy Matthews, at age 92, left this world a scant few months before the year 2000.

I miss him every day. He was a terrific father, with one flaw: I’ve never figured out a way to reshuffle the letters of his name into an appropriate anagram! (Come to think of it, that’s more my flaw than his. Please be patient, Dad! I’m still working on it.)