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In 1998 Dad moved from his high rise apartment in downtown St. Paul to my house in Upsala. He had been a city fellow for most of his life, but he was raised in Upsala. I was working in Minneapolis as a sales manager with a Xerox agency and I was gone most of the week. It wasn’t much of an inconvenience to have him there. His passion was cooking, however I told him in no uncertain terms that I hated the smell of fried foods and I did not eat leftovers.
In July of 1999 the Xerox agency that I worked for, Albinson, and Xerox parted ways and they no longer needed a sales manager. I spent the summer painting old buildings and garages in the Upsala area and started working here at MPR in October of that year. If I did not leave a post-it note on the counter in the morning that said “NO SUPPER”, there would be a home cooked meal on the table when I arrived home. The food was awesome. The baked potatoes were done in a special way. He boiled them 10 minutes first and then baked them for one hour at 400 degrees.
As Dad struggled with old age and cancer, sometimes the quality of the supper was not up to the usual standards. Also, many times the smell of burnt food or worse, burnt plastic, from the tea pot handle, would greet me at the back door. He burned three tea pots, with plastic handles, in the last six months. It got so that the only time I did not leave out the post-it note, “NO SUPPER”, was on Fridays. On November 18, 2004, I came home and he greeted me with “I have to go to the hospital, but you can eat first, your supper is in the oven.” I responded “No way” and I put on the oven mitts and grabbed the baked potatoes and dish of meatballs from the oven and shoved them in the frig and we drove to the VA in Minneapolis.
That was Dad’s “Last supper”, he never did come home. That weekend I ate the leftover meatball supper. It was a very tasty meal.

This week the APHC show is the second of three November rebroadcasts, this one from just over a year ago at The Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jason Isbell sings “Speed Trap Town” and “Cover Me Up,” Angélique Kidjo performs “Afirika” and “Orisha,” The Dover Quartet plays the Adagio for Strings by Pennsylvania’s own Samuel Barber. Billy Collins shares “On Rhyme” and “Thanksgiving” from his collection The Rain in Portugal. Plus: Chris Thile’s Song of the Week, “I Made This for You”; they will check in with the Philly Chapter of We’re Not Actually Doing Construction, Just Making Loud Noises Early in the Morning; a glimpse into the world of fine dining. Lydia Rogers of The Secret Sisters joins Chris on Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love.” Tune in on your radio or your digital device.

“Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.” Marcus Aurelius