MY DAD

My dad was always the first to open these campaign emails, the first to forward them to friends — including some who definitely didn’t ask for them — and the first to tell me which ones he liked and which ones he didn’t.

So, this email is about my dad, Doug Fryday, who died unexpectedly this week.

When I was 10, he took my brother and me to an anti-war rally. Years later, I had to sit across from him at dinner – my voice shaking – to tell him I had joined the military at the height of the War on Terror. It wasn’t an easy conversation.

When I was deployed during the Fukushima nuclear disaster, someone called the Pentagon demanding to know if I was safe.

That was my dad.

When I testified before Congress to stand up for the rule of law and human rights at Guantanamo, he sent the video to everyone he knew.

That was my dad.

He never owned a new car. He spent weekends fixing his trucks in the driveway and taught me how to change my own oil.

We couldn’t afford big vacations, but he loved the outdoors and gave us something better. He taught us to respect and appreciate nature by experiencing it directly – camping, backpacking in the Sierras, hiking the California coast. He thought ice cream tasted better after five days in the woods.

He was right.

He took me to my first San Francisco Giants baseball game when I was three months old, coached my Little League teams, and managed an over-50 mens softball team called the Mooseheads. He self-published a book called Legends of the Mooseheads, which is likely the only book in the world about men’s softball and philosophy.

That was my dad.

My earliest memories are of construction sites. When my brother and I were old enough, we had to help him – hang sheetrock, mix cement, dig fence ditches, clean paint brushes, whatever was needed. At the end of the day, when we could barely lift our arms, he’d say, “I hope this will be your motivation to study hard in school.”

He recently told me he pushed us so hard on education because he believed it was our ticket to a better life.

He was the first to text me after watching me give the commencement speech at UC Berkeley last spring, where I returned decades after receiving both my undergraduate and law degrees from Cal. He knew the literal blood and sweat it took to get there. And for him, every drop was worth it.

St. Patrick’s Day was his favorite holiday. Every year he would cook all day to prepare a feast, pour a Guinness, and we would read Seamus Heaney poetry around the table. Our favorite poem was “Digging.” After surviving throat cancer, talking became very difficult. Yet he still mustered the strength to read it aloud to his grandsons last year.

Like half of America, he had no retirement savings and survived on Social Security. He lived in a mobile home that Mollye and I helped him buy. He never cheated, lied to get ahead, took advantage of anyone, or resented people who had more. In his later years, he volunteered with a local organization building tiny homes for homeless people.

That was my dad.

He wasn’t perfect. He knew his demons. But he put the best of everything he had into his sons, and into trying to make this world a kinder and gentler place.

I know you can’t forward this email, Dad.

You don’t need to.

You’ve done enough.

Josh Fryday is a candidate for California Lt. Governor in June.