Every day, I count myself blessed that I have such a wonderful and caring father, who has always been there for me and provided emotional support when I needed it.

My dad is also in the newspaper business, so I guess you could say that I have ink in my veins. In fact, he told me that I once got dinged a little at a football game when I was fooling around on the sidelines while he was covering the event. I am far too young to remember this, but I’m sure it’s true.

I also have vivid memories of sitting in his office playing on one of those old-school Macintosh computers where everything was black-and-white. I remember hearing dad talk about going to a “Rotary meeting,” and thinking, “I wonder what that even is!” I would have never imagined that I’d be doing the same thing when I got older.

I am especially thankful that my dad — and both my parents, really — introduced my siblings and I to a lot of cultural pursuits at an early age. I can still remember sitting at home listening to dad’s cassette recordings of The Three Tenors, or perhaps Les Miserables, or even just some classic Bob Dylan. Somewhere in our home archives, there is a recording of a high-pitched me (probably 4 years old or so) trying to answer my dad when he said, “Can you say Luciano Pavarotti, Justy?” For a preschooler, I think I did pretty well, actually! It sounded like “looshano party.” And Saddam Hussein became “sadomino sane.”

As I got older, I stayed close to my dad. There were countless baseball games, hockey games, and football games, where it was just him and me. And even today, I try to make at least one trip to Vegas or Notre Dame (or both) with him each year. I love my mom very much as well, but I have always had that extra special connection with my dad.

Happy Father’s Day, dad. I love you.