Smile, all you reprobates and scalawags

This Saturday, December 12, I'm downing a stiff drink and saying, "Here's to you, Pop. Happy 120th Birthday!"

He never even saw 70, but he lived his own life - working hard, drinking hard, and smoking hard.

F.R. (Bob) Olsen died at 67. I was 23 but I always knew he'd die before I was too old.

I remember that quite a few World War II vets were dads of my classmates at Christ the King Grade School in south Minneapolis.

My dad wasn't a veteran.

He would turn 41 just five days after Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.

Those other dads were born in the early to mid 1920s,...