Today's Daily Double is... Father's Day on the longest day!

Father's Day landed on the summer solstice this year, which seems right. Give the dads the most daylight the year can produce, they spent enough of it in the dark driving us places.

Called Dad this morning, early for me, mid-morning for him, and we did the thing we do: twenty minutes of logistics disguised as conversation, then the real stuff sneaking in right at the end. Saw him three weeks ago when he blew through town (hotel lobby breakfast, him travel-tired) and he talked about hanging at the beach together soon. The beach came up again today and I could hear him smiling about it down the line. Some men say I love you and some men say let's get to the beach. If you got my dad, you learn to translate. Same sentence.

He's the reason I can bait a hook, pitch a tent, and back a trailer, the reason a Saturday doesn't feel finished unless something got fixed. He never once said the word career to me. He said measure it again, and take it apart and see. I have spent my whole adult life taking things apart to see, I just do it in a terminal now. Root-causing a production incident is Dad in the driveway with the carburetor.

We spent the longest day properly. Lady got the big walk, Al cooked while the sun was somehow still up, and we sat on the deck till almost ten with the tide coming in slow. And someday the beach he keeps talking about is one Al and I sailed to, and I hand him a rod on a shore I navigated to myself, and he says water looks good, and means everything by it.

Happy Father's Day, old man. Measure it again.