My Dad

The Memorial Day holiday earlier this week was especially poignant for me this year.  My father, Steve Osgood, passed away a couple of weeks ago. 

Dad was a WWII veteran, where he won a Bronze Star for valor at the Battle of the Bulge.  He was wounded, retaining shrapnel in his leg, and he almost never talked about his war experiences except to say he drove General Patton around for a while and, with other soldiers, went swimming in beer vats in Saarbrucken. 

He came home to Pittsburgh to start his long and meritorious career in advertising and public relations, first at U.S. Steel, and then in successive small agencies of his own.  I was always interested in writing, and he helped me get my start, hiring me first as a teen as a part-time secretary and bookkeeper and, later, when I joined the Pittsburgh working world, as a writer. 

He also gave my cousin Lee Gutkind a job in advertising and PR, encouraging his interest in writing.  Lee is now well known in the Creative Nonfiction genre. 

Dad’s life had its ups and downs.  One of the things that was particularly special to me is that recently, as his health declined, nearly every one of his friends whom I saw mentioned, unprompted, how proud he was of me and my writing successes. 

I was proud of him, too.  And I’m going to miss him.  I do miss him.   

Goodbye, Dad.