My father lived for 88 years. He was a man of sometimes limited patience who could spend years digging a boat ditch across a marsh by hand. Probably the least mechanically inclined person I ever knew, he somehow managed to build a house from the ground up, almost singlehandedly.
He was a disciplined, hard worker. But once when he and I were barely speaking, I asked him for a ride to the Massachusetts Turnpike so I could hitchhike to Indiana. As he drove me there, maybe five miles, I fell asleep. When I woke up, we were in Buffalo. Five hundred miles away. He dropped me off and had to head straight back. Just a nice little thousand-mile jaunt, when he probably had an office full of work.
My father used to tell us that we were descended from the kings of Ireland. None of us believed it. He also told us that the constellation Orion was named for an Irish warrior. As far as we could tell, the only sign of nobility in the Maher family was that several relatives were royal pains in the butt.