Lou Day, my father, died in 1953 - 50 years ago - but my memories of him are still very clear. He was a pillar of the church, inflexibly honest and devoted to his work and his family, but had a great sense of humor which he exercised sometimes to the distress of my mother. If he was sitting next to me in a public place, such as a subway or trolley, he would frequently poke me and pretend that he had not done it. This was when I was very young and I would get excited and try to poke him back, causing a commotion that would embarrass my mother and cause her to beg him to stop. He loved his brother Wil, and before the reservoir was built, would take me for a hike over the mountain from West Granby to Barkhamsted to visit him. On one occasion, when my brother was about 2 or 3 years old, we pulled him in a small wagon over the perhaps five mile trip. As we approached the top of the "mountain" (a good sized hill) we saw a boy sitting by the roadside get up and run into the woods. My father said we had frightened him and we should hurry on and get out of there. I later learned that the boy was a lookout for a local brewing operation.
I acquired my love of reading as a result of Dad's reading to us. When the Saturday Evening Post arrived, the family would gather and he would read one of the stories. The next night, he another and would finish the magazine before the next issue arrived. I still remember the names of some of the authors - Clarence Buddington Keddand, Mary Roberts Rinehart and others. The really good stories were serials, lasting 7 or 8 weeks, each week closing with a suspenseful crisis. I was not allowed to read the magazine until the family reading took place, even though I had met the mailman and brought the copy into the house.
I recall embarrassing him. I was about three and we had just moved back to Hartford from New York City. Dad had just started to work for the Aetna, which I believe paid monthly at that time, and I heard my parents wonder when he would receive his first pay. This was winter and my mother and I were entertaining visitors in the late afternoon when my father came in carrying a large cloth bag which clinked. I jumped up and said, "You got paid at last." That was when I learned that the bag contained tire chains.
-Graham Day
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