Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers I know and don’t know. Sunday, June 21 will be quite a melancholy day for me despite my being a father. My siblings – six of them, including my older sister who lives in and traveled up from Delaware – and me were hoping to celebrate with Dad on Sunday but he died at age 87 this past Sunday after he and his doctors lost the three-year-plus battle to keep his body parts working correctly.

The Burnham “kids” and the Boothbay Harbor community were blessed to have him around for so long and that he was mentally sharp until the end. Those who knew him well know he loved Boothbay Harbor and its citizens and wanted only the best for both. As his obituary states, he enjoyed keeping up with and talking about local families, who is related to whom, etc. How many times did he and our grandmother (and others) talk about local people in our kitchen on Gilead Street, or at Bay Landing, his last residence? Too many to count.

Please let me relate a longstanding memory which perhaps planted the seed of my love for Dad. When he worked at the former A & P store, which is now Sherman’s Book Store, I was very young but I do remember one scene when Mom and I, and perhaps sister Sheryl and brother Bruce, stopped in to shop or just say hi. I remember seeing Dad and others in their white smocks or A & P shirts working away. As I looked on, I distinctly remember his discussing a matter or two with his co-workers, conversing pleasantly with customers, and taking the time to talk to us during our short visit. I must have marveled at this man in the white coat, doing all those things in a matter of minutes, because that memory has never faded. And in the 60-plus years he worked in the local grocery business, I don’t think he ever changed his mode of operation.

Thank you all for your kind words expressed to me and my family during the past few days. Dad is gone but we’re sure he won’t be forgotten in this community.