Author: Samantha

If you aren’t new here, you know that my dad came up with the probably world famous “Hail Victors? Hail, Yes!” slogan that he made into bumper stickers in the early aughts. I still have some of those bumper stickers tucked away for safe keeping and there is still a bumper sticker my my dad’s car we bought from him in February (that’s another good story) that Rick drives that I won’t let him take off and I’m sure it’s super embarrassing for him to look like a Michigan fan when he goes to work but on the flip side I *did* offer to drive that car when we obtained it and he could have driven the minivan but he wanted the Atlas so there.

But I digress.

Also if you aren’t new here, you probably know that my dad & I liked to say “Hail Victors?” “Hail, Yes!” a lot about things relating to Michigan sports. It was just a thing.

This past March, during one of his five hospital stays (I think it was the same stay that he had the “pee whisk” – that’s another good story), I visited him wearing the sweatshirt I got when we went skiing in Vail a few years ago. It is a blue sweatshirt that says VAIL on it. He said that if someone asked me if I wanted to go skiing, I could say “Vail, Yes!”. (He also said that if someone asked Emily – who lives on a sailboat in the Bahamas during the winter – if she wanted to go on a boat, she could say “Sail, Yes!”.)

Anyway, I wore that sweatshirt today and – like it does every time I grab that sweatshirt out of my closet – am reminded of that day back in March, with my dad laying in the hospital bed, coming up with jokes (if that’s what you call them?) that are now stuck in my head.

Sort of related (and also so my dad and something I don’t want to forget): in December 2024, Ohio University (where Mallory goes to school) was playing in the MAC championship football game at Ford Field and we were at the game with Mallory and two of her friends. My dad was at home watching the game on TV and when the game started, he texted me and said “Hail whiskers?”, because the Ohio U Bobcat logo has GIANT whiskers. He was so funny.

I don’t remember when it started.

At some point in the past 55.5 years I started using the phrase “My dad is an engineer” to explain why I am smart. Smart about directions, or math, or figuring out how some random thing worked (I mean my dad could “ri-ri” anything, you know). I can’t tell all the stories here in the first post, it would sort of make the point of keeping a journal pointless.

Unfortunately, on March 29, 2025 I had to switch from saying “my dad is an engineer” to “my dad was an engineer”, because, you see, my dad passed away on that day.