A Father/Son Memory

This past Friday, John's Dad was accompanied to the restaurant Gordon Biersch in Washington, DC along with four of his most favorite Leonard women; John's Mom, John's sister Jes, as well as John's sister-in-law Gina and John's niece Ariana. Ariana was a little fussy at the table, so John's Dad got up from the table and walked around the restaurant with Ariana. As he did, he got to tell Ariana one of his more memorable stories about her Uncle John.

It was a bitterly cold day in early March 2007. It barely got out of the teens that day. Unbeknown to all, in a little more than a month, JW would die. In any event, at the time, John's Dad had come to the belated realization that working in downtown DC, he had at his disposal the opportunity to get together periodically for dinner with each of his sons on an individual basis since both now lived in the District. That cold late winter night was to be the first of many such evenings with JW. It was only later that John's Dad found out that JW was somewhat nervous about that night, remarking to his fiance Alex that such a request to get together was unprecedented and he didn't know if there was anything more to it than just an opportunity to get together to talk. But talk is all father and son did that evening and it was a truly memorable evening.

Meeting John at the Gallery Place Metro stop, John suggested a walk two blocks over to the Gordon Biersch restaurant on 9th Street, across from the Spy Museum. While waiting at the bar for a table, father and son got a good laugh about the recent efforts of then Vice President Dick Cheney's office to abolish John's Dad's official position and his entire organization -- events that would become public several months later.

During conversation over dinner was the first time John revealed definitive plans to propose marriage to Alex. And he had it all worked out. First, his grandmother (his Mom's mom) had given John her wedding ring. He already had plans to have the diamond in the ring reset. He also thought long and hard where he was going to present the ring to Alex -- high in a hot air balloon over West Virginia sometime in early May.

Never did JW's Dad see John so happy and so assured that he was doing the right thing. It is the last one-on-one conversation father and son would ever have, and it was a truly memorable one.

Ariana will get to hear this story from her Pop more than once for many years to come.