My Dad is turning 70 today and due to the snow and airline travel stress I am not able to be there, so in honor of that monumental milestone here are 70 memories and reasons why I love my dad.

1. He worked hard to provide for us, getting up way before 5 a.m. and not getting home until 6 p.m.

2. At Wo-za-wa days in the Dells he was always the family member interested in the oddest of gadgets - like the plastic whirly thing that all it did was make this whirring noise as you whipped it around your head, no one really NEEDS something like that but he bought it anyhow.

3. He’s hopeless when it comes to fashion and even though mom has tried to throw them away several times, I imagine he still owns a pair of patent leather white shoes and belt.

4. Before I left for college and again when I moved to Minnesota he sat me down on the front driveway and made sure I understood how to change a tire.

5. When I moved out, his gift to me was a toolbox filled with essentials.

6. He built my brothers and me a fort from a refrigerator box that even had a turret.

7. He used to get the microphone out, plug it into the stereo downstairs and pretend he was Santa Claus. (It's amazing that until this day when I hear santa claus' voice he has a german accent that sounds a lot like dad - I wonder if they know each other?)

8. When we put up the train under the Christmas tree, he’s typically the person mom has to tell to stop playing with it first (something about too much black smoke poofing out the engine of the train?)

9. He chrome plated everything because that's what did for a living before he retired - granted, the chrome typically went on metal bars however he pretty much tried to chrome everything - Frying pans, lampposts, Boy Scout neckerchief holders, Jerry's 10-speed bicycle, the huge star for the Christmas decorations on our house...

10. Every year, even after my brothers were no longer in boy scouts, he would still join his Order of Arrow buddies and fix up Camp Napowan.

11. He loves to draw out his dreams on paper – there were always scraps of drawings all over the place.

12. He likes dogs.

13. He snowblows the neighbors driveways.

14. He fixes the neighbors leaky pipes.

15. Ask any neighbor - He is a great neighbor. (Although see #23 for one annoying trait.)

16. When it’s really cold out he rubs his work-roughened hands together. It bugs mom but to me it sounds like dad.

17. He knows where “buxahuda where the haffa wexxed” is and even after 36 years I still don't have a clue where we are going.

18. He can speak German, Spanish and English often in the same sentence.

19. He just makes up words and thinks they are real words…uses them in sentences over and over again until people start using them too. That's beyond humorosity.

20. He dressed up in cowboy boots and a cowboy shirt and took me to father-daughter square dances.

21. He can change his own oil but doesn’t mind taking the car to jiffy lube once in awhile.

22. On Sunday mornings we had to endure watching hours of Luche Libre.

23. On Saturday mornings no matter how many times we told him not to, he cut our lawn or trimmed trees well before 8 a.m. (typically RIGHT outside my bedroom window.)

24. He blares the Mexican music station when he works in the garage.

25. He used to pull us in the wagon behind the tractor/grass roller. He also let us sit in the box trailer or on the bumper of the station wagon when he drove stuff to the dump - did we ever think it was dangerous - NOPE - it was fun.

26. He tells the worst jokes.

27. He bought his boss' player piano so that I could learn how to play and invited his friends over to help carry it downstairs so my "playing" didn't bother the rest of the family.

28. He always made it home on time to see our school plays.

29. He likes to drive big trucks or vans. Says he “Doesn’t like sardine cans.”

30. Eats anchovies with his Lou Malnatti’s Pizza.

31. We don’t know all the people he knows. He just talks to people and people talk back and that's just how it is . . . EVERYWHERE.

32. He built a soapbox car for us, partly because we wanted it and also because he wanted to share a piece of his teen years with us.

33. His garage will forever be filled with various snowblowers and lawnmowers and parts “just in case”

34. He likes to turn trash to treasure.

35. Growing up in Argentina he apparently ran around with a motorbike gang.

36. He built a cradle for my dolls.

37. He waltzed me off to bed on the tops of his feet.

38. He also made a great horsey back horse.

39. He and I won a HUGE Dog at Great America when I was six tossing hoolahoops around bottles.

40. He was patient enough to teach me to drive. We only had one lesson on how to drive “stick”. We identified that he and I weren't patient enough to learn stick and we agreed to abandon the lesson one block after we started.

41. He has a keen sense of direction and loves to take the country roads whenever possible.

42. When playing rummy he always tries to hold all of his cards and come out at once and laughs with glee at anyone stuck holding a joker.

43. He’s just as stubborn as I am. Which can be a good or bad thing.

44. It wasn’t enough to build a birdhouse for the crabapple tree in our backyard – he had to build a bird condominium and then expand it to a whole birdhouse neighborhood.

45. On family vacations he still woke up at 4 a.m. and tried to keep quiet while we all “wasted the day” away sleeping until 8.

46. He’s a survivor.

47. Survived being electrocuted

48. Survived his strokes.

49. Survived cancer.

50. Only God knows what else he will survive.

51. He always wanted to drive on every family vacation. Didn’t like other people at the wheel. We went to Florida a few times, Colorado, Arizona…hefty car trips with Oma and Opa Mt. Prospect in the backseat and us kids piled in the way back of the brown station wagon.

52. He used to pay me fifty cents to make his lunch - one butter and jello (jelly) sandwich on rye, one lunchmeat sandwich and a Coke (not Pepsi)

53. He has gone to Disney World several times, as he knows our family enjoys it, even though he really doesn’t like cartoons.

54. Every Christmas when I bought him a bottle of Old Spice, he opened it and made it seem like it was just the thing he wanted. (Even though there were probably five bottles of it in the medicine cabinet.)

55. He likes to bowl.

56. His attempts to cook are legendary – particularly the tuna fish salad blender “incident” – because why just mix tuna fish when a blender might do it better?

57. He is notorious for burned BBQ chicken at family parties, but can bbq the best steak I’ve ever eaten.

58. He does cook a decent omelet

59. He sort of shuffles when he walks which makes the change jingle in his pockets.

60. He always wants to say hello to me when I call.

61. He can fall asleep anywhere…the movie theater, lumpy couches, church etc. He'll say he's just thinking...with his eyes shut.

62. He’s a good sounding board when there’s something wrong with my car.

63. He gave me my first official "valentine" - a little ziggy paperweight that said "Love".

64. He worked hard so I could go to college.

65. He has helped me move in and out of dorms, apartments all without a whole lot of complaining. And except for the freezing cold and beige couch not fitting through a doorway I think he survived that too.

66. He worked hard and studied to become a US citizen.

67. One of the first things he did upon entering my apartment in Minnesota was check the locks and install a few more towel racks. Mr. Fix it to the rescue.

68. He sometimes lets me press the button on the slot machine or pick the lotto numbers which makes me feel like I’m his lucky charm.

69. He always waits until the last minute to buy mom’s Christmas gift (which is annoying and he really needs to "work" on that) however the moments I’ve shared “shopping” with him for "just the right thing" are times I know I’ll always treasure.

70. He always says “Love You” and I know he means it and I love him just as much.