This column, written by LVEDC President & CEO Don Cunningham, originally appeared in The Morning Call and on the newspaper’s website on Aug. 11, 2024.
My dad made his annual pilgrimage back to the homeland this month when the sun in southwest Florida becomes too hot to sustain life. 
A steelworker, forced to become a construction worker when Bethlehem Steel closed, who ultimately retired from a political patronage job in the judiciary, he migrated south to the Sunshine State with my stepmom 10 years ago.
Since then, they return during the end of July and early August and we take up cohabitation in my house, which used to be his house. There’s a book’s worth of material in these visits. My working title is: “Living With Dad Again When You’re Nearly 60 and He’s Almost 80.” To be clear, however, it won’t be in the Self-Help section. I have no advice to offer.
The process begins with him not telling me when he’s coming back or leaving.
“We’ll be up for Musikfest.”
The festival starts in August. He arrived the third week of July with a few days’ notice. This year’s visit happened to coincide with some unique elements. The first being the arrival of Florida weather here.
They moved in part to follow the migratory pattern of Baby Boomers, and the prior generation, from Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey to seek winters without snow and to be engulfed in heat as their body temperatures drop. Ironically, the weather has reverse migrated with no snow in winter and roasting heat and humidity for most of summer.
If you speculate in land, I offer a tip. Future generations will retire to Canada. Without a unique climate, most of Florida is just crowded former swamp land with a lot of chain restaurants and alligators.
The second unique feature was the start of my wife Lynn’s economic stimulus project to re-landscape the yard, replace the back deck, which was built by the Old Man, and add a patio.
This started as a proposal to get a pool during the COVID pandemic when everyone discovered their house and yard. Fortunately, for me, Lehigh Valley contractors are booked at other people’s houses through 2027.
Where Lynn saw a pool, I saw a massive hole blown in our savings account and the image of coming home from work to a backyard full of extended relatives and friends drinking my beer. She’s not one to give up easily. The compromise project consumes only half of savings and was scheduled to start in early June.
By the gift of the contractor gods and the laws of nature, it began six weeks late — just in time for the arrival of my dad. There’s nothing better for a guy who spent his career making things, working with his hands and is not shy about sharing his thoughts, than a multi-staged construction project taking place outside a sliding glass door.
“These guys don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Where the hell did you find these guys?”
“This thing won’t be done until next summer.”
These were the standard comments I’d hear on the way out to work or upon coming home while he stood against the glass. Dinners started with a rundown on the day’s activity or inactivity.
“Well, there were three guys here all day and I think they put up two boards.”
It took me right back to growing up and the tough love of a father who didn’t give participation trophies. It’s my annual time machine return to the ‘70s and ‘80s.
This leads to the last unique element of this year’s visit; it came during the Olympics.
We grew up watching the Olympics, knowing the names of swimmers, gymnasts, decathletes, sprinters, hurdlers, and skiers. Rooting for the USA. Despising the Soviets and their corrupt judges.
My dad always loved the Olympics. He watched little television when we were young. I don’t think I ever saw him sit through a full football or baseball game on television. But we lined up nightly on the sofa to watch the Olympics, both the winter and summer games.
In my busy life, I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to it this year, but he was home.
“How do you work this TV and all these remotes? The Olympics are on,” he said one night when it was just the two of us at home.
We’d just finished talking about the latest episode in the presidential election where a former president had challenged the ethnic origin and heritage of an American vice president and questioned her ability to lead on the world stage because of her gender.
As we took to the sofa it felt like 1976 again — in more ways than one.
Only this time I wasn’t 11 years old, and we weren’t watching Bruce Jenner and Edwin Moses. It was Simone Biles winning her second gold in the female gymnastics all-around while teammate Suni Lee took a bronze. The irony wasn’t lost.
The Old Man has become more emotional and introspective as he’s aged. As the national anthem played and the American flag was raised behind these two spectacular young American athletes, his eyes welled up. He said he hoped the other guy from Florida that we discussed earlier was watching.
It made me smile – a smile blended of the sweet memories of childhood with a warmth of my good fortune to still have time with a father, the man who taught me right from wrong.
Like a perfect three-act play, the backyard project was completed just as our summer visitors packed their bags for the return trip to the golf course community of Bonita Springs.
“The deck looks great,” he said. “Those guys really did a good job.”