Remembering my father, Paul Kornbluth, who died on this day 33 years ago.  He was incredibly sweet, and also troubled, and also an ebullient storyteller and singer, and also really bad at taking care of himself.  He was a fantastic dad.  I miss him every day.

He was born in Allentown, Penn., but grew up in The Bronx, N.Y., along with his little sister, Isabel (my dear Aunt Izzy, now gone as well).  His parents grew to hate him, and he never spoke to them in my lifetime; they had wanted him to be a Nice Jewish Boy, and he had instead become a Communist.

I took this picture of him around 1977, when I was a freshman at college and was taking beginning photography as an elective.  Dad was standing on the corner of 172nd St. and Broadway, in front of a bodega called Larry’s Broadway Beet.  He was lighting one his corncob pipes.