The last time I saw my dad alive was in his hospital room. We watched a couple Andy Griffith shows and chuckled all the way through. He died that night. It's a supercharged moment, one that always comes back on Father's Day.

Today's a day to tell stories about dads, and that was my last one about mine.

He worked as a manager in the textile business around Hickory and Granite Falls, N.C. In this industry he worked with all kinds of folks, and he especially liked those with the salt of the earth upon them without whom no yarn ever got spun.

One day he brought home a large piece of rough-looking plywood with a rather fresh and tightly stretched raccoon pelt on it. Dad said one of the men at the mill just thought he would like to have it.

Another day I found him in our basement with a wooden box with a heavy screened front. Intrigued, I quickly ran up asking what it was.

"Don't get so close," Dad said sharply. Then in a quiet, menacing voice: "This is a mongoose box." Transfixed, I simply stared. Then, "What's a mongoose?"

"Only the fiercest animal you'd ever want to meet," he said.

Then — SLAM. The box door sprang open and a rag with some fur on it flew right into my face. Screaming, I ran for the hills. Until I realized the joke. Dad and I would play it together on many others many times after that.

But I think my favorite story of those he used to tell involved sports.

One year, apparently on a junket to New York with mill colleagues, he got to see a World Series baseball game, one game, in Yankee Stadium. The year was 1956 — some of you baseball fans probably have an idea of what I'm going to say next — the pitcher for the Yankees was a fellow named Don Larsen.

That day, with my dad and his friends watching, Larsen pitched the only perfect game (no hits, no walks) ever thrown in the World Series. It was the only major league baseball game my dad ever saw, he told us.

Later in his life dementia set in. One day he was sitting with my brother at our old home in Hickory, looking out the window to the back porch. "That's a big hawk out there," he said matter-of-factly. My brother, sensitive to his sometimes confused condition, thought he was just rambling until he looked out the window to see a large red-tailed hawk perched on the porch railing — Dad wasn't that confused. I remember, too, how he used to feed squirrels out of his hand on that porch.

When he finally had to move into the Alzheimer's wing of a Tarboro nursing home, he managed one day with his easy manner to cajole a workman repairing a door to let him out of the otherwise locked and secured facility. The sheriff's department finally caught up with him across the Tar River near Princeville. Just doing some walking, trying to get back home, he said.

Losing a father is among life's most difficult passages, but these stories keep them alive — and the laughter and good feeling they carry continue to nurture us, just as our fathers did. Today, I feel for those unfortunate among us who never knew their dads or whose memories are less than bright. Their stories are sadder ones.

It's one thing to lose a father; another not to have known or loved one. As we celebrate our fathers today, keep those families near in your thoughts.

Al Clark is executive editor of The Daily Reflector. Tell him what you think at 252-329-9560 or at aclark@coxnc.com.