At six years old, I sat down after Sunday morning cartoons and wrote my very first story. The illustrations were nothing to speak of, but the premise went something like this:
Bugs Bunny becomes a priest and takes over my parish church, Good Shepherd.
Unexpectedly, he looks very sharp in a vestment. He delivers a sermon that lasts only one minute long, and then Mass is over. From the pulpit, a carrot is loudly, unabashedly chewed. Before we all genuflect and skedaddle, one young lady is called forth from the congregation (myself, of course.) And in an exercise of Divine intervention, Bugs makes an exception for me, little two-more-years-till-communion me, and lets me taste the sacramental wafer. The end.
I gave the story to my father, a British Catholic in the tradition of Evelyn Waugh, and he loved it. At a time when he mainly intimidated me (his accent, his suits and cigars, his bowls of spicy radishes) I found in his appreciation of this story a common thread for the two of us to hang onto.
Everyone knows that the first thing a father teaches his son is how to roast a goose for Christmas. Especially in a secular Jewish family. But on Father’s Day, there’s nothing more American than Dad, stir-fried duck and Boggle. 
One of the few food memories I do have of my dad is his trying to make the perfect fried egg. He had supposedly been a cook at the start of WWII. But military mess food then was powdered eggs, ersatz coffee, canned and mystery C-rations covered in “chocolate.” 
Even though my father doesn't drink it, bourbon just seems like the quintessential spirit for dad. In my visit to bourbon country, I learned the distilleries were all pretty much family ventures, though now mostly owned by conglomerates. Even if you don't drink bourbon, a visit to this beautiful part of the country outside Louisville is a treat.