IT'S YOUR MUG ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Eric Antonio   FRANK AND HIS LITTLE ANOKS we called him dädi, we were just learning the tongue we called him dädi, cause it made him happy where we came from everybody had straight hair but dädi's was do was curly, salt and pepper like his voice was raspy, and I learned he was really scatting most of the time dädi smoked kools and drank vodka on the porch in the summer pulling drags and watchin’ us play in the yard he was from Jackson, Mississippi and often teased my brothers and I with stories about his people, catfishing in the creeks, and the faces that he recalled we called him dädi, we were just learning the tongue we called him dädi, it made him feel good dädi had a crooked smile and plastic teeth that slept next to him sometimes, when I got up in the middle of the night to pee I'd see those teeth smiling at me on the bathroom sink dädi liked to eat peppers and give us english lessons he was a mild old man, maybe calmed by two great wars and his kitchen housed a parakeet that died before its time so sorry, dädi, that I sprayed bug killer on your little friend I know it broke his heart finding that feathery carcass, undisturbed by flies just that funny smell of cheap cologne, he said but he never got angry with me dadi left us sad on a lonely day long before I really knew him long before I realized why I would have loved him so I never knew a anyone quite like dädi was and I'll never miss a man quite as much   Eric Antonio was born in Quezon City, Srivijaja (or the Philippines) and immigrated to the Americas with his family in 1974. He grew up in Inkster, Michigan and graduated Morehouse College in 1991 with a degree in Economics and The George Washington University in 1997 with a MA in Special Education. Currently he coordinates special education services for middle schoolers in the Baltimore, MD region.   Published in Volume 10:2, Spring 2009.