Happy 105th Birthday, Dad

My dad, born today, the 17th of February bucked fate head-on, courageous and daring Raised in a home on a block so poor he swam upstream, de rigeur In 1926, all his teeth fell out lack of fluoridation won that bout In 1929, young brother Sidney died of malnutrition the family couldn't afford to see a physician In '33, he chucked religion, came to Chicago on a mission to look for a job midst the Great Depression His family had gambled on their decision that my father Maury's iron-willed ambition Would see brother Herman through dental school which my dad would pay for, as a hard-working fool And so he did (!) and so it went, 'till my father Maury was sent overseas, B.A. in hand, to fight Adolph Hitler in a foreign land When he returned, he earned himself a law degree married his sweetheart Maxine with two pennies or three to his name, he toiled at his law firm's bottom 'till he saved so much money that a ranch house he got him in Highland Park, Illinois in a subdivision on a tree-lined street my dad's rags-to-relative-riches story, a Horatio Alger throwback treat