My dad loved to fish, though never cared if he caught much. (photo courtesy of Chris Erskine)

I hail from that generation of chain smokers who, as John Cheever put it: “Woke the world in the morning with their coughing.”

I can still hear my father coughing himself awake. Never worked out, not once. He’d get breathless from climbing aboard a bar stool and ordering a Gibson.

But my dad was a cheery man, with the ruddy complexion to match. Your English teacher would’ve called him “sanguine.”

Indeed, like me, he was a person of color. We’d start the day pale as a June moon, then gradually take on color as the day went along. You could tell Dad’s mood by the level of Irish rouge in his cheeks. We both blushed like maple trees.

From him I learned to tie a fishhook, bet the underdog, throw a tight spiral, burn the ribs.

He did interesting work, far more challenging and lucrative than mine. He and his CBS colleagues helped birth the NFL, with instant replay and in-your-face camera shots. They were the Steven Spielbergs of Norelco zoom cameras, calling the shots in cold production trucks in the bowels of old, rusty stadiums: Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland.

When they were assigned to a Rams game in December, they said a little prayer of gratitude.

They all flew first class and wore expensive overcoats and cheap snow-proof shoes, probably from Sears. On the night before the game, they staged lavish expense-account feasts with the TV booth “talent”: Unitas, Hornung, Starr, Butkus, Madden, Summerall.

It was an industry based on medium-rare steaks and chilled vermouth. They were “Mad Men” to the tenth power. They were Cheever.

It’s amazing anyone made it to the booth or production truck the next morning, or that their marriages survived. Alpha announcers ruled the day: Ray Scott, Frank Gifford, Jack Buck. Buck was fighter-pilot funny. Dad also really liked John Madden. At Christmas, Madden would send him a nice scarf.

I wanted to follow in his footsteps but they proved a little too big for me. His job required a steady brain, cat-like reflexes and on-the-record decisions seen by millions of TV viewers and the CBS suits in New York (angry middle-aged men bored with office duties after being at war in some country they couldn’t pronounce).

Indeed, the high-pressure stakes of that world would’ve made me loopy. Dad, on the other hand, slurped it up like soup.

When you have a job that consumes you, there isn’t much room for anything else. He liked to fish a little, didn’t give a woot if he caught much.

He also love/hated golf. To this day, nobody can hurl a 3-iron like he could.

In spring, he would garden, a strange hobby for a guy like him. He preferred people to sweet peas, a good story to almost anything else. But like me, he needed a moment. So, there he’d be, sweating and planting onions on a cloudy, 50-degree April day.

Dad loved to travel. Mom didn’t. In that little tidbit of dueling temperaments, you could decipher their marriage. She felt safe and happy in the suburbs. He felt lonely and bored, a city boy in need of a midnight taxi home.

Three decades ago, Dad died. I wish he’d had a chance to know his grandkids a little more, or meet these two fresh-faced great grandkids in their Halloween garb. Dear shuddering God…

This season is suited to fathers – the pumpkin carvers, the sweaters, the funny slippers, the hugs, the chili, the fellowship. (photo by Chris Erskine)

In fact, he was born on Halloween, when strangers go door to door asking for free stuff.

Now, you have to understand, free handouts went against everything my dad’s generation believed in. Yet, he loved this holiday – the door bells, the smiles, the crowds, the laughter.

Because his birthday was Halloween, there was never time for a cake, because everyone was off trick-or-treating. He never complained. Back then, dads never complained. They’d all been to war, remember – a terrible war they’d won. What were they going to do, bellow about some stupid little suburban party?

Yet, “I who have died am alive again today,” said a poet of this time of year, when the curtain between life and death flutters in the breeze and departed souls seize the moment.

In fact, I think all the dads are alive this season, if only in the old photos, in our memory banks, in our hearts. This is a season suited to fathers – the sweaters, the funny slippers, the hugs, the chili, the cheery fellowship.

So happy birthday, Pops. Miss you madly … your laughter, your stories.

Your morning cough.