List 62

Love: My Dad, Terence T. Evans, known to many as T. He is, in many ways, the inspiration for this blog as he has always been a big maker of lists of all sorts. T is a great man - a guy who grew up dirt poor with a single mother, made it to college on a track scholarship, went to law school, and ultimately became a federal appeals court judge. What everyone who knows him will tell you, though, is that what makes him a great man is not just his many accomplishments but who he is as a human being. He's the kind of guy who, for example, when at Ikea winds up helping strangers load their cars up. Spend four minutes with him and he'll know where you're from and some interesting things about you. He's special, and I'm lucky to be his daughter. (He also comes highly recommended as a husband and grandfather.)

Like: Patatas Bravas y Chorizo - T's favorite dish at his favorite restaurant, La Merenda.

Discovery: One day in 1979, when T was in Chicago for work, he walked by a record store playing a new sort of music he'd never heard before. He went in, asked what it was, picked up the record, and that night we became the first white kids in Milwaukee to listen to Rapper's Delight.

Obsession: The Godfather 1 and 2, T's favorite movies (and in my personal Top Ten as well). Over the years, he has hosted many a "Festa Corleone" - Godfather-watching marathons accompanied by pasta. He also created The Godfather Test which included a wide range of trivia questions, including "what's the name of Solozzo's driver?" and fill-in-the-blanks like "take the __ leave the __."

Complaint: Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which T has just been diagnosed with. (Ironically, Marlon Brando had IPF too.) It's a progressive lung disease that often has no known causes - my Dad never smoked - and for which there is no treatment. All the "how can this happen to our family" "life's not fair" sentiments that we have been so lucky to avoid for decades have become painfully real. I'll be by T's side every step of the way.