This is the third post we’ve written that riffs on Lady Carolyn Lamb’s awesome, reputation-defining epithet for her mercurial lover, the English poet, Lord Byron: mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
The “Dad” in question from the title is an extremely kind, and doting one who will go to great lengths to protect and support his children, as all Fathers should, and as ours did always and forever. This is Dr. Tony Reid, GI oncologist and CEO of EpicentRx who is only mad and dangerous for tumors to know, since he designed lead AdAPT Platform, AdAPT-001, to target them – and target them effectively and with extreme prejudice.
Father’s Day has fallen on the third Sunday in June (this year it falls on June 16th) since 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed a law making it a permanent national holiday. According to the United States Census, the estimated number of fathers across the nation is 72 million. This is the day we set aside to remember, honor, and affirm their importance, all 72 million of them, be they present, or absent, mad, or bad, or dangerous to know, as Lord Byron, father to Augusta Ada, surely was, and as Dr. Tony Reid is in relation to tumors.
Our Dad, who we mentioned earlier, was really and truly the greatest ever, and we count ourselves beyond lucky to have known him. He was larger than life: a devoted best friend, a mentor with all the answers, a man among men, and a North Star that made and molded us, and to whom we were completely devoted in return. Even 4 years after his death, the ever-present memory of him – what he did, how he did it, what he stood for, his greatness, his genius, his facial expressions, his stability, his likes and dislikes, what he cared most about, and who he was exactly – tugs at us like gravity, unseen but never unfelt, influencing all our choices and actions, consciously and unconsciously, every minute of every day.
Of course, it makes very little sense to choose to celebrate Fathers on only one day; the great ones like ours and like Tony Reid – and they were and are the best – deserve to be celebrated every day – but very quietly please, on tiptoes, and with whispers, since we strongly suspect that what every Father wants, no craves, most of all, especially on Sundays, is a nice, long nap.