First Father’s Day Without Him

We made it through our first Father’s Day without Dad. It was weird not having him here.

One thing Dad loved, any chance he could have it, was a dinner at or from Lydia’s restaurant. For the last several years we have gotten it from Lydia’s back door and then would bring it home to eat.

For those not from Butte. Lydia’s is a fine dining Italian restaurant that serves food family style. You get a whole bunch of pasta and salads and fixings and before Covid it was unreal. Back when I was a kid they remodeled the building and they have a bunch of stained glass windows from Italy in there. It could use another remodel as it is getting dated. Of course I am getting dated as well.

In my childhood it was the Crème Del La crème of restaurants in Butte. We only went there for major occasions. Jennifer’s Dad also loved Lydia’s. It was the restaurant that all other local restaurants were measured against. The common saying was “It is Ok, but it is no Lydia’s”.

One of my parent’s favorite things is Lydia’s blue cheese salad dressing. It is to die for (if you like blue cheese). One of things about getting Lydia’s from the back door is you can order a extra quart of the dressing and we always do. That is the one thing that better be in the bag when you got it home. Otherwise the whole event would be spoiled.

Getting dinner from Lydia’s back door is a unique experience. You take a couple of big pots and they load them up with spaghetti and raviolis. They also put all of the other stuff you would get (salad, breadsticks, sweet potato salad, salami, cheese, anchovies, pickled beets, green onions, French fries, etc.) in a big box along with your entrees. It is a feast. I think we got like 3 pounds of French fries.

The area in the back is this tight little space and sometimes there will be three to four people in their waiting and sometimes you have to step into one of their storage rooms to all fit. Usually we don’t have to wait long because we call our order in, but if there are people ahead of you it can be a few minutes. They put a lot of food out that back door in addition to all the food going through the restaurant.

One of the many things Lydia’s is famous for was its fried chicken dinner. When we were younger Jennifer would order that. The only thing is the fried chicken dinner would take forever to get because they cooked it when ordered and every once in a while it would not be as great as it normally was and of course it was always Jennifer’s that would be the one that was not great.

At the end Jennifer was actually boycotting going to Lydia’s. If anyone other than Dad wanted to go there she would do everything to talk them out of going. Now to my Dad that was about as sacrilegious as you could get. If he wanted to go she would ultimately cave and go but she would not be happy about it and I would definitely hear about it.

Dad much preferred to visit Lydia’s in person, because he could visit and see people, but it just got too hard for him to go. His last visit to Lydia’s in person was last summer for his 60th high school class reunion. As always he had a good time and was happy to have made that.

So this year we once again did Lydia’s from the back door. Nobody ordered the chicken dinner and everything was wonderful. We actually just finished off the spaghetti and ravioli yesterday and that was after Chad and Cindy had taken some of it home with them Sunday evening. So it is a lot of food.

Anyway, Dad would have been very happy, but it was just not the same without him here. However we still have Blue Cheese dressing to eat for the next couple of days. If he was here it would have been polished off. He would eat it at all three meals if he could and sometimes he did.

Well I better get to doing something productive, so enough reminiscing for today.