Processing my dad’s death is like how imagine it is to ride a roller coaster (I say imagine because I don’t ride roller coasters). The ups and downs, the feeling of celebration in one second followed by confusion or something like fear in the next. I suspect that anyone who has experienced the death of someone close knows what I mean.
I’m back home in Seattle and spent yesterday with my mom, along with my brother Steve who is up from the Bay Area, working on those menial transition tasks that you don’t really think about before someone dies (like how the credit cards were all in my dad’s name). I spent a couple of hours connected to his email account unsubscribing him from the many mailing lists he followed. Each click of an unsubscribe link had a little pang of pain, like I was deleting part of my father’s reality from the present. But it also brought a feeling of clarity, like removing a veil that allows me to better see his true essence.
See what I mean? Roller coaster.
I’m adjusting back to the Seattle timezone which after being in France for a couple of weeks takes some doing. As such, I get tired at odd hours and am wide awake at others, like 2am Seattle time (11am in France). This past night, at 2am when I was wide awake, I remembered a fabulous video that Emerald Downs made of my dad in 2017. I looked for it and found it on YouTube and am embedding it below. Playing it, it’s the first time I’ve heard my father’s voice since he died.
That’s another of those roller coaster moments, believe me.
Andy Smallman 
I remember Al as true racing fan who thoroughly embraced the nuances of a being a good handicapper. He knew handicapping inside out. What a great selection on No Giveaway, 60-1 winner of the 2005 Longacres Mile. He owns a coveted handicapper’s record there! A true gentleman too. Joe W
Thanks for your kind words, Joe! I know my dad always appreciated the generosity & warmth shown to him (and the rest of our family!) by you, Vince, and everyone else at Emerald. Thanks for including him in so many things and honoring his legacy as a handicapper. I hope to see you when we come spread some of his ashes on the finish line next year. –Andy
Any horse that closes six lengths or more in the stretch and finishes within three lengths of the winner is worth a look. BTW, I purchased Pro Rated Longshots Plus just a few days before your father’s death. It is one of the best longshot methods out there. I’ve narrowed things down even more, but without your father’s revision, I would not have been able to do that.
I just found out you worked the 1988 meet at Longacres. I attended Longacres on Memorial Day in 1988, and that was the only time I ever went there because I live in CA. I bet three horses that day, and they all won. Vickey Aragon won the feature race for me on a shipper from Santa Anita. What a day!
Thank you so much for taking he time to share this with me. I’ll pass this along to my mother and brothers who I know will appreciate hearing that my dad’s methods are still being used. Of potential interest, we’ve been granted permission to spread his ashes at the finish line at Emerald Downs later this month. Best to you, –Andy