January 26, 2007 A Toast to Senator Al

My Dad, Senator D. Alan Rock, was born in 1929, and he passed away in November of 1980. During his lifetime, Dad amassed a collection from around the world of 200+ liquor nips. Many of these were collected during travel that he did with my Mom in the 1960's and 1970's. My Mom "Nana Pat" was the keeper of this collection from 1980 until January of 2006. That was when she joined my Dad, and all of those we love, here and above.

Dad always said that he was going to sample and/or drink most of these nips before he skipped on above, but he didn't have a chance to finish. I have a 200+ liquor nip collection myself, so between the two collections, I am now the proud keeper of a 40-year old inter-generational collection of 400+ specialty nips from around the world. For example, in Dad's collection, he had a QE 2 Scotch Whiskey nip from the late 1960's. This was bought on the Queen Elizabeth II ship.

So, it was an auspicious occasion on Friday night, January 26, 2007 when I asked my good friend Chuck Houston III to join me in a special toast to "Uncle" Al. We selected three nips from the collection to toast, which you can see in the picture:

In this next photo, you can see Chuck and me toasting to Uncle Al, and in the background of the photo, you can see Dad's collection in the lighted cabinet that I got from Laurie and Jay. It's a great cabinet, because it matches the one that I have my nip collection in.




In the photo below, you can see some Dad memorabilia that I have at my home. Here you can see the ROCK license plate that we had for decades, and also Dad's office signs.


Here's a picture of Dad, circa 1977 - 30 years ago! Here's to you Dad !