My Father, Body and Soul by Josh Max

Here
The guy who had sent me, in the last months of his life, cartons of used books by Chekhov and Updike and Hemingway with notes reading, “I think you’re ready for these.” The guy who stood up to boneheaded bureaucrats his entire life, including my junior high school principal who had called him in for a parent-teacher conference after finding me with a copy — Dad’s own copy — of Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book.”

“Do you know your son is reading this?” the principal demanded.

“This is America,” he replied. “He can read anything he wants to.”