overcoming my father's puritanical injunctions against

pure, unfettered

joy
delight
wonder

To have someone to *play* with! Freely! Without constraint. This he resisted with all his might. The pain of the Puritans passed down through one generation after the next, undiluted, as a pure, viral strain, infecting one poor soul after the next with their dour, grim, bleak attachment to misery and hardship. For an agnostic, he sure had the 'rain-on-your-parade' routine down pat.

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