[NOTE: This is an edited version of an essay of mine from the past.]

Today is April 15th. This means that millions of us will be making our way to the copy machine and then on to the post office so that our filled-out tax forms will have the proper postmark.

Ah, paying taxes. What fun! Along with close to 100% of Americans, I hate the process. It’s an attitude that unites us like almost nothing else.

Maybe you’re one of those early-birders. If so, my hat is off to you, but I never seem to be, despite my resolutions. Just looking at those booklets and forms gives me a headache.

This time of year also reminds me of my father. He was both a lawyer and a certified public accountant, but it’s the latter profession that conjures up the April memories for me. He was not the Taxman (see video above) but the Taxmiddleman, the one who prepared tax forms—often of a very complex sort—and did it all by hand back in those pre-computer, pre-calculator days.

Every year starting around February—when my parents always went away to warmer climes for about ten days, in preparation for the long hard slog to come—until April 15th, my father would come home from work every night, eat dinner, and go immediately to a small table in our living room. There he’d set up shop until bedtime, around 11:30 or midnight, and then repeat the entire process the next day. Weekends it started earlier. No TV for him, and almost no relaxation, just this quiet sitting in a chair, bending over papers and fiddling with small figures.

For those months, we kids were instructed to tiptoe around in the evenings and not disturb him. This was a tense time. We could see it in his exhausted face and bloodshot eyes.

And so in our house April 15 was a very happy day. That’s probably true for all the Taxmiddlemen/women.