I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately, but it’s been pretty busy down at the ticket agency, what with artists like Maxwell and bands like Aerosmith announcing new tours. Yes, it’s shaping up to be good summer.

And I owe it all to you, Dad. For if it wasn’t for you, I’d have never learned about the business. I would never have understood about supply and demand, what the market will bear and just how much a Vanilla Ice ticket is worth. Boy, there sure are a lot of surprises in this business.

What I’m trying to say, Dad, is “thank you.” Thank you for taking me under your wing, showing me the business and teaching me how to size up a potential $500 David Lee Roth fan. Yeah, I can spot ’em coming a mile away.

And thanks for sending me off to college. Sure, I didn’t think I needed an education, what with working in your ticket agency every day, stocking the shelves with tickets for Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, and bouncing the occasional deadbeat out the door. But after four years of taking classes like “Service Charge Dynamics,” “Front Seat Psychology” and “Pavlovian Theory As Applied to First Day Onsales,” I learned how to carry on in your footsteps and run the most successful ticket agency in town.

But it hasn’t been easy, what with the Internet and competition from auctioneers on eBay who are always threatening my bottom line on tickets for the big shows like Tom Petty & The Heartbreakersor Cher. I’m tellin’ you, there ought to be a law.

Take these Rolling Stones tickets, for example. There was a time when I could have charged 300, 400 or 500 hundred percent over the box office price, but not any more. Not when a pizza-faced high school freshman in Des Moines can undercut my price on my best tickets. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hurtin’. I’m doing okay. I can get at least 50 to 75 percent over box office on these puppies.

But for you, Dad, I’ll let them go at 25 percent over cost.

It’s just my way of saying, “Happy Father’s Day, Pops.” Now, will that be cash or charge?