A Father’s Day about Remembering
My father was a teenager during the Depression. That means there was no college for my very intelligent and very creative father. Here are some of his best moments, commemorated in a great photo of him barbequeing on the green Weber grill, wearing only swim trucks, a big Chef’s apron and a chefs hat!
When I was sixteen, I went outside to tell my father that I didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny anymore, so he didn’t go have to go thru the whole Easter Bunny drill which included getting up in the middle of the night and putting pieces of cotton on the underside of the chain link fence, so he could take us outside and say, “The bunny was leaving your Easter baskets and he heard you waking up and he ran out so fast, he left a little bit of tail on the fence,” and then he’s bend down to show us the Actual Easter Bunny evidence.
Finally, after an hour of discussion – he said, “OK – you win, I’m the Easter Bunny”. I locked myself in my room and cried all day.
My dad always made the best of whatever happened, a lesson he passed on to me, the eldest child. He always had a job – usually a great job with perks like boxes of oranges and pears at Christmas, and he taught adult Baptist Sunday school for 36 years. What a commitment.
My dad should have been an artist, because he had the most beautiful handwriting, and could draw anything. One of the great things he did for us was put together a whole book of photos of us for our 21st birthdays. Mine had a Winnie-the-Pooh theme, totally illustrated, of course. It included a list of the all the 20 songs I could sing at the age of 2!
My dad was also a fantastic grandfather to my two sons and they were only in their teens when he died, way too young, at 72. He still swam 60 laps of the pool every day.
Daddy, I think about you all the time, and wish you were here.