Thinking of my dad...

I have been thinking about my dad a lot these days, wishing he was here.  He was so funny and smart about people without being arrogant about it.  He has been gone for five years yet there is scarcely a day when I don’t indulge in some thought of him.

His parents were divorced prior to World War II, when my dad was two. I have never met, or seen a picture of, my paternal grandfather.  My grandmother, an unhappy and mostly vile, hateful, person never remarried. 

When my dad was alive he would scarcely mention how really mean his mother was, and would never really complain about her to us kids.  It seemed his thinking was that he was stuck with her, and was an only child, so why share his burdens about her with us?  Reflecting on him and his life, he was 30 years older than me, it is easy for me to place him in the context of my life and wonder what he might do.  Most times I end up laughing because he was just so darned funny.

So now I am a dad, and I have these two great kids who look at me and sometimes want answers, and sometimes need stuff, and sometimes don’t know what they need or want but need a dad to be there for them.  It is in those moments that I think of him the most.

I think first about what he would say.  His wisdom was not of the Atticus Finch variety.  He had a way of putting things that was so grossly inappropriate, so drop dead funny, and so acutely in-tune with the natural rhythms of people that it is almost impossible to share his lessons with my children. Certainly my daughter would look at me like I was trying out for a role in a pirate movie if she ever heard me talking like my dad.

He was the first human being I ever heard utter the phrase ending “…and the horse you rode in on!”  We were in the car leaving the church parking lot.  I remember it distinctly because I was a child and wondered why he was yelling about “riding a horse” to the family in the wood-paneled station wagon.

My son, however, now 10 (“and a half” he would remind me to say) takes special delight in hearing many of my dad’s ribald axioms.  In truth I am happy to share them with him.  Some dads let their kids take a sip of beer when they get to a certain age. Well, for me, my indulgence is to give the boy a glance into the never politically correct world of my father.

1. “Get up quick; don’t ever let the bastards know they got you down!”
2. “Those kids are making fun of you?  Well (blank) ‘em all but six and save those six for pall bearers…”
3. “Did that kid call you skinny?  Well you tell that kid that you can always add muscle but you’re wondering what the hell he is planning to do about that face…”

Those were all dad’s chestnuts.  I am sad that as time goes by I am forgetting them.  My memory fades but there is plenty of evidence there of a man not at all refined – and he wasn’t – but terrifically engaged in the “growing up” process of his kids growing up.  He was a college educated man, and a veteran.  He didn’t grow up with a dad to show him the way, but he never once threw up his hands and said “beats me, kiddo.  You’re on your own.”  He was so unique that I cannot ever recall seeing him truly comfortable anywhere.  I suspect if he ever was it was in the armed service.

In his absence, I reflect on him for guidance with my kids, my career, and my marriage.  I think about what he would say or do when different things come up.  He was an avid golfer – and a really good playmate at just about anything if you could look the other way while he pulled the occasional fast one.  I suspect living the life he did, no dad at home, crazy evil mom, leaving for college just so he could get out of the house – he learned to live by his wits.  For him, if you were playing a game it was always played to win.

One of my favorite memories of him came from a JL Hudson’s Thanksgiving Day parade in the mid 1980’s.  He used his contacts to arrange for us to be admitted to a private downtown Detroit parking garage right along the parade route where we could stand well above street level and watch the parade go by.

My brothers and I were all young men, but grown and for the most part out of the house.  My sister, 9 years younger than me, was still living at home.  As we waited, freezing in a concrete landscape that was covered in several inches of terrific packing snow, my oldest brother looked four stories down to the street level where he observed a person, obviously intoxicated, answering the call of nature beneath the snow-laden boughs of a huge, and ancient white pine tree.

Us being us, and the fact that the person relieving herself was a “herself,” there presented in the form of her exposed, brilliant white behind an inviting target for snowballs to be rained down upon from the highest level of the parking garage.

So it was that we were engaged in this practice, firing missile after missile at this once in a lifetime target, none of us finding the mark but all of us laughing heartily, when the tell tale aroma of nicotine on leather announced the fact that my father had hold of my throwing arm by means of his leather-gloved hand.

Immediately I thought we were busted.  My dad used his work contacts to get us this prime viewing location; we were there with my mom, my sister, and my brother’s fiancé, and here were his sons acting like the three stooges throwing snowballs at the exposed derriere of a lady in dire need of a restroom.  I expected the worst.

He elbowed me sharply in the ribs as he went by, called me and my brothers “a bunch of idiots” and peeked over the ledge to see what had captivated us.  What happened next is a memory that today shapes how I feel for my dad when I view him as man about the same age as I am presently.

He leaned over the ledge, observed what he later called “a target rich environment” and then, using both arms in a butterfly stroke kind of motion, made the largest snowball I had ever seen with snow from the hood of a parked car.  I remember, after it dawned on me that the old man wasn’t going to kill us, laughing out loud and telling him he would never be able to throw a snowball that big far enough to hit our unfortunate target. Make no mistake; it WAS one big snowball – about the size of your average laundry basket.

As if it was yesterday I remember he looked at me right in the eye and said “I’m not aiming for her,” and then launched what can only be called a snow-boulder into the very tops of that snow laden white pine.

The tree dropped, all at once it seemed, about 500 pounds of wet, heavy snow straight down.  Bullseye – the old man got the better of all of us that day and was the only one to hit the target. It was pure genius and flawless execution and we laughed our asses off.  It is one of my all time favorite memories of him.  Not at all appropriate – but a memory I will have the rest of my life.

So thanks for stopping by the blog today and indulging this memory of my dad.  I swear every word of it is true.  Wherever you are today, I hope you are in the company of those you love enough to let them see the real you, the inappropriate you; the you who laughs and schemes.  And I hope those in your company love you enough to know that you are the best you that you are, and that the memories they have of you don’t all have to be perfect, so long as they are cherished.

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com