Remembering - Something I Don't Do So Well
Things I remember about my Dad:
- I loved to sit in his lap and be tickled.
- He smoked Kool Menthols most of his life.
- Switched to Trident to give up the Kools.
- He always smelled like smoke and coffee...Which just smelled like Dad to me.
- He like fried egg sandwiches on toast with ketchup.
- He liked crafts like painting Christmas ornaments and making candles.
- He liked Nat King Cole and Herb Alpert And The Tijuana Brass.
- He liked breakfast for dinner.
- He slept late on the weekends.
- He wore PJ pants and wifebeaters to bed.
- He liked to swim.
- He peeled oranges like a pro. And got annoyed when I begged for slice after slice. (I haaate peeling oranges to this day!)
- He ate STACKS of chocolate chip cookies at a time.
- He would have been a dork by today's standards.
- He taught me to fish.
- His printing was impeccable.
- He was a math whiz.
- His calculator scared the shit outta me.
- He had an electric eraser we weren't supposed to play with. But I really wanted to.
- He had a short temper.
- He didn't cuss much but I can remember "Bastard" and "Son Of A Bitch".
- He drank very rarely. Maybe one beer after a hot day mowing the yard.
- He got me a Dr Doolittle See-And-Say at the hardware store once.
- He taught me to tie my shoes with some story about a bunny running around a tree and through the hole. (Which made the loops and the tie.)
- He worked away from home during the week when I was very small.
- And once brought us a puppy home after one of his weeks away. Her name was Cookie.
- He loved to drive.
- He changed his own oil.
- He let me pump the gas once in a while. (Loved that for some reason.)
- He and my Mom never, ever fought.
- He hated it when I pushed food onto my fork with my left index finger.
- He whistled a lot.
- He could talk like Donald Duck.
- He insisted on a wall full of pictures of us in the nursing home. And, after he could no longer speak, would point to us to show people how much he loved us.
I miss him.
posted by Trixie at Tuesday, March 07, 2006
2 Comments:
i'm crying.
beautiful. i miss him too.
3:18 PM
My handful of cents worth:
-He used to have farting contests with his mom. And while we never really had contests, the outbursts would always be announced and sometimes followed with "Doesn't it smell like a rose???
-He LOVED Boy Scouts. Mostly so he could hang with the other dads I think. He just loved those guys.
-He printed so good because he was a draftsman and he learned a specific style they used on their plans.
-He loved watching sports on TV, especially the KC Chiefs. TV Trays in the living room were standard operating procedure on Sundays in the fall.
-He was one of the pioneers of the early leisure suit explosion. Polyester was his fabric of choice. I don't think I ever saw him wear a pair of jeans.
-He liked to drive fast. We had a 68 Galaxy 500 that would fly! We'd be sitting in the backseat, no seatbelt let alone protective child rigs, screaming "Do a funny hill Dad, do a funny hill". He'd approach the top of a steep hill, gun it, and we'd make a little air.
-He always cut your steak for you. Like the oranges, you didn't like cutting steak either.
-He always got a dark beer at the Pizza Shoppe at a time when you really didn't find any dark beer on tap.
-He liked liver, fried shrimp, pizza with everything on it and coffee.
I am up so late because I am sitting in a hotel in Springfield MO watching T-Storms and tornadoes pop up all around. Sirens going off, then the little kid upstairs starts crying because the sirens scare him. Glamor, pure glamor.
2:12 AM
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