Happy Father's Day!

I know it's a little late, and this post probably should have been done last week BEFORE Father's Day, but better late than never, right? In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to tell you a bit about my dad.

Life with my Dad was never dull. He had stories to tell, and it didn't matter if we had heard the same story forty times before, if we laughed, it was good to laugh again, only this time it would be harder. I only had one younger sister (15 months younger) so we didn't have a large family or younger brothers and sisters to look after that I sort of envy my own kids for having, but I can see how being raised by my father has taught me to be more patient and humoring of my own children.

Some of my earliest memories of my dad were dancing with him in the living room. I think it was to Kenny Rogers? We were just getting silly with him while we waited for company to arrive, and of course, being three and a half feet tall with a 6 foot tall dad didn't make it exactly easy to keep up with him, so we weren't doing any work at all as he held us and spun around and dipped us. Then we'd stumble over to the couch giggling till the dizziness subsided. Dad was in construction when we were little, so in the summers he was gone a lot for work. In the winter, when it was cold and work was slow, I have more memories of dad.

Dad's stories of his childhood were ones we kept wanting to hear. There was the sledding story. He and a couple of friends piled onto those old wooden sleds with the metal runners. In the commotion, the guy on the bottom got his tongue stuck to the metal but too late! They took off down the hillside, his friend wailing and yelling, but none of them could understand "UUUUUNNNNNGGGGGG" so they kept going, till they went airborne and the tongue was ripped off and they landed in giggling heaps, except for Bleeding Tongue. I'm thinking they must have been extra careful on future runs that no tongues were close to the metal after that.

My grandmother cooked on a wood stove most of the time dad was growing up. He also didn't have an indoor toilet until he was in high school. He attended a Nebraska country school until he 8th grade, which was essentially a one room schoolhouse. Some of the teachers left a bit to be desired, but my favorite story was of one teacher he had that insisted every kid ate everything in their lunch, and conducted inspections to ensure no crumbs were left behind. Dad pulled out his desert. A wonderful looking piece of pie! But one bite later, it wasn't so wonderful. Grandma must have bumped or scraped the stove as she pulled the pie out of the oven, and some of the wood ashes fell into the pie. Dad refused to eat the pie, but here came the teacher, insisting he eat it, to which he stubbornly held his ground that he would NOT eat it, and this continued until she finally had a taste. That was the only time he was not allowed to finish his lunch. Although, I often wonder how dad managed to choke down some of those sandwiches he's told me about having, like peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. Maybe he didn't.

Having enjoyed many sledding activities as a young boy, Dad was not going to let us miss out on sledding adventures of our own. When we moved to Germany there were a huge hill called Bismark Hill that I insisted we needed to go try out. We borrowed some sleds, took a Saturday morning after the first snow of the season and made our way up this huge hill. I think we hiked for a good hour and a half till we found the perfect spot. There were a few things that should have tipped us off that this MIGHT not have been a good day to go sledding. Grass was still poking up through the snow. The direction we wanted to go had deceptively been graced with leveled tiers into the side of the hill, and the wind must have been blowing from the north. It piled about a foot of snow at the base of each tier, and blew the rest of the snow off the hill. Dad thought it looked alright though, so we began. First my sister and I tried it out. We didn't get very far. So, dad tells us "Let me show you how it's done." He lays the sled out, took a runny leap onto it and was off with greater speed than my sister and I had ever seen. Until he got to the first tier. The sled went nose down in the foot deep snow. Its a wonder dad didn't break his neck because all we saw from the top of the hill was dad's legs straight up in the air. Then the sled let loose and slid right over dad's face. It was all fun and games till we saw the blood. The sled had skidded right over his glasses and left matching tracks right up his forehead. Well, the sledding adventures were over and we packed up the sled, dad and hiked back down to the car. He had to go in to the optometrist to get his glasses fixed and the guy fixing his glasses also had the same suspicious tracks on HIS forehead.

When I turned 17 my dad got orders (Army) to Korea for one year unaccompanied. When he came home on leave my mom wanted my sister and I to go on a separate date with dad. He took my sister first, but came home right after dinner because he had dumped his drink his lap. The next week was my turn. I was trying to spear a tomato and it flew off my plate and rolled down my front, leaving a trail of French dressing in it's wake. Dad asked if I wanted to go home to change. I refused. I was not giving up this Date with Dad after a meal. We went to play miniature golf. Looking back now, I wish I had gone home because I'm sure I looked the part of a great date with dressing smeared all over my shirt, but I had a great time regardless. I don't know about dad, but I did. Another year my mom was sick and stayed home after she had gotten us tickets at Christmas to see The Nutcracker. My sister was excited. She loved ballet, dance, musicals. Dad and I however were not that hot about it. Dad tried to back out, but mom insisted we had to see it. The ballerina was from Russia, and it was going to be good, she insisted. It also happened to be freezing that night, so bundled up and wearing dresses, dad begrudgingly got us in the car. We had near front row seats. We sit down, my sister was jittery and happy to be there, but she couldn't see over the cotton ball hair do's of the ladies in front of us, so Dad switched seats with her so she could see. The ballet started. About 15 minutes into it, we hear faint snoring. We assumed it was someone behind us. It got louder. Then we look over and notice it was Dad! I elbowed him a couple times. At one point he says he couldn't see because of the hair do's the ladies in front of us had. He got into more comfortable position and feel asleep again, sleeping through most of the ballet. My sister was ecstatic to see the ballet. I entertained my thoughts using something like self hypnosis trying to will myself somewhere more interesting, because I couldn't really see over the cotton balls of hair either. Once it was over and we left, dad commented on what a great nap he got. I was still laughing when we got home and mom was saying how much she wanted us to get some "culture". Of course, I used this same excuse on my own family years later. I think Isaac was all of 1 years old. I married my opposite. My husband loves musicals, ballet and operas. Like my dad, I tend to find "other entertainment" in those things, like how many cotton-ball hair do's I can find, or how outrageous the costumes can get.

I think one of the funnier and dearer things to watch is my dad as a grandfather. And dog lover. Both get equal "spoilage". Cookies for both. Trying to get them both to help him work something out. My kids think it's great that grandpa will give them a soda with snack. He'll play football with them, and the dog, at the same time. He send them email birthday cards for their birthdays, the funnier the better. It's probably easier to take older kids out on excursions, but he was willing to go out with my kids. (My sister's youngest is 10, while my youngest is 2).

I can see where I get some of my traits though. While my mom was gone with on a military contract one year, to fight boredom, my dad decided to make homemade soap with something like 17 ingredients. Then there was a soup craze. Dad is a great baker and so he would also make breads to go with his soups. I'm prone to these things too. Some of them are successful, some not, but I'm sure we learned something doing it all.

Those are some of the things I've enjoyed with my dad. I pass these stories onto my kids who laugh just as hard as I did hearing them for the first time. So, Happy Father's Day, to my dad, all the other dad's out there, and to the fathers of our own children. We have some big shoes to follow, I'm sure.