Thursday, June 17, 2004
Daddies
Father’s Day is coming up quickly; I haven’t done anything about it. I guess I’ll buy a card; I’ll probably pick up a gift too. On the off chance that my father reads this I won’t mention what we’re thinking about getting him. The thing is, though, he doesn’t want anything. He doesn’t really believe in these sorts of holidays and nothing but golf balls or wine excites him in terms of gifts. He doesn’t listen to CDs, doesn’t watch movies (or know how to use the DVD player) and seems to have all of the books he wants. He won’t acknowledge his birthday anymore, and wishes we wouldn’t either. This resulted in a game I enjoyed, but no one else seemed to find as funny.
My father, like many men (at what age, exactly, do all men seem to turn into my father, anyway?) has problems finding things that are right in front of him. He’ll open the fridge door and rifle through and glare at the contents for a full five minutes before he starts loudly accusing all of us of having consumed whatever he’s looking for. At that point I would walk purposefully, yet wearily, into the kitchen and immediately locate the item. He would thank me and then utter the following much loved phrase, “Well, of course I couldn’t find it. You people are always moving things around so that I can’t find them.” I like how we turned into “you people,” like he’d never met any of us before and we were part of a global conspiracy to thwart him. Anyway, the game was this, since he didn’t want any presents and flatly forbade us (I have no birthday) from getting him anything. This was his birthday wish. So, we took the presents we’d gotten for him, removed the tags and hid them in his stuff.
He’d come downstairs and say to my mother,
“Did I always have this Yankees’ shirt?”
“Of course,” she snapped (ever the patient June Cleaver cutout).
“Oh, okay then.”
It worked well with books too.
“Oh, where’d we get that? I’ve been wanting to read that.”
“We’ve had it for ages.”
“Have we? The spine isn’t even cracked…”
Yeah, how ‘bout that?
Dear old dad takes a lot of ribbing around our household. We mock him a fair bit, it’s not mean-spirited, but it is sort of constant. As a result he’s become pretty quiet. He also thinks that we don’t listen to him and don’t take his advice. So here’s my gift to him, and where I prove him wrong.
We used to work together and I asked him why he did something at work, because it didn’t really seem like it was part of his job, and so he explained to me that everything was part of his job. If his boss asked him to shovel the walk, even though he made eighty thousand a year he would, for two reasons. For one thing, you never ask anyone to do anything you yourself are unwilling to do, and second, if your boss decides that your time is best spent doing something then you do it.
He taught me that you can’t eat pizza, wait half an hour, and then let your brother throw you around a swimming pool or you will most certainly barf, and then you will have to leave the pool so you don’t drown on your own vomit. At least Matthew had to clean it up.
My father explained to me that being flexible and versatile, both in the workplace and in life, are two of the most important qualities you can have.
He told me to control a car’s speed with the accelerator and not the brakes, as much as possible.
When it snows he always tells me not to make sudden moves: no sudden starts, and no sudden stops. Everything should be gradual.
My father didn’t exactly teach me this one, we sort of learned it together, but if your child is extremely accident prone don’t try to explain every scratch and bruise to the hospital staff or they will think that you’re beating him/her. He was actually almost accused of beating me on one of my many trips to emergency.
Even though it kills me, I sometimes use his jokes. I find myself telling people that “in the immortal words of Frank Burns, ‘it’s nice to be nice to the nice,’” something he said frequently.
When we lived in a townhouse and our bikes were hung up on a wall I had some trouble getting mine up and down and he made me practice. He explained that it was very important that I learn to be self-sufficient, because I should never have to depend on anyone to do things for me that I should easily be able to do myself. I hate using weights, but I always keep that in the back of my mind and try to stay strong enough to help myself and the people I love.
We were in Prince Edward Island when I was little and he took me out to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. We stood there, and even though I was scared he took my hand and led me out into the cold salty water. The waves came up to my waist when they rolled in from the great unknown. He told me that we were going to jump over the waves when they came to us. I wasn’t used to being in water without water wings, and the ocean was larger than everything in my limited repertoire. But he held my hand and asked if I was ready and I said that I was. He held on tightly and we jumped wave after wave until I thought my arm would snap off, and I laughed almost until I was sick. I forgot to be scared because he was there, and he didn’t let go.
There was a scary period when he had prostate cancer. It wasn’t really life threatening, but I was terrified just the same. It was the first time something had gone wrong, the first time something truly bad hit THAT close to home. What do you do and where do you go when your dad is sick? When you still feel sort of like a little kid most of the time, who do you turn to when the person you've always turned to is unavailable for comment? I felt so young, so impossibly young, and like there was nothing in the world I’d ever be able to handle if something happened to him.
Happy Father’s Day, go hug your dads.
Father’s Day is coming up quickly; I haven’t done anything about it. I guess I’ll buy a card; I’ll probably pick up a gift too. On the off chance that my father reads this I won’t mention what we’re thinking about getting him. The thing is, though, he doesn’t want anything. He doesn’t really believe in these sorts of holidays and nothing but golf balls or wine excites him in terms of gifts. He doesn’t listen to CDs, doesn’t watch movies (or know how to use the DVD player) and seems to have all of the books he wants. He won’t acknowledge his birthday anymore, and wishes we wouldn’t either. This resulted in a game I enjoyed, but no one else seemed to find as funny.
My father, like many men (at what age, exactly, do all men seem to turn into my father, anyway?) has problems finding things that are right in front of him. He’ll open the fridge door and rifle through and glare at the contents for a full five minutes before he starts loudly accusing all of us of having consumed whatever he’s looking for. At that point I would walk purposefully, yet wearily, into the kitchen and immediately locate the item. He would thank me and then utter the following much loved phrase, “Well, of course I couldn’t find it. You people are always moving things around so that I can’t find them.” I like how we turned into “you people,” like he’d never met any of us before and we were part of a global conspiracy to thwart him. Anyway, the game was this, since he didn’t want any presents and flatly forbade us (I have no birthday) from getting him anything. This was his birthday wish. So, we took the presents we’d gotten for him, removed the tags and hid them in his stuff.
He’d come downstairs and say to my mother,
“Did I always have this Yankees’ shirt?”
“Of course,” she snapped (ever the patient June Cleaver cutout).
“Oh, okay then.”
It worked well with books too.
“Oh, where’d we get that? I’ve been wanting to read that.”
“We’ve had it for ages.”
“Have we? The spine isn’t even cracked…”
Yeah, how ‘bout that?
Dear old dad takes a lot of ribbing around our household. We mock him a fair bit, it’s not mean-spirited, but it is sort of constant. As a result he’s become pretty quiet. He also thinks that we don’t listen to him and don’t take his advice. So here’s my gift to him, and where I prove him wrong.
We used to work together and I asked him why he did something at work, because it didn’t really seem like it was part of his job, and so he explained to me that everything was part of his job. If his boss asked him to shovel the walk, even though he made eighty thousand a year he would, for two reasons. For one thing, you never ask anyone to do anything you yourself are unwilling to do, and second, if your boss decides that your time is best spent doing something then you do it.
He taught me that you can’t eat pizza, wait half an hour, and then let your brother throw you around a swimming pool or you will most certainly barf, and then you will have to leave the pool so you don’t drown on your own vomit. At least Matthew had to clean it up.
My father explained to me that being flexible and versatile, both in the workplace and in life, are two of the most important qualities you can have.
He told me to control a car’s speed with the accelerator and not the brakes, as much as possible.
When it snows he always tells me not to make sudden moves: no sudden starts, and no sudden stops. Everything should be gradual.
My father didn’t exactly teach me this one, we sort of learned it together, but if your child is extremely accident prone don’t try to explain every scratch and bruise to the hospital staff or they will think that you’re beating him/her. He was actually almost accused of beating me on one of my many trips to emergency.
Even though it kills me, I sometimes use his jokes. I find myself telling people that “in the immortal words of Frank Burns, ‘it’s nice to be nice to the nice,’” something he said frequently.
When we lived in a townhouse and our bikes were hung up on a wall I had some trouble getting mine up and down and he made me practice. He explained that it was very important that I learn to be self-sufficient, because I should never have to depend on anyone to do things for me that I should easily be able to do myself. I hate using weights, but I always keep that in the back of my mind and try to stay strong enough to help myself and the people I love.
We were in Prince Edward Island when I was little and he took me out to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. We stood there, and even though I was scared he took my hand and led me out into the cold salty water. The waves came up to my waist when they rolled in from the great unknown. He told me that we were going to jump over the waves when they came to us. I wasn’t used to being in water without water wings, and the ocean was larger than everything in my limited repertoire. But he held my hand and asked if I was ready and I said that I was. He held on tightly and we jumped wave after wave until I thought my arm would snap off, and I laughed almost until I was sick. I forgot to be scared because he was there, and he didn’t let go.
There was a scary period when he had prostate cancer. It wasn’t really life threatening, but I was terrified just the same. It was the first time something had gone wrong, the first time something truly bad hit THAT close to home. What do you do and where do you go when your dad is sick? When you still feel sort of like a little kid most of the time, who do you turn to when the person you've always turned to is unavailable for comment? I felt so young, so impossibly young, and like there was nothing in the world I’d ever be able to handle if something happened to him.
Happy Father’s Day, go hug your dads.
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