My Dad

Today I say goodbye to my dad as I have known him in this world. I know I will meet him and my mother again, but today is a sad day. The past few years were really hard for him and he just could not accept the fact that my mother was sick and that he was not able to take care of himself any more. They were both very independent people and I’m the same way. I know for me it would be hard to start depending on someone else for everything. But on to happy memories….

My mother and daddy didn’t have a lot of money, so when I was little my dad worked the first shift and got home in time for my mother to leave for her second shift job. My dad and I spent most evenings reading. I knew how to read when I entered first grade. I don’t know how I learned to read and my parents couldn’t remember either—they just said I started reading. In the second grade I came home and told my dad that the guy at the bookmobile wouldn’t let me check out my books. We went back up to the school where it was parked and my books were still stacked there. My dad asked him why I couldn’t have my books and the man told him that I was too little to read them. My dad asked him if he let me read on one of the pages and he said no. My dad opened one of them and I began to read. After that I never had any trouble. I am an only child and I loved to read.

One evening when my dad was sitting on the porch and I was playing with my little red wagon, I begged him to leave to get a snowball. He finally gave in and we left. When we came back our yard was full of people and a car had run into the corner of our porch and demolished the chair my dad was sitting in and destroyed my little red wagon. It was not our time to go yet. That had to be more than 60 years ago. Oops, telling my age.

One Halloween night my dog, Rusty and I were standing at the door waiting for the “spooks”. Back then we had a screen door and we also did not have air conditioning. Well, a group came up on the porch and I don’t know who was more scared--me or Rusty. We ran to the kitchen and my dad had soaped up the floor (it was linoleum) and we slid all the way across. My dad couldn’t stop laughing.

My dad always took up for me and I guess you could call me a “daddy’s girl.” After I was grown, we could sit for hours and never really talk, but we could both say we had a great visit. He wasn’t ever much of a talker.

Yes, I have some good memories.

DR
12/27/11