Evoking my father
My father died almost 11 years ago. He was not a man of large appetites or outlandish tastes. I don't think i ever saw him drink wine, and only an occasional beer or a sip of Johnnie Walker. The first time he tried one of my homebrews he said, "too flat." He liked steak, hamburgers, raw onions.
For a while after he died, i would have conversations with him in my radioless truck on the way to work, asking him for advice on my deteriorating marriage or some such. To be honest, his advice wasn't much better from the other side than it had been when i was growing up. "Keep your eye on the ball." I heard that one a lot. "Figure out what you like to do, and do your best," was another one I got pretty often.
He married late for his generation, nearly 30, and was already 31 when i was born, having been conceived during that magical summer when the Brooklyn Dodgers won their only World Championship. I don't really have many memories of him when he was still under 40. It's possible, likely even, he was more rambunctious as a younger man, but as a father he was out the door for work at 4 am most mornings, back by 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon, and parked on the couch watching a ballgame during spring and summer.
I'm at the age myself now where most of my memories of him take place. Every now and then i do something that calls him to mind so strongly that it feels like we're sharing the experience. Taking the kids to Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time, driving my older daughter up to college a few years ago, or watching my younger daughter in goal for her high school soccer team. I don't know that i understand him any better for the experiences, but i can feel his elbow in my ribs, and both the pride and disappointment he felt when my dreams didn't turn out to be his dreams.
Another thing he liked were fudgsicles, although he pronounced them fudge-ickles. I liked Mr. Softee better, or a Marino's lemon italian ice, digging through the rock hard chunk until i could turn it over in the cup and scrape off the sticky, semi frozen syrup that had migrated to the bottom.
But i stopped in Loco-pop's tonight on a whim because the light at Anderson had just turned red and i've been meaning to check them out for over a year now, and they had a Mexican chocolate popsicle that i think would have made my father feel like he was a 6 year old kid again had he been around to try one. Cause that's how it made me feel, and that's the best damn two dollars i've spent in a long time.
For a while after he died, i would have conversations with him in my radioless truck on the way to work, asking him for advice on my deteriorating marriage or some such. To be honest, his advice wasn't much better from the other side than it had been when i was growing up. "Keep your eye on the ball." I heard that one a lot. "Figure out what you like to do, and do your best," was another one I got pretty often.
He married late for his generation, nearly 30, and was already 31 when i was born, having been conceived during that magical summer when the Brooklyn Dodgers won their only World Championship. I don't really have many memories of him when he was still under 40. It's possible, likely even, he was more rambunctious as a younger man, but as a father he was out the door for work at 4 am most mornings, back by 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon, and parked on the couch watching a ballgame during spring and summer.
I'm at the age myself now where most of my memories of him take place. Every now and then i do something that calls him to mind so strongly that it feels like we're sharing the experience. Taking the kids to Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time, driving my older daughter up to college a few years ago, or watching my younger daughter in goal for her high school soccer team. I don't know that i understand him any better for the experiences, but i can feel his elbow in my ribs, and both the pride and disappointment he felt when my dreams didn't turn out to be his dreams.
Another thing he liked were fudgsicles, although he pronounced them fudge-ickles. I liked Mr. Softee better, or a Marino's lemon italian ice, digging through the rock hard chunk until i could turn it over in the cup and scrape off the sticky, semi frozen syrup that had migrated to the bottom.
But i stopped in Loco-pop's tonight on a whim because the light at Anderson had just turned red and i've been meaning to check them out for over a year now, and they had a Mexican chocolate popsicle that i think would have made my father feel like he was a 6 year old kid again had he been around to try one. Cause that's how it made me feel, and that's the best damn two dollars i've spent in a long time.
Since 1949, Durhamites have slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that, in our town, erection can be depended upon. Now, thanks to the power of the internets, we can spread that security all over the world.
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