My Dad, the Wild Man Part II: Daddy

My dad was an only child, with a mother who seemingly never wanted kids. He got ignored a lot and was lonely.  So after my mom gave birth to my older sister (in the cover pic), he immediately started pressing for a second child; no way were his kids going to grow up like he did.  And so I came along, a healthy 2 ½ years later. 

I was bottle-fed, and the first night they brought me home from the hospital, my dad took the 2 AM feeding, held me in his arms, and said, “Yeah, you and me.  We’re going to have something special.” And he did every single middle-of-the-might feeding.  And we did have something special.  How he knew that, I don’t know.  My sister is like my mom to the extreme, but I am totally my daddy’s girl.

My earliest memory is of sitting on his lap in the big yellow recliner; it was Naugahyde (70s vinyl).  He was watching UCLA Basketball during the Wooden years.  At two or three years of age I knew nothing of basketball, but snuggling on his lap was heaven, and he would cheer in whispers so as not to wake me. I love that memory.

My sister and I in the big yellow chair.

On Saturday mornings, he was up by 6 AM working on his “Honey-do” list in the garage. If anything broke, we would simply leave it on his workbench and it would get fixed the next Saturday.  Untangle a necklace? Glue some brick-a-brack?  He’d get it done.  We’d come down in the morning and he’d pull out scraps of wood and fancy nails, and he’d help us make boats to sail in the gutter. Or paint on an easel he made. Plus he’d always have a pound of m&ms out there that he’d munch on, and we could sneak a few. Or many.

With Daddy in the garage.

When my mom got up much later, Daddy would take us to Winchell’s to get donuts while my mom pulled together scrambled eggs, milk and OJ.  We loved going to get donuts with Daddy. Winchell’s is still my favorite, and whenever we are in California I have to swing by and grab a buttermilk old fashioned and a jelly donut, for old time’s sake.

Speaking of junk food, my dad could practically live on it.  He was built like a horse.  He had strength, endurance, didn’t need much sleep, and had great hand-eye coordination.  He could walk into a room and estimate its dimensions within 6” just by looking at it. He was a highly skilled driver; when we were on vacation he would pass other cars on mountain roads, which was both terrifying and exhilarating.  He once passed six cars at once on a straightaway.

He was 6’3” and mostly didn’t have to think about his weight. When his waistband got a little tight, he would go on a “diet” – this means giving up his morning candy bars for a month or so, during which time he’d drop twenty pounds and then go back to having morning candy bars again. And as a general rule, he made himself wait until 10 AM at work to hit the vending machines. He rarely needed a jacket, let alone a coat.  He never wore a t-shirt under his dress shirts because his metabolism was so fast that he was just too warm.  He ate ice cream by the quart; I had no idea this was not normal until I went off to college. What? People don't eat mountains of ice cream in one sitting? What’s not to like about ice cream?

Christmas mornings were rather formal affairs for us.  We had to have our hair in curlers the night before, we wore our special Christmas dresses, lacy socks and black patent leather shoes.  My dad would string a red ribbon across the hallway and we couldn’t go down until we were all ready.  I think this all came from his mom’s side, and clearly his mom was a little uptight.  Later in life, he said that this was the other greatest mistake of his life: not letting us tumble downstairs in our jammies on Christmas morning. Otherwise, he was very good at Christmas. 

Our Christmas Best.

One year we had outgrown the little swingset you at K-Mart, and he decided to make something better.  He had it all planned out and ready to go, so that after we went to bed on Christmas Eve, he started putting it together, working through the night.  This thing was fabulous.  It was probably 8-10 feet tall and made of steel pipes, with four swings.  It was anchored so well into the ground that it didn’t vibrate of move, even with four kids on it swinging hard.  It would have withstood the apocalypse.  He was a great handyman and everything he built would have withstood the apocalypse. It was ready to go on Christmas morning.  We loved that thing. We spent hours on it, and "Parachuted" off it, so we'd go flying, rarely landing on our feet!

The next memory is from probably first or second grade. When my dad got home from work, I had asked him to read a book with me, Make Way for Ducklings. Mom and dad were getting ready to go out, and all signs were that they were almost ready to walk out the door.  And I said, “But daddy! You promised you’d read with me!”  He said, “You’re right, I did.” And he sat down and listened to me read while my mom finished getting ready. He kept his word. My mom waited.

Daddy worked a normal day, and mom stayed home with my sister and I.  He knew that it was his job, when he walked in the door, to hit the ground running being full-blown daddy and to give my mom a break.  Hard to do when you are exhausted from a long day.  So every day, on the way home from work, he would stop in the grocery store parking lot near our house, and take a 10-minute nap. That would totally do it for him.  He never told my mom, and only told me when I was in my 40s or 50s.  But that was his secret to being the husband and father he needed to be when he walked in the door.  I admire him for that.

I remember at one point my sister and I wanted to make models – like cars and planes.  He took us to the store and we picked out dune buggy model kits.  He would work with us on both weeknights and weekends.  We were terrible at this, always putting on way too much epoxy, such that the plastic would deform and melt.  He ended up buying three more of the same kits to pull together the parts to get it done.  But he did it with us and it was great.

When I was in middle school, I had the dream of being an Air Force fighter pilot.  I wanted to go to the U.S. Air Force Academy and fly jets. This was about 1981 and still the era of obvious sexism.  My dad was a product of his time and, yes, was sexist about this and other things.  I remember I started calling him out on it at the dinner table. It was awkward.  But then he went to my mom and asked, “Am I really sexist?”  She said, “Of course!” And you know what?  My dad changed.  He started watching what he said and taking my criticisms seriously and became a father who truly supported me as a young woman.  He could not bear the thought that I wouldn’t respect him if he was sexist.  He was willing to change and earn the respect of his 14 year old daughter.

I have no way of knowing how many dads, particularly in that era, were so dedicated to their families.  But I do know that my dad loved us and invested everything he had in us.