Dear Dad. I’ve been a baby about you getting old and dying on me.
Dear Dad,
I’ve been a baby about you getting old and dying on me.
Not wanting to deal with the reality, it was easier to think on the ways you rubbed me as a pumice stone scrubbing my face.
Of course, I loved you madly even though you so infuriated me at times. And that was probably mutual.
So for Father’s Day 2014,
Fourteen Things I Can’t Forget About Dad.
14. “Here We Go.” Those dreaded words. Usually uttered when QB Don Gaffney fumbled the football in those disheartening-Doug-Dickey-Gator-football-’70s.
But of course we didn’t know any better. We Gators were just used to getting kicked in the fill in whatever body part.
Dad’s “Here we go” was code for the “Wait Till Next Year” Gators had showed up and were doomed to lose.
Cue my 9-year-old self to dissolve in tears.
“Here we go” is probably responsible for thousands of dollars in therapy.
13. “Damn. If we can’t beat Vanderbilt.”
Another favorite phrase of my dad that really needs no explanation. Well, if you follow SEC football.
12. Your buzz cut.
My dad was the last of the holdouts for the buzz cut. He weathered the 60s. Held fast into the 70s till about 1980.
11. Your pipe.
I never knew you to smoke cigarettes in my lifetime. You had tossed them before I was born. But you held onto the pipe.
Loved the smell and the look. Heck. Maybe I should order a pipe off of eBay?
And since I don’t have a pic of you in your red leather chair smoking a pipe — I’ll use this.
Norman Rockwell taking a selfie.
10. Your love of mayonnaise on tomato sammies.
In the ’80s and ’90s I turned my back on mayonaise.
It was as the crucifix to Count Dracula and dry land to SpongeBob. NOOO MAYO. EVIL.
I now have come full circle, embracing my love of a huge blob of Blue Plate on a burger or slice of tomato and white bread.
Good is Good. To hell with our arteries.
9. Your love for your mother.
Jamie. My name sake. When she was at Westminster Towers, you went there everyday after work to feed her dinner — or make sure she ate. When she passed on — you would take pieces of St. Augustine sod out to Greenwood Cemetery because you were frustrated that the grass wasn’t growing on her plot.
It was under the eternal shade of that gosh-darned oak for pity’s sake, but you never stopped trying.
Love you for that.
8. A lifetime of action to earn your father’s approval.
This was never expressed of course. But I got it. Your dad was a remarkable man. We all loved grandaddy so — but you were father and son in a time when feeling weren’t expressed. Your younger brother became the doctor as your father and you chose law. Nuff said.
7. Skin cancer and Body surfing.
You were young in the decades before sunscreen and knowledge about sun cancer. Days at New Smyrna Beach coming in sandy, salty, blistered and exhausted.
WHY OH WHY can’t it be that way? Why can’t our bodies remain forever young, riding wave after wave, baking like a raisin in the sun — without consequence?
Phooey on consequences. And damnable skin cancer.
6. Dinner at 6:36 p.m. every night.
Six minutes after Walter Cronkite read the day’s headlines, the telly was shut off and we sat down to eat.
5. That damned St. Augustine grass. (See number 9.)
You were determined to get it to grow not only on your mother’s grave but on our shaded lawn. No telling how many thousands of dollars you spend trying to re-sod that sand.
4. Your love for the Russell Home.
How you helped Mrs. Russell get it started all those years ago. And all the other countless organizations and people you helped with legal advice.
I know you were a frustrated old cuss sometimes — like me. But at your core, you were a big softie. Wanting the best in the human spirit to shine.
3. How you always thought of me as 12 years old.
Okay. I hated this. I got mad when you didn’t think I should drive to the grocery at 9 p.m. — when I was 40 years old. How you always worried that I was doing too much. Pressing myself to hard. Never stopped wanting to shelter me.
My breaking free from that mindset has been a lifelong struggle.
A family photo I keep in my office bookshelf. The ’80s. My dad let his hair grow and I wore taffeta and ruffles to class at SMU.
2. Fishing.
God we had fun fishing. Sometimes I wonder if my 20-year-old son sprang from my loins. He’s a natural accountant for pity’s sake.
But he loves fishing. And I loved fishing.
Feeling that pull on the end of your line — hoping for a bass but thinking, I bet it’s a curmudgeon of a snapping turtle.
1. How does one end?
How does one end a list like this? I guess by saying there is no end. I’ll keep thinking of things each Father’s Day.
But thanks for being there, Daddy. For always being there. Till the end.
Linking up with . . .
