My dad

Race car at Bonneville Salt Flats

I forgot sometimes when I got older and smarter (or so I thought) how much my dad meant to me.

He wasn’t the type of man you’d drag out on your arm to a glitzy event as a trophy dad.  But rather a solid type of guy (if you get my drift).  Dad rarely wore a tie, and if he did they were clip on or the cinch up Western types.  He wore boxer shorts around the house, eventually giving into Mom’s nagging, graduating to hand-sewn loosely-fitting Bermuda shorts.  I remember how embarrassed I was when he showed up at my daughter’s wedding without false teeth.  I’d scolded him and asked him to keep him big effervescent grin closed in the family pictures. 

My husband invited him to a July 4^th presentation one year for the City of Los Angeles in San Pedro with invited city dignitaries.  My dad had shown up in his usual dress, shorts and an old, stretched over his large belly, T-shirt.  He was mostly bald, but still wore the crew cut from the fifties with the few hairs he had left on his head.  As a teenager, I’d tried to set him straight, telling him how he should dress and act.  “If they don’t like it,” he’d say, “it’s their loss.”  And it was.  My husband invited my dad, not hoping he wouldn’t show up, but because he was proud to be his son-in-law.  He was the only family member (and not even blood) ever, my husband relates, who drove to his work, some forty miles away, to take him to lunch — my dad’s treat on a limited income.

Dad took me to baseball games.  One Dodger game we stayed well past nine innings in the sparsely populated stadium to see the home team win by three runs in the bottom of the twelfth.  He carted me to midget car races, destruction derbies, and stock car races.  Driving with my dad was a car race everywhere we went.  (My whole family inherited his lead foot, winning checkered driving records rather than a checkered flag.)  His dream to race at Bonneville Salt Flats, he accomplished, topping speeds of 200 miles per hour.  We tobogganed in the snow.  The four-man sled hung for years in our garage.  He built a swimming pool in our back yard, starting out a shovel and a dream.  Memories made in this pool would span generations — weddings, family reunions, birthdays.  But I remember the pool mostly as an opportunity for a young extremely shy girl (you’re finding this hard to believe, huh?) to find something (swimming) that she loved.  My dad gave that to me.

He was a very young sailor of sixteen in World War II, a very young father (to me at nineteen), and a very good example of service to his fellowman.  Always.  Dad never passed a stranded motorist without stopping to help.  He drove a car of dents and scratches because he always fell for a good sob story, letting the offender leave the scene of the accident free and clear. 

Mostly Dad was a hard working, family loving man with a great sense of humor, who never achieved much in the way of wealth.  There was always hearty food on the table, providing your timely arrival.  If not, he ate your portion, too.  He taught me algebra (even though he’d only had a seventh grade education).  He could fix anything.  I do have to admit if it involved plumbing, a few #@!!% words escaped from his lips.  And he was always there for me to dry a tear, or even shed a tear with (holding my hand while we watched a movie together after a love had left).

I wish I could have one more day with him.  With or without teeth. 

Related posts:

1. List for the doctor
2. Tribute to fathers
3. The lost wise man
4. Christmases past