Father's Day Stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My dad is legendary around our office now. Whenever things start to get dull, I will tell a story about him - all true.

Here’s one:

When my dad was 16, he was thinking about buying a neighbour’s pickup truck. This pickup truck was rather old, and in a rather dilapidated state. With his younger brother, he took it for a test drive. They were going fairly slow when my dad took a sharp corner - and fell out of the truck, into the ditch.

My uncle, younger than my dad and with not the first clue on how to drive, was left sitting in the passenger seat screaming back, “What do I do? What do I do?” Fortunately for him, the truck also slid slowly into the same (waterless) ditch and promptly stalled.

My uncle tells that story any time dad accuses him of doing something dumb…

Family stories, anyone?

Amy, come on, we know you have plenty.

2

My father is a very tall man (same height as Mully, I believe) and was an extremely tall child. When he was about 4, he was sitting out on the front porch when the truant officer walks by.

“Why aren’t you in School?” asked the TO

“My mom says I don’t have to go” answered little Dad

“How old are you, son?”

“I’m eight”

So the TO knocks on the door and asks my Grandma why isn’t this child in school. Of course, my Grandma tells him that my father is too young and the truant officer doesn’t believe her since the child is well over four feet tall.
My Grandma brings out his birth certificate, but it’s no use, since as the TO points out it could belong to another child. My father has since run away to the back yard, cause he knows when the man leaves he’s in big trouble.

Luckily, while the truant officer is writing out the citation, a neighbor drops by for coffee and manages to convince him that my father was indeed just four and very tall for his age. Hee Hee, Dad got a big ol whuppin for that one.

The next year, when he did go to kindergarten, none of the desks would fit him, so they had to bring in a desk from one of the higher grades. The teacher was worried that it would damage my father’s self esteem, but my Grandma assured her that he wouldn’t notice. Sure enough, it was something like March before he finally realized that something was different.

3

My dad did lots of crazy stuff when he was a kid. When he was about 15 he hitchhiked from Dayton, Ohio (where he’s from) to Miami, Florida with 3 of his buddies and stayed there for a week. They would have gotten away with it but one of dad’s friends told the school that he was gone because he had diptheria! I don’t remember what dad said his parents did to him. If I were to do something like that he would have whopped my ass!

4

A few years ago Dad actually invited two Jehova’s Witness ladies inside.

Every time they started to talk about the Bible, Dad would try to sell them Amway products. They finally left in disgust. Good thing. He never had anything to do with Amway stuff. What would he have said if they became interested?

Mom wasn’t home. If she was, she’d never have allowed this nonsense to happen.

Another time, he told one of our neighbors, who has an artificial eye, that glass eyes are useless.
“Put a digital clock in the eye socket, so I can tell how long you’ve been boring me,” is how he put it, I think.
It’s a good thing that they’re best pals, because this neighbor is a part time martial arts instructor.

Yes, Dad is a little off center, but I adore him.

And if I’m lucky, he won’t open this thread. :slight_smile:

5

:smiley: ROTFLMAO :smiley:

Amy, it is a pleasure to have you here.

6

So. your Dad’s off centre, huh?

Do you realize I can have you banned for that, little girl?

And stop spelling stuff American-wise.

It’s neighbour, labour, colour, centre, etc.

I can have you banned for that, too. Ask anyone.

7

I’ve made some friends here already, Dad. I don’t think they would like it too much if you got me banned, even if you could, which you can’t. :slight_smile:

And both ways of spelling those words are correct.

Are you going to tell them about the “errant signals” or should I? :slight_smile:

8

One evening in 1940, when my dad was twelve, he discreetly took his own dad’s car keys from the kitchen table, started the car, drove around the neighborhood, swung by the house of the girl he had a crush on (she wasn’t home), returned, parked the car, and walked in to face his nonplussed parents.

9

Okay, here’s another one on my dad:

When I was 3 and my brother was 5, dad took us camping to Alogonquin Park. For the non-Canadians, this is a HUGE campground in Northern Ontario, about an 8 hour drive from our town. We had reservations for the week.

All the way there, Dad warned us about the bears. Don’t wander out of our sight, there are bears. Don’t leave any food or wrappers around the campsite, there are bears. My brother, being five, thought this was SO cool.

We get there, mom and dad are setting up camp, and my brother is prowling around the camp, making bear noises. Having been subjected to enough nature shows, he is pretty good at the imitation. Whenever dad is inside the tent, bro wanders around the outside of the tent, pawing at the canvas and making bear noises. Dad is getting pissed off about this, and continually telling him to cut it out.

Night falls.

It seems that our new neighbours, on the campsite adjacent to ours, had not been so thoroughly educated on the activities of bears as we had been. They left their cooler on the picnic table. A bear wandered in during the night, and ate the entire contents of said cooler, by dumping it over onto the ground.

Said bear then gets curious, and starts looking around. He decides to check out our tent.

The bear starts wandering around the outside of the tent, pawing at the canvas, and making bear noises. (After all, he is a bear. They do that.)

You know that really disoriented state a person is in when getting woken up at three in the morning? Especially when they are in a strange bed, in a strange place? Imagine dad, very groggy, only partially awake. He hears pawing at the canvas. He hears bear noises. He thinks, “I’m going to kill that kid.” He grabs a rolled up newspaper and a flashlight, and whips open the door of the tent.

There is the bear.

Dad screams at the top of his lungs.

The bear runs away.

We packed up camp the next day and drove the eight hours home. None of us wanted to leave, but dad insisted.