My dad explaining very solemnly to a tiny me how to check and change the oil in our beat up Volvo station wagon on a Sunday afternoon after church. I was so tiny that I had to be hoisted up to perch on the edge of the open hood. And then he’d ask me to look at the dipstick and tell him how much oil was left. He’d even (hanging onto my scruff so I didn’t fall into the engine) let me upend the oil can into the car until it was all gone. Then we’d wash our hands with special black gritty gunk out of a tin can in the kitchen instead of normal soap.
My mother taking a break from Grown Up Stuff in the kitchen to sit on the child-sized red chair with me on her lap as I excitedly described the wild adventures I had exploring the two-foot gap between two neighbors’ fences. Just the right size for a small child to explore, full of weeds and rocks and such. It was a cave! With fabulous secrets! It was the best thing ever! And I went down and down and DOWN into the earth! (And then miraculously came home for an afternoon snack )
Then my siblings got old enough to be punted out of the house and into the backyard along with me…
A couple things I remember most. I love animals, and although at the age of 8 I had a couple cats that were mine (all the pets in the family after a certain age just were mine.) I needed a puppy! I’d lay on the floor every night and read the dogs for sale want-ads out loud. One day my mother told me to come home after school, because a friend was coming over with her baby. I wasn’t a baby fan even then, and tried ot beg off, but Mom made sure I knew I was expected to be there. I dragged myself in the house (In THE HOUSE! ON A BEAUTIFUL AFTERNOON!) and there was the “baby” - a beautiful cocker spaniel puppy just for me. Her registered name was “Christine’s Obsession”, my name being Christine.
My dad always told us kids that we were responsible for our own successes, and that the girls could do anything the boys could do. He’d take us with him to construction sights on the weekends, and we’d gather up the multicoloured wire and form it into shapes. He just obviously loved having us around.
I was walking by one of the buildings at my school earlier today when a strong sewage smell wafted up to meet me. While I cringed in disgust, I realized that despite everything the smell made me happy. It’s the same smell as the Potomac River, the same smell that was in the air when my dad and I went down to the marina. The bank was coated with large grey pieces of gravel, and while the boats rocked back and forth and metal chains clinked against the masts, my dad and I would toss the rocks in the water and see who could make the biggest splash. The summers weren’t so hot back then, especially in the nights, and I would wear my favorite white windbreaker to stave off the cold. The marina was quiet in the moonlight. I think what made it such a special place was that it was just ours.
Sometimes when we were kids we’d spend Xmas at our grandparent’s house. One time we holiday’d there and my brother and I had gotten a Play-Doh hamburger maker or some kind of nonsense.
All I know is my brother and I made these horrible, obviously fake concoctions and paraded them around on a tray to all the relatives, who gamely went “oh nom nom nom” while they pretended to eat one, then put it back on the tray.
Until we got to my very hard-of-hearing grandfather reading the paper who was oblivious to the goings-on. We offered him a tasty tidbit and he put it in his mouth and chewed it up and ate it. “Kinda salty” he said while everyone went into hysterics.
When I was in sixth grade, my dad and one of his friends joined the local public marina and took a basic sailing class. Every Wednesday afternoon, they would take out one of the marina’s little Sunfish sailboats and sail around the harbor. This was after my folks had divorced, and my brother and I switched between Mom’s house and Dad’s every week. Dad had moved outside of the school district, so the weeks we lived with him, he had to pick us up from school every day. On Wednesdays, that was problematic because it conflicted with his sailing time. His solution was to pick me up half an hour before school let out, then we’d pick up my brother from the elementary school just as the kids were lining up to leave, and we’d all go sailing. It seemed shocking that I would actually be allowed to leave school early just to go have fun! I remember we used to have fun picking up my brother in dramatic fashion. Once, Dad grabbed his arms and I grabbed his ankles and we carried him off bodily while he called good-bye to his classmates, and everybody laughed.
My 4th grade class field trip. I went to Hale Kula Elementary school in Schofield Barracks on Oahu as my Dad was stationed there at the time. We flew on Aloha Airlines (this would be in 1978) to the Big Island and stayed at the Volcano House for a week long field trip that included bus tours around the island, visiting various temples and other ancient sites, touring the Volcano National Park including hiking along the Kilauea Iki trail as well as Kilauea Caldera, peering down into Halemaumau crater…all kinds of cool stuff.
The kind of field trip that could never happen today due to liability.
Here’s another: It was block party weekend on our local radio station and they were playing a block of Jethro Tull. Right when the song reached the line “Snot is running down his nose” everything started to shake. I was mystified by this and thought maybe the Russians were bombing us. Then I thought it was the end of the world and Oh no, I hadn’t memorized the ten commandments and I’d probably broken half of them. Meanwhile, something was banging on the door.
My mother, who’d been napping at the time, stormed out of the room demanding to know why us kids hadn’t answered the door. We kept telling her the house was shaking. She opened the door and one of my brother’s friends was standing there looking scared–he said “All I did was ring the doorbell!”
Yeah, it was a quake. Since then I’ve referred to Aqualung as “That song that caused the earthquake.”
Set up: I live in the coal region. There are some very deep pits where strip mining occurred. These pits are full of water.
When I was about 11, I went to “the stone pits” with the youngest of my brothers, who would have been about 17 at the time. I was standing on a rock at the edge of the pit. Of course my brother shoved me into the water. He had no idea that I didn’t know how to swim. I panicked, as you do, and started flailing and screaming at him to come get me. He stood on the rock for what seemed like forever. He was…laughing! I screamed again “Jeff, I can’t swim!!!” And he looked at me and said “Well, you’re not dead”. And dove in. It was at that moment that I realized that I had, in fact, not drowned, and managed to tread water well enough that I never even went under after the initial splash. He stayed in the water with me, and without actually instructing, taught me how to swim. I’ve never been afraid of the water since, and I owe him my love for it.
I almost lost Jeff this year. That was way scarier.
Lots of stories about Dads in this thread, so I thought that I’d share one too.
I grew up in Louisville, KY, and every summer, my family would drive down to Florida to visit my dad’s sister and her family.
During the trip, we’d have to pass through Tennessee, which used to be the only state which sold really cool fireworks in the 80’s. As soon as we hit the border, I’d start pestering my dad to stop so that we could get some fireworks. Then, once we’d gotten fireworks, I’d start pestering him about lighting the fireworks.
The same scenario would play out year-after-year each summer.
Quite frankly, I don’t know how my Dad managed not to kick me out of the car with the incessant whining about fireworks coming from the back seat.
I miss you, Dad. Thanks for all of the wonderful memories growing up, and for teaching me all that you did.
I remember fondly the time I spent with my grandfather as a child. We would often sit in the swing on his porch just basking in the summer sun. I remember one time we were sitting on the porch admiring the trees and he started explaining to me about chlorophyll and photosynthesis. I believe I was six at the time and I asked him why is he telling me this. His reply: I know a lot of things (he was a professor off chemistry) and wouldn’t it be a shame if I didn’t share some off my knowledge with you before I’m gone? To this day I still remember his little photosynthesis lecture.
He also told dirty jokes to me and my friends. He always knew the appropriate level of “dirty” to tell to a bunch of 7 year olds.
See this is the kind of stuff you need to bring up at your inevitable war crimes trial. They just might forget about those bloodthirsty vampire robots you created.
During the January school holidays my mother, brother, sister and I would pack a picnic dinner and go to a park overlooking the harbour. Dad would catch the ferry there straight from work, and we’d enjoy the long summer evenings mucking around on the shore, playing cricket and having dinner. The simple pleasures of youth…
The whole family piling into the car after the rain to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, with us three young kids giving the directions. The utter excitement; the total belief.
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