My Dad made a point to take me fishing almost every summer I was alive (and willing) to go. My strange love for canoes and the water and lakes and seashores is attributed to him.
My Dad once dragged a 50 ton (note: exaggeration) fishing net off the beach and (to my mother's lovable dismay) into our 14 passenger van and used it to rig a ladder up to the best tree house in the world. Yep, the best. It looked out over the field and backwoods and also well into the neighbor's yard. And let me please remind you that it had a FISH NET LADDER! I don't care what you had as a kid, mine was the best.
Us kids are making up a little surprise for him. I don't think he reads this blog Dad, if you are, please stop now! But the following is my addition to that surprise.
We all grow older, both kids and parents, and evolve in our own very different ways. I mean, I am living in Manhattan, the busiest place in the world (arguably, I know) and I could not be any more different from my father. I am a mid-20 year old woman with a job working for the Man, earning my corporate paycheck and obsessed with shoes. But I am similar to him in the way that I have a hard time backing down. And that I really don't like people offering their opinions at inopportune times. And we both are very very privy to onions. They're really good. Especially with sausage.
What I am trying to say is that regardless of where I am now or what I am doing with my life, my Dad really is responsible for sculpting me into this strange lady I am becoming. Strange in a beautiful kind of way.
So please, enjoy the following birthday note to my Dad and realize that the Powell brood would be nothing in character if it weren't for the Leader of the Flock. Dad.
My Dad
A game of checkers on Dad’s belly, fireplace crackling in
the background. One hearty laugh and the gameboard tilted and bounced. Dad
always let me choose black. Red was his favorite color, anyway.
---
A short lesson in how to cast and reel at a pond in the
middle of nowhere. He knew I would get it. “It’s easy, Barbara. Just don’t hook
my line or Joe’s.”
---
A truck bed filled with beautiful, new sand backing up into
the yard. Dad then handed off shovels to Mike and Bill and Rob and a kingdom
was born. Summer was never complete until the sandpile was re-stocked.
---
A monstrous tickle fight in the middle of the living room.
Tears rolling down my cheeks, laughing harder than I ever had before. There was
never an escape!
---
The first time I received Holy Communion with just the
family. Dad walked behind me down the aisle with his hand on my shoulder. I
turned to look at him after I received the wine, just in time to catch a smile.
---
Snuggled up against Dad’s side as he read out loud on the
cream-colored leather couch. My eyes drooped drowsily as Dad’s deep voice
lulled me to sleep.
---
My memories with Dad are always us doing something together,
whether outside on the farm, in his work shop, at the beach or a trip to the
dump. Dad made being a kid exciting and adventurous, with no time to be bored.
But my favorite memories, without fail, are the nights when
dad would put us kids to bed. There were 4 of us girls in one room and 2 of the
boys in the room across the hall. Dad would stand between both rooms and tell
us stories and sing to us. Sometimes he brought out his harmonica. Sometimes he
told stories about the animals he captured as a kid. He would sing “You Can’t
Get to Heaven on Roller Skates” and make up silly verses as we went along: “You
can’t get to heaven in a mini skirt, ‘cos the Lord will think you’re a great
big flirt! Ain’t gonna try my Lord no more!” He would spend what felt like an
hour or more talking to us and singing with us and making bedtime more exciting
to us kids.
And you know what? I brag about my childhood all the time.
Because we had it made with our Dad. He knows his stuff, doesn’t he?
A very happy and early 60th birthday to my Dad, who does not have a Facebook, nor does he have access (that I know of) to my blog. Only Mama does and she's pretty good at secrets.
