Father's Day is coming up in a few
weeks. In my family, this means two things:
- Somebody is going to get dad something for his gardens. It's
our more useful variation of the necktie.
- For five minutes, somebody's name is going to be Randy.
A few years ago, my mom picked
up one of those spiritual bouquet cards at church as part of his
gift. It's a physical representation of "We are going to pray
for you because you are our dad," in the form of a greeting card
with St. Joseph on the front helping Jesus build a birdhouse or something.
Apparently, Mom got a card from the wrong pile, because when Dad
opened it on Father's Day, it was signed, "Love, Randy." The guy
has managed to be with us every year since. Sometimes, because we
think we're so frigging hilarious, we sign our store-bought cards
with Randy's name. My family & I are idiots, & we're happy that way.
Ok, my sister probably wouldn't like the title "idiot," but she's
the youngest so tough shit.
What's slightly funnier & much more enjoyable to me
than the stupid Randy thing is that, when I stop & think about
it, the most vivid memories I have of my father are apparently
ones that I wasn't even there for. They are stories that he told
me of his own life.
Maybe it makes perfect
sense. Maybe it's helped feed the emerging storyteller in me.
The more I think about it, the more my dad seems like character from
a movie. The details of his stories were never too outrageous, just
memorable... and quaint. Quaint's a good adjective. It might be my favorite.
More things in life should be quaint. Other things in life would do better
to JUST be quaint.
My dad only has one eye.
Alright, he has two. Only one works, but both are
there. His right eye sort of hides in the back of
his face, a screen of fog covering the once brilliant
blue. My dad's like Popeye. Which would explain my
taste for green vegetables. But I'm adopted, so nurture
wins this round.
It was like that as long as I've known him. On his
25th birthday, he & Mom
were vacationing at a lake somewhere in South Jersey where I've been to once & never
again for some reason. Maybe it closed. Can you close a lake? I guess
it was just the log cabins around the lake that they closed. Maybe.
So Dad & Mom & Mom's whole family were vacationing at a lake, & Dad
goes to open a bottle of champagne. POP.
He was in the hospital for the next two weeks.
Typing it out, it sounds scripted, like a humorous
minor character in a bigger story that comes & goes at the bat of an eyelash & will
probably be back later in a crazy plot twist.
The crazy plot twist, of course, is that he's my
dad. A major character in my own epic tale of adventure.
And he's standing on a cactus.
What he's doing on a cactus or how he got up there
isn't as puzzling as how or why in the holy crap I remember that.
At some point in my dad's youth he had a friend,
or at least an acquaintance, named Joe. I never met him, & Dad
never talked about him, but one time Joe randomly wrote him a letter.
I don't remember how old I was, or any other details, for that matter,
outside of the fact that an old friend of Dad's wrote him a letter
about a dream he had with Dad in it. He, Joe, was standing on the
edge of a cliff, & next
to the cliff stood an exceptionally tall cactus. He drew a picture
of it on the letter paer. The cactus was as tall as the cliff, but
skinny like a normal-sized prickly plant. And there, on the very
top, stood a stick figure labeled "Dennis." I
don't remember if Dad wrote him back or not. He probably did. He's
not the type to ignore something like that. I don't even know what
Joe said about the dream. I just remember a drawing of a stick figure
on a cliff & a stick
figure on a cactus. One of those two stick figures was responsible
for raising me.
And he hears footsteps.
Were they
coming to wake him up already? He had just fallen asleep! The 18-year-old
newly promoted eagle scout remained lying on the ground
as he opened his eyes to a clear night sky. It was still very dark.
He really had just fallen asleep.
But the footsteps came. More quickly
than before, but also more quietly.
Before, he was in line, with the group,
following a large Indian in an equally large headress. Technically,
he was a Native American, but it was the '60s, so they didn't call
them that yet. One by one, as a tom-tom drum slowly played, the Indian
pointed to various spots on the ground of the wooded island on the
river, appointing sleeping grounds to each scout. Dad's was a spot
immediately to his right. A little cover between bushes, large trees
on either side of him. Maybe Dad didn't get quite that detailed while
recounting this tale, but that's how I imagined it in my head, & apparently
I have a vivid recollection of my imagining Dad's story.
A forceful whisper called out his last name. He was being shaken
awake. Or rather, he was just being shaken. He was already awake.
He sat up with a start. It was ... someone. Dad had a name for him. Possibly
knew him very well, but I don't remember the name. I'm pretty sure it wasn't
Joe. Whoever it was, he sounded frantic.
"What? What is it, Last Name?!" Dad whispered
back, mostly worried, somewhat curious, & a little annoyed. Not in
that order.
"Did you see it?"
"See what?"
"Man, I just saw a U.F.O.
in the sky?"
"A U.F.O.?"
"I swear I did! I saw a bright
light fly overhead back there, it stopped for a minute, and then it shout
out of sight! Faster than any airplane! I'm pretty sure it was a U.F.O.!"
"Alright, Last Name. I believe you. Try to go back to sleep."
Maybe he didn't believe the U.F.O. part. But he believed
Last Name wouldn't lie. He definitely saw something extraordinary.
And
there, just missing the excitement, was the trusty sidekick of the
moment, my dad.
And his glasses just fell off.
He didn't wear glasses
when he was 18. He still had two working eyes back then. But he was
40 now. And he was sitting several seats behind me on my very first "upside-down" roller
coaster.
I was 9, & on a trip to Hershey Park that Dad was chaperoning. And
I was going to go on my first "upside
down" roller
coaster. They didn't have one at the amusement park in my hometown.
They just had the old-as-Mosesaurus-Rex wooden one. And I hadn't
been to Wildwood since I was tall enough to ride that one. So there
we were. Not very close to each other at all, really. Dad let me
sit with this kid Shawn, while he sat with one of the older kids.
It was amazing. It was like flying. Well, flying
on a magic carpet or something. A magic flying car seat. In any event,
it was awesome.
"Yeah," Dad agreed, only half enthusiastically... "But dammit,
my glasses fell off on the ride."
"No they didn't," said a voice behind him.
There stood a truly amazing man,
holding my dad's glasses. He caught them as they flew off my dad's
head. ON A ROLLER COASTER. And I couldn't tell you what he looked
like. Maybe the shock was too much for me to notice what he looked
like. My dad, ever grateful, returned his glasses to their rightful
position on his nose. And there, for a split second, stood two extraordinary
men. One is the most amazingly quaint man who helped shape me into
someone I hope will become equally as amazingly quaint. The other
I don't even remember what he looked like. Maybe Dad will be one
of the five people he'll meet in Heaven or something.
And I swear to Jesus, if anybody tries to give me
a bottle of champagne for my birthday this year, I'm going to cry.
Oh man, I can't wait to have shit like this to tell
my kids. |
