It's a quiet Fathers Day. Ned and Marta are not here (they've gone to her niece's graduation) and, with no driver, I was unable to go out and get cards from me and from Bubba, so I made this card from him and from the squirrel
I have a stamp with dog prints on it and I found a graphic of squirrel prints, so I added those as "signature" from the two of them. I don't know if Ned and Marta will get home in time for dinner, but I went to Trader Joe's yesterday (!!!!) and got a chicken to roast for dinner, so there will be enough if they are here, and leftovers if they are not. We did celebrate Fathers Day last week end, with Marta's dad.
I'm thinking back on Fathers Day with my own father. It was always a difficult day for me. Looking for cards, there were all of these "I love you" and "you're the greatest dad" cards that didn't feel right for me. He wasn't the greatest Dad and I didn't feel love for him. I usually got him something with beer on it.
But my memories of my father aren't all unpleasant. I was looking through questions for StoryWorth t his morning and one of them concerned your favorite memories as a child. Whenever I see that question, I always remember one thing. I don't know how old I was -- probably before I started kindergarten. My father and I went up to a little hill nearby and there was something like a playhouse there. I went in and he followed me and we pretended to be a couple. It was very short and I don't remember it all, but it always comes up as my very first "favorite memory" of childhood.
I also remember going down to the basement of our flat and wrapping gifts for my mother for him. He didn't know how to wrap packages and I had gotten very good at it (especially making special bows). In the area where I would wrap packages he had big boxes of Life magazines that he'd saved all through the war. I went through them one day and discovered there were pictures of Judy Garland in some of them and cut them out. He was so angry with me for ruining his magazines...and then the basement flooded and the magazines were all ruined anyway!
I remember when he played the piano, probably the happiest times for him. I remember him taking a bath and when he finished coming out and telling me he'd written a song about my mother. He asked me to help him write the lyrics and we did. It was so special to be working on a project with him that he was so happy about.
He had a great sense of humor, which I feel I inherited, but his humor was often ruined by his anger (which didn't inherit, thank goodness). But when he was being funny he was great fun to be around.
After Gilbert died, he gave me a quote which was so perfect, I used it in the book I wrote about The Lamplighters, "...no friendship can ever cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark upon it forever..." But when the book was finished and I brought a copy of it to him, he told me I might as well take it home again because he'd never look at it. Sigh.
I guess all dads are complicated. Mine may be more complicated than some. If he were alive today he'd be diagnosed bipolar, but I don't think that diagnosis was relevant in the years I was growing up.
So,... happy fathers day, Daddy, wherever you are. I hope you are finally happy.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
My father
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