My dad was a special kind of guy. I don't blog about him much and I'm not sure why. It may be because he has been gone for almost 30 years, that's longer than I actually knew him, I was 28 when he passed.
I think about him often, the things he did or said. He loved to play cards and when he taught us how to play, one thing was certain, he'd never let us win. It was possible to out play him to win the game, but if we thought he might let us win out of sympathy, that wasn't going to happen.
He loved sports, especially golf, and he rarely missed a home team basketball game. He was grand at letting the referee know when there had been a bad call. He usually did this after everyone else had sat down and some sort of quietness had fallen across the gymnasium. If he was going to get his point across, he wanted the ref to make sure it was heard and seen. This earned him not only Mother sitting further and further away from him, but a couple of technicals. Those were always given with much fanfare. The big T sign, pointed at my father, he always feigned great innocence.
Daddy was a sharp dresser too and he always wore a hat. One of my favorite pictures is of him, probably in his late 20's or early 30's, posed for the camera, looking quite dapper. Actually, he looked kind of like a gangster, wide legged pants, suspenders, button up shirt with the sleeves rolled and a snappy fedora, cocked to one side, on his head.
On occasion, he wore the simple baseball cap, the kind that just about every man on the planet thinks they have to wear.....all the time.... but he usually only wore that style for yard work. I don't think he felt like he was fully dressed, when he went out the door, if he didn't have on a hat.
When he was in his fifties, he began to wear the flat cap and it became his signature hat. There are few, who remember him, who wouldn't mention his cap. Sometime during that decade of his life he must have had a slight mid-life crisis. He bought a new car. I don't know if this was his first new car, but I remember going with him when he ordered it. We sat in the show room, looking through a book with all the options that were available for this model. It was a sporty little 2-door Buick and he picked a creamy yellow for the color, with a black vinyl top.
This was sometime around 1970. I was as excited as he was because I was approaching the sweet sixteen benchmark in a couple of years and I could already see myself driving this beauty. Daddy was grinning like a Cheshire cat the day he brought it home.
I must point out something about my dad. He was a good natured man with a marvelous sense of humor. He was rarely angry. The only time my sisters and I can recall him being angry was when it involved a vehicle. If said vehicle didn't start or was stuck in the snow half way out of the garage, Dad would get angry. It usually started with some grumbling beneath his breath, but if the vehicle continued to be uncooperative, it got called some pretty nasty names. When this happened and we were unfortunate enough to be in the car with him, there was a whole lot of secret praying going on for it to start with the next twist of the key. There was a time or two we flew back to the house to tell Mother that Daddy was mad. It never occurred to us that we were not the focus of his rant, but not seeing this side of him often, we were not taking any chances.
So, Daddy brings home this sporty little Buick and he is looking mighty fine. Mighty fine until the compact sporty Buick knocked his flat cap off. This happened every time he would get in the car. Dad began to speak to the car in the same tone of voice as the above mentioned failing to start/stuck vehicles.
He didn't have that car a month. I couldn't believe it. He got rid of a brand spanking new car that was custom ordered because it knocked his hat off?!? My own dreams of looking mighty fine in that sporty little Buick began to dissipate. That reality was driven home even further when he came home with a dark olive green 4-door Buick Skylark. Undoubtedly the ugliest car I had ever seen, but it didn't knock his flat cap off his head and he was mighty fine with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment