June 15, 2011 Creative Writing Challenge - My Dad...

I tend to write a LOT about my dad.  It isn't that I loved my mother less, but more that I loved my dad in a whole and complete way that my mom wouldn't have cared for.  She was a bit more aloof and saved her love for special moments.  Daddy just loved.  Straight up, in your face, like it or not.  Love.  And he was fun!!  Mom was the enforcer, Dad was the partner in crime.

Although, it wasn't beyond Daddy to dole out the discipline when it was needed.  There were five of us kids and I know for a fact that he issued spankings with a belt to the two oldest, but by the time my tender-hearted middle sister came along, he'd either gotten tired of trying to force good behavior or maybe he just didn't like the way it made him feel.  Either way, he never spanked me once and he never had to.  Not that I was any kind of a good kid!!  Daddy needed only to sit me down and begin to talk and I'd puddle up and beg forgiveness.  I never did that for my mother; but then, she never stopped trying to beat the meanness out of me either!!

My first memory of my dad is on the water.  He loved to fish so all of our summer vacations and most of our weekends the rest of the year were spent on a lake or a river where the fishing was good.  I learned to swim the hard way - they threw me in and told me to figure it out.  That didn't go quite to plan either since they spent the next ten or so years trying to figure out how to get me to leave the water!!  Everyone would be in the car and the motor would be running and I'd still be lolling around the shoreline trying to find a way to get wet just one more time.  I became and remain an avid fisherman.  I never drop a hook in the water that I don't feel my dad standing next to me.

Daddy was the only man I've ever known who would leave a bathroom cleaner and smelling better than it was when he entered it.  He was an auto mechanic most of his life and the grease and oil and dirt that were a part of his every day were never evident in the tub or sink or on the floor of our home's one little bathroom.  He'd exit in a cloud of Old Spice, usually in his boxers, and head for the kitchen for a cup of coffee (year round regardless of the heat) or ice cream (regardless of his intolerance for lactose) or he'd sit out on the covered patio and smoke one last cigarette before going to bed.

June third marked the fourteenth year I've passed without my dad.  Each new baby in the family brings a bittersweet moment when I realize there is a person who won't benefit from his knowledge or receive the gift of his great sense of humor.  Hats can bring a sadness all their own since he wasn't beyond donning any form of headgear if he thought it'd get a laugh.  The benchmark he set hasn't ever been exceeded, although I have a husband and son who are certainly in his league.  But they don't make men like my dad anymore.  The times don't call for it.  Which is a loss for us all.