Today, I ate fried apples; my sister made cherry jelly; and my dad, who loved both, would have turned 60 years old. He was a big, imposing man with an unlikely boyish, cackling laugh that drew a smile even if you didn’t hear the joke. His pat on the back rattled your bones; and his standards swelled you with pride at the earning of it. He had a sharp tongue and a piercing candor, but he only picked on you if he thought you were worth a damn. He would suspend a man by the neck and haul him out of a bar for not knowing how to treat a woman, but took hell from my mother for incessantly buying her sheets for Christmas. He would do anything for anyone, but call them a jack ass to their face if they deserved it. When I hustled $30 out of the neighborhood kids by winning bets on my sister's mud-wrestling victory he taught me a lesson about gambling by taking the money; but he apparantly didn't need the lesson, because he kept it. He loved big steaks, cold beer and fried apples; or that was just the only thing he could cook when mom wasn’t home. He didn’t trust credit cards, carried cash and spent two years panning for gold in every ‘crick’ and puddle in South-Eastern Idaho. He loved John Wayne, hunting, Louis Lamour, country music and Wylie Coyote. He was the life of a party, but some nights found him on the front porch alone and silent, as if in vigil...for hours…and I have never stopped wondering what he thought about….and what he thought about me. He was a farmer, a soldier, and a really bad dancer.
Those are some of the things I remember about the greatest man I never really knew. And in the 17 years that he’s been gone, little pieces of my memories have slipped through my fingers; grown nebulous. But some images still arrive--just when I least expect it--jarringly vivid. And so much of what remains are his consistencies; habits; predilections; his favourite things. He wasn’t a man of fancy requirements or of sophisticated taste, but he knew what he liked. And when he found something he liked, he liked to repeat it. He had cherry jelly in a cafe when he arrived home from Vietnam and spent the next 20+ years searching for it everywhere we went….not cherry preserves (didn’t like the chunks)….not cherry jam (not the right consistency)…cherry JELLY. He never did find that small elusive treasure and, without fail, I still look for it on the grocery and specialty store shelves all these years later. In his gripping absence, it is in these seemingly small things where I still find something to share with him. And it is on days like today when I smile through the tears, and just let the memories come.
One of my first memories of my dad finds him sitting in my Grandma Frances’ kitchen. He’s leaned back in his customary pose, with his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. I smell the trusty Zippo light one of his preferred Marlboro Reds. As always, he’s wearing jeans and lace-up work boots…the ones with the rivet-hook-thingies at the top. (I remember the rivet-hook-thingies distinctly because unhooking them was fun…so my sister, brother and I would fight over who got to unlace them when he got home from the field.) In this memory, my Grandma and I are lazing on the scratchy, blackish-green sectional couch in her living room. I’m jacked up on my cup of ¼ coffee-- ¾ coffeemate, rooting through the monstrous swell of National Geographics, in search of pictures of the Ethiopian tribe I'm weirdly obsessed with because they stretch out their lips and ear lobes with giant wooden circles. Grandma’s reading the Enquirer (or some trash akin to) and, at regular intervals, sharing pieces of useless information about Joan Collins, an ape who raised a human baby, and Carol Burnett getting sloshed with Henry Kissinger. These announcements elicit a few characteristic “hmphs” from my dad. Then she says, “This British actress says Americans have bad taste.” With hardly a pause (and with his Marlboro swinging wildly on his bottom lip as he spoke) he said, “You couldn’t pay me enough to eat one, but I’m sure the Brits taste like shit too.” He always said what he thought, and 90% of the time what he thought had you blowing ¼ coffee—3/4 coffeemate out your nose on your Grandmother’s scratchy black-green couch in laughter. Only some of his favorites are suitable for public consumption:
“It’s useless to shoe a dead horse.”
“When the horse is dead-- get off”
“What did you say, that’s ‘awesome’? God is ‘awesome’. John Wayne is ‘awesome: Your new shoes are NOT ‘awesome’.”
“Success? That my kids are smarter than me.”
“90% of men in shiny shoes are pricks.”
“I can’t stand a man who attends something just for a free meal.”
“Work it out with your brother and sister, not with me. That’s why we had three kids, so there would never be a tie-vote. You don't want me involved, this house is NOT a democracy."
“Your mother and I love you but you are the most stubborn child on the planet and you ask too many questions. Some things you really should ask your mother.”
“That had me sweatin’ like a whore in church.”
He was famously funny and had a bad temper. He was crude, sentimental after a few, and giddy at times. He could conjure up a good time just by being in the room, and yet lived in a certain melancholy and separateness I will never really understand… He was larger than life… He was wonderful. Sadly, it is not every daughter’s privilege to see her dad as I did. And some of those who do, lose them. Like so many other daughters set adrift from our mooring— by fathers who left us too soon or never signed up at all-- I have missed much with my dad. We didn’t share my graduations from high school or University. I couldn’t call him when I was short on solace, strength or cash. We didn’t have the awkward moment of him first meeting the man I love, or the perfect one when his big, strong hand on their shoulder would have said, “You’re alright.” He didn’t share anniversaries, his grandkids being born, or his 60th birthday today. It would have been….no, it WAS…a good birthday. We have missed much; but so, too, did we have much. And on some days, even just in cherry jelly and fried apples, much remains.
I was reminded of my affection for road trips most recently as my friend Tracy and I took her daughter Zoe to the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. Enter, the first rule of road trips....role assignment. First of all, a Captain (most likely the driver....me) will emerge, telling everyone to hurry; checking the directions; calculating wind speed; and programming the playlists. Secondly, the Captain will appoint a "navigator" who is usually the unknowing soul who called 'shotgun' before realizing that they would be appointed co-captain/navigator/coffee lid confiddler and keeper of the trash (Tracy was the victim). Thirdly, the sleeper. Every road trip has the person who can sleep through the driving rain, three consecutive plays of Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue", and an hour sitting in construction. (Zoe slept for five hours) This person will, however, wake up the minute their name is mentioned in a gossipatory context.