Remembering Daddy

Sunday marks Father's Day, but that's not the only time I remember my father, and I suspect it's the same for you. Something or other reminds me of Daddy almost every day, as it should.

A quick online search shows that Father's Day was first celebrated on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington, by Sonora Smart Dodd in honor of her father. It has to be true, I guess, since that's what AI says.

Daddy

I don't remember the first time I celebrated Daddy on a Father's Day. AI can't tell me that because even that artificiality doesn't even know. But I can remember many things about Daddy.

I remember his telling me that, when I was a colicky infant and my constant crying was wearing Mother out from lack of sleep because of my crying, he got my tears and screams to stop only by holding me face down in his palm and up in the air over his head and walking around that way. I think that's where I got my lack of a chest but a big belly. It mashed my chest downward, which forced my belly outward.

I remember Daddy's punishing us when my brother and I argued over which of the two TV channels we would watch. One of us (neither will admit which one) kept switching the TV off and on until the set refused to work any more.

"If that's what happens when we have a TV," Daddy declared, "then we won't have one."

The broken TV set was consigned to the attic and stayed there until I was in college, when Daddy gave it to our maternal grandfather. So I grew up without the benefit of a television and never understood what classmates were talking about when they discussed TV programs they had watched. I felt like a poor kid, although we were just middle-class people minus the TV.

That punishment was so cruel! It forced us to play outside in the fresh air; run barefoot on cool, soft grass and hard, sharp rocks.

It made us play baseball in a cow pasture where we had to make up special ground rules for when the ball bounced into the pond (an automatic double) or went into it on the fly (an automatic homerun) or smashed through a fresh pile of manure. (I can't recall what our rule for that event was, but I do recall having to wipe the ball clean on the grass, then we continued playing.)

It made us play army in the woods and fields. And on days of inclement weather, it made us stay inside and read or play board games with Mother or build model planes, cars, or ships.

It was the best punishment I ever received because it resulted in my getting exercise, falling in love with baseball, and developing an abiding habit of reading. It enabled me to begin thinking for myself rather than having TV writers and producers and advertisers do the thinking for me.

I remember other of Daddy's punishments that weren't so blessed, but they were worth remembering and were successful in achieving the long-term behavior modification that Daddy sought. Daddy was never abusive; his punishments never were physically harmful beyond the initial pain. No blood. No scars. Not even a lasting mark. But they sure made the desired impression!

Mother also administered punishments. In gardening season it was usually, "Dennis, go to the strawberry patch and pull weeds!" If it wasn't gardening season, it was a fly swatter or paddle or rolled up newspaper applied to the backside, whatever was handiest.

But Daddy's implement of choice for corporal punishment was his belt. I can still "hear" the sound of his leather belt ripping through the belt loops of his work pants. I also remember once when, knowing that a whipping was coming, I ran to my bedroom and prepared to receive the punishment by stuffing a Little Golden Book down my pants to absorb the blows. That, I quickly learned, wasn't such a good idea; it only brought on a worse application of the punishment.

Can you ever imagine this innocent first grader ever goofing around at work?!

But the implement of punishment I most feared was Daddy's mason's trowel. From the time my brother and I were old enough to get into trouble at home, we had to go to work with Daddy. He was a self-employed brick mason, so we carried bricks, mixed mortar, rodded joints, built and tore down scaffolding, and did whatever else Daddy told us to do. And if we didn't have anything to do, there was always his ever-filthy toolbox to clean out and organize.

Being boys, we also goofed around a bit while at work with him. And, like brothers, we fought with each other. Sometimes, if we did something bad or backtalked Daddy, he'd administer swift justice with the nearest thing to a paddle that was at hand, and that was usually his trowel.

I feared that trowel because I regularly saw him whack a brick in half with it. (I can still "hear" its singing as it struck the brick.) Its edges were sharp, filed to a knife-sharp keenness by the thousands of trips it made into the wet, sandy mortar and the scrapings it made against bricks as Daddy cut off the mortar that oozed from the joint as he mashed the brick down to the line. And I was afraid that if he happened to turn it just right when he swung it in my direction, it might cut my buttock or leg to the bone. So I was "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick" whenever I saw it coming.

But I also remember more about Daddy than his punishments--most of which I must admit I deserved. The ones I got but didn't deserve were compensated for by the many times I escaped those I did deserve but didn't get.

I remember Daddy taught by his example far more than anything he said. He taught me valuable, priceless, character traits. Things such as never lying, always telling the truth; honesty as the only policy; always doing one's best; and always guarding one's reputation and protecting the family name. He taught the dangers of debt by himself never spending what he didn't have or borrowing for something he wanted but didn't have money for.

Yet, he several times loaned me money, and I was always careful to pay it back. I remember after our minivan was totaled in a car accident and we couldn't afford to replace it with a vehicle large enough for our growing family, he insisted that we pay what we could on a van he had decided was best suited for our need and not to worry about the rest. He took care of the amount beyond what we could pay.

I remember his quivering lower lip whenever he got emotional, whether while teaching a Sunday school class or trying to maintain his composure and control his temper while lecturing us about some infraction.

I remember his undying love for and devotion to Mother. Only once did he ever strike me anywhere other than the seat of my pants, and that was when I had backtalked Mother. I suddenly found myself plastered against the refrigerator from his backhand to my face.

"You don't talk like that to your Mother!"

I learned the lesson from that one demonstration.

I also remember the day when the doctor gave him six months to live after being diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare and at the time untreatable disease. And I remember how he was gone just about exactly six months later.

I still have a few things that are tangible reminders of Daddy: that trowel. (I still watch it closely from the corner of my eye whenever I walk past my workbench where it hangs on the pegboard!) His four-foot level. His mason's ruler. But most precious of all are the intangibles--the memories.