Adoring Dad

He lunged over the side of the boat, wrapping his forearms around Kipper’s forearms. Kipper would continue the doggie paddle, scraping his toenails along my dad’s chest. Dad would lift our 95-pound (who knows how heavy soaking wet) dog out of the water, getting lake water, sand, and burnt sienna hair all over his chest. He would drop the grateful dog onto the floor of the boat, and warned everyone to quickly move away for the dog’s giant shake.

It wasn’t a pleasant job, but I know my dad never minded.

Fred Freaky Ferdinand.

My dad put me to bed every night, and every night he manufactured a new tale about “Fred Freaky Ferdinand” and “Frances Felicia Fernwood.” Fred ran an ice cream shop and Frances ran a flower shop. They were madly in love, but were consistently foiled by one quirky event or another.

I have friends’ parents who still ask me about Fred Freaky Ferdinand, and whether my dad has written a children’s book out of the stories he spun. He hasn’t, but I can only hope that he’s still making up more so that when my children are old enough, they too can dream in the land of the sweet people whose names all start with “F.”

Cooking in college.

Dad is an introvert, and I am an extrovert. When he visited me in college, he always marveled at the fact that I had twenty-five (or so) best friends. Every night, the phone at my apartment rang off the hook as my college roommate and I arranged the evening’s activities. When my dad came to visit, he got a goofy look on his face and chuckled. He loved how different we were.

One time when my dad visited, he decided he would go grocery shopping and make dinner for all of my friends. He bought a load of wine, fixings for pasta, and hunkered down in my apartment kitchen. It was just after Halloween, and my roommate and I still had the Spice Girls (it was circa 1997) outfits we’d donned for a costume party. Dad thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

My dad’s dad’s birthday.

I just had my first baby in September, and my dad could not get to Atlanta until several hours after my son was born. I had not slept in a couple of days, and had pretty much been through the ringer, but my emotions did not get the best of me until my dad walked in the hospital room. I broke down crying. So happy for me. So happy for my dad. So happy for my dad’s dad, who had been born ninety years—to the day—prior and was most certainly watching us from his comfy lounge chair in heaven.