Birthday, Observed

Dad was born on October 26, 1926. Let me tell you a few things I learned about and from my dad.

He loved mincemeat pies and rutabaga. Both "foods" make me sad. Mincemeat is the kind of mixture you would conjure up at the middle school lunchroom table and then dare your weakest willed friend to eat it for a dollar--but they have to finish the whole thing. Rutabaga, on the other hand, tasted alright if you could get beyond the stench of cooking it. The wreak of that vegetable breaking down to baby food consistency used to wake us up on Thanksgiving with all the pleasure of the Harvest Clown sitting on our chests and stealing our breath.

Dad could draw Popeye in less than a minute. And not some crappy stick figure holding a cylinder shape with "spinach" written across it. No way. His Popeyes were publishable quality.

He was like the Pied Piper of Hartland without all the death. I'm pretty sure he liked little kids, but holy God did they love him. If there was a kid under 5 in a two mile radius of him, their little kid radar went off and they honed in on him. Some broke into a flat out run to get to him. Once they got to him, their reactions ranged from standing in silent awe to doing a Kerry Strugg vault straight up into his arms. However they reacted to him, he always had the same reaction. He'd look at them over his glasses and make his forehead wrinkle until they were giggggggling little balls of adoring jell-o.

He wore a black ambassador hat with a red and gold feather pin for dressing up, steppin' out occasions like church or weddings.

I saw him visibly mad once in my whole life.

He taught Driver's Education as a little extra income. I don't know how he taught the students he hadn't help make, but I can tell you that our first and only ride together before I earned my license ended with this direction: "brake. Brake. Brake! BRAKE! USE THE GODDAMN BRAKES!" My siblings tell similar stories.

He served in WWII. When "Saving Private Ryan" came out, I kept offering to take him, but he continually declined. He went to see it by himself and told me about it a couple months after the fact.

He had a belly laugh that started in his toes until he would roar with it. Tears would stream from his eyes and he'd almost stop breathing he was laughing so hard. Certain comedians could get him going, but usually it would be our neighbors who stopped in with tales about their kids or grandkids' shenanigans that would set him off the most.

He hated raspberries. We used to have raspberry bushes in the big garden. I'd spend hours in the summer out there gathering them. He could barely stand the sight of them, but tolerated it for us. To a point. The summer after I went to college, he plowed them under with the tractor. He claimed it was an "accident" and didn't see them, but for 18 years, he'd managed to avoid a bush calamity, so I was skeptical. Entertained, but skeptical.

He was raised on a farm in the middle of the Depression in rural Tennessee. His attachment to farm animals was that of caring for them so that they were comfortable until they were edible. He took the same approach to our pets, minus the eating them part. Feed them, pet them if they happened to come near your open palm, never hurt them, and be merciful. His mercy wasn't necessarily my mercy. We had a cat named Hennessy (after the cognac) who was an outside kitty. She developed a horrid infection on her head that we cleaned and treated to no avail. One morning, Dad told me to tell Hennessy that I loved her. I did and then went to school. I came home and went looking for her out by the barn. No Hennessy. I went to change her water and the bowls were gone.

Dad was sitting outside reading the paper and I asked him, "Dad, have you seen Hennessy?"

"Yes."

"Where was she?"

"Out behind the barn."

"I just looked there. When was that?"

"This morning. When I shot her. She's buried back there if you want to go see."

Like he was telling me what he had for breakfast. I don't even think he looked up from the paper. But that's the way he approached animal death. He'd rather take care of them himself, someone who loved them, than some stranger, as he perceived it. He respected our vet while the pets were alive (his brother and son were both vets), but when it came to the end, that was his job.

Dad loved peppermints. Brachs peppermints, not the horrid imitations restaurants hand out when they run out of fortune cookies. He believed they could cure everything from tummy aches to hurt feelings. For the most part, I think he was right, though I know my brother disagrees with me. He thinks they're unsatisfying stand-ins for dessert, but what does he know? He's just a nationally honored chef. Hack.

Today would have been Dad's 82nd birthday, so don your ambassador, pop a Brachs, and join me in a toast to the Pied Piper himself.