To My Long-Ago Daddy on Father's Day

From the daughter who didn't appreciate him enough

Dad as a young man, probably around the time I was born.

When I was a little girl my daddy was my everything. Somewhere there’s a picture of me at a beautiful park, all dressed up for Easter, but I’m pouting, arms crossed, refusing to smile, because I don’t want my picture taken unless my daddy is there with me. I’m probably around seven or eight.

I remember sitting outside in the hallway while my dad was inside a room where a secret ceremony was going on and little kids weren’t allowed. Was it the Elks, the Moose, the Knights of Columbus? I don’t know. I just knew I wasn’t supposed to be there and my dad was sorry he ever got talked into taking me.

I remember standing in line with him as he waited to vote. I remember being inside a curtained voting booth when I was so little I couldn’t see over the counter and he had to lift me up so I could see what he was doing.

When my parents took me with them to gatherings or parties, I wanted to be with my dad and not with the kids. He rarely told me ‘no’, so I was often the only little kid, and surely the only girl, sitting on her daddy’s lap as he chewed the fat and drank beer with the guys.

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I was not a good student. I was a child who daydreamed. As soon as I learned to read I began writing stories in my head, and much of the time they came to me as I sat in a classroom gazing out the window. I didn’t get math at all. My father was good at math and it frustrated him no end that he couldn’t explain it to me. Night after night we sat at the kitchen table working on division or story problems and none of it made any sense to me.

They were the only times I felt his disappointment.

He never got past the 10th grade. He was not well-spoken, nor well-read, and he may not have understood my almost insatiable need for books, considering that no one on either side of my family took much to reading, but he became my dealer anyway.

For a time during and after WW II, on most paydays (when there was a payday), he would surprise me with one of the books I had on a scrawled list of most-wanteds. Many of them were from Whitman Publishing and involved sassy girls with famous names. This was one of them:

Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter. One of several books I’ve saved from my childhood.

When buying a new book wasn’t possible, my father would take me to one of Detroit’s magnificent public libraries and he’d wander around or read newspapers while I searched the stacks for signs of magic. I was never without books, thanks to him.

When I was in the third grade an encyclopedia salesman came to our door selling the wonderful Book of Knowledge. My father paid five dollars down and shelled out two dollars a week until he paid for the entire set. If I was a book worm before, I was a book hermit after they arrived. It was a children’s encyclopedia but much of it was beyond me. Still, every page was pure enchantment.

I still have Volume 5/6. We didn’t have room for all of them, but I wanted to keep at least one when we broke up my parents’ house. I can look through this book and be transported. I can remember lying tummy down on my bed, poring over them, traveling in different worlds, dreaming of artists and musicians and inventors and children of other lands. It didn’t bother me one bit that all of the pictures were in black and white.

The Book of Knowledge — 1943 Edition

I didn’t understand it but I loved everything about it

My dad was not a gusher.  He was a toucher, not a hugger.  A pat on the shoulder, a tap on the head. . .that was about as close as he came to showing physical affection after I got too gangly to be sitting on his lap.  But I never doubted that he loved me.

As I grew older, when my periods arrived along with my boobs, he eased away and let my mother take over. When I began dating, he was a nervous wreck but he left it to my mother to pass along his warnings: “Your dad says you need to be in before midnight. . .”

One proud dad at my HS graduation

When I announced I was engaged at age 18, he told my mother to tell me I was too young, but seven months later the wedding took place and he was the proud Father of the Bride.

He taught my husband how to wire a socket and how to make Chicken Cacciatore. And how to be a father to his own daughters.

Dad fixing our youngest daughter’s dolly.

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Wishing a Happy Father’s Day to all those dads who give it their all. I salute you. Thank you for your love and your patience (because, yeah, I’ve been that kid).

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