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Father Stories
- Thread starter Maze Runner
- Start date
mirandashell
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mirandashell
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Ermm... no offence, but if I had a good story about my dad, I'd get it published.
Why are you wanting stories about other people's fathers?
Why are you wanting stories about other people's fathers?
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Well, I'm on a highly classified project for the NSA...
No, I just realized maybe you don't know-- it's Fathers Day in the States.
mirandashell
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mirandashell
Banned
Just found out it's Father's Day here too. Shows how much notice I take!
My excuse is I'm listening to the cricket!
My excuse is I'm listening to the cricket!
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Oh, didn't know if you had it over there or not.
Crickets will have to do till the bears come back around...
Crickets will have to do till the bears come back around...
mirandashell
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My dad was thrifty. Siblings called him Scrooge and skinflint. When I attended Idaho State in the '80s, Dad and Mom came to visit. My girlfriend and I treated them to a paid overnighter at the only hotel/casino in Jackpot, Nevada.
After a couple of hours at the machines, I saw Dad standing ashen-faced at the elevator. I asked how he was doing, and he blurted,"I lost it all, Charles. Every bit."
"How much, Dad?"
"Everything . . . all I had."
I was up, so I gave my dad a $100 in chips, which he cashed and went to our room to sit glum in front of the TV until we left the next day.
Back in Idaho, I stopped in Twin Falls to buy us a to-go lunch. I guessed he hadn't told Mom of his losses, as she ordered Dad to go with me to "pay for a change." Dad's wallet showed a wad to choke a cow.
I said, "I was scared you lost the ranch and all you owned, but I see you're flush with much more than the hundred I gave you. You told me you lost all you had."
"I did," he said forlorn as a French horn."Both rolls of nickels."
I sure miss him more than the $100 he never gave back.
After a couple of hours at the machines, I saw Dad standing ashen-faced at the elevator. I asked how he was doing, and he blurted,"I lost it all, Charles. Every bit."
"How much, Dad?"
"Everything . . . all I had."
I was up, so I gave my dad a $100 in chips, which he cashed and went to our room to sit glum in front of the TV until we left the next day.
Back in Idaho, I stopped in Twin Falls to buy us a to-go lunch. I guessed he hadn't told Mom of his losses, as she ordered Dad to go with me to "pay for a change." Dad's wallet showed a wad to choke a cow.
I said, "I was scared you lost the ranch and all you owned, but I see you're flush with much more than the hundred I gave you. You told me you lost all you had."
"I did," he said forlorn as a French horn."Both rolls of nickels."
I sure miss him more than the $100 he never gave back.
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One Saturday when I was 7 or 8, Dad appeared in the doorway to my room.
"Do you have any doll shoes? I need doll shoes about this big," says he, holding his fingers about 1/2 inch apart. "Smaller would be even better, but that'll do."
"Why?"
"It's a surprise. Do you have any?"
I search through the disaster area that was my room and locate the few dolls I have. I find a slightly smaller pair.
"Perfect!" he says, taking them. "C'mon!"
I follow Dad into the backyard where both of my brothers are waiting. There's a large mole hill that's been smoothed into a tidy mound and a propane torch. Dad lights the torch off and burns a neat circle onto the mounds top, puts the doll shoes on his fingers and "walks" them from the circle to a spot closer to side of the mound. He pulls a wee little flag on a skewer from his shirt pocket, plants it and then "walks" back to the circle. He puts the torch away and motions for us to be quiet.
"Honey!" he calls urgently. My Mom comes out. "What's up?"
"Aliens!" he says proudly.
"Aliens?"
"Look! See? Proof positive--a landing site."
Mom takes a closer look and after a beat for it all to sink in, starts laughing which sets us all off.
That was my Dad. Ace starter of watermelon seed fights, fixer of any known car problem and finder of alien landing sites.
"Do you have any doll shoes? I need doll shoes about this big," says he, holding his fingers about 1/2 inch apart. "Smaller would be even better, but that'll do."
"Why?"
"It's a surprise. Do you have any?"
I search through the disaster area that was my room and locate the few dolls I have. I find a slightly smaller pair.
"Perfect!" he says, taking them. "C'mon!"
I follow Dad into the backyard where both of my brothers are waiting. There's a large mole hill that's been smoothed into a tidy mound and a propane torch. Dad lights the torch off and burns a neat circle onto the mounds top, puts the doll shoes on his fingers and "walks" them from the circle to a spot closer to side of the mound. He pulls a wee little flag on a skewer from his shirt pocket, plants it and then "walks" back to the circle. He puts the torch away and motions for us to be quiet.
"Honey!" he calls urgently. My Mom comes out. "What's up?"
"Aliens!" he says proudly.
"Aliens?"
"Look! See? Proof positive--a landing site."
Mom takes a closer look and after a beat for it all to sink in, starts laughing which sets us all off.
That was my Dad. Ace starter of watermelon seed fights, fixer of any known car problem and finder of alien landing sites.
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My dad is gone and I'm missing him today so I might be here more than once. My dad was a vet of the south Pacific- Iwo Jima and Tarawa. He was a little guy, just under 5 foot 6. He signed up the week of Pearl Harbor, had to leave high school to do so. At least that was the story he always told us, his children.
I was in college before I heard the rest of the story. I ran into an old friend of his from high school.The friend said that Dad must be proud to have a college daughter. I said he always wanted me to go because he had to drop out to enlist. The friend gave me a weird look and said "Your dad left school in October of that year, not December. I know I was with him. We got into some trouble with Old Stumpy because we were listening to the World series instead of going to class." (Stumpy was the high school principal at Dad's time.)
"Dad was expelled?" I gasped.
"No. he left. Stumpy had him and me and Moe (my sister's godfather!) in the office. Your dad lipped off to Stumpy and told him he wasn't big enough to whip him! Stumpy went to get Elmo (a giant janitor) to give us swats down in the boiler room. While he was gone we got to rethinking the situation. The window was open. We tried to get out. Moe and me were too big but your Dad managed to squeeze through and run. Moe and me got swats with a belt but we graduated. Your dad went to work in the oilfield until Pearl Harbor."
Mom confirmed the story. When I asked dad he said " I never said I left in December I just said I had to leave!"
I was in college before I heard the rest of the story. I ran into an old friend of his from high school.The friend said that Dad must be proud to have a college daughter. I said he always wanted me to go because he had to drop out to enlist. The friend gave me a weird look and said "Your dad left school in October of that year, not December. I know I was with him. We got into some trouble with Old Stumpy because we were listening to the World series instead of going to class." (Stumpy was the high school principal at Dad's time.)
"Dad was expelled?" I gasped.
"No. he left. Stumpy had him and me and Moe (my sister's godfather!) in the office. Your dad lipped off to Stumpy and told him he wasn't big enough to whip him! Stumpy went to get Elmo (a giant janitor) to give us swats down in the boiler room. While he was gone we got to rethinking the situation. The window was open. We tried to get out. Moe and me were too big but your Dad managed to squeeze through and run. Moe and me got swats with a belt but we graduated. Your dad went to work in the oilfield until Pearl Harbor."
Mom confirmed the story. When I asked dad he said " I never said I left in December I just said I had to leave!"
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My dad instilled a deep fear of clowns in me when I was but a child.
It was Halloween time. Right before we were all set to go trick-or-treating I had to pee. I high-tailed it to my bathroom, not realizing dad was nowhere to be found, and did my thing. After I finished I was checking my costume to make sure it was just right. I heared my closet door creak slightly, thinking it was just my cat I ignored it. Then it creaked again. I turned and watched as the door slowly opened and out jumped a clown (with one of those really creepy masks) and a large, fake butcher's knife.
Thank God I peed already otherwise I would have need to change my tights...
20 years later I am absolutely petrified of the circus and anything that resembles a clown. Thanks, dad.
It was Halloween time. Right before we were all set to go trick-or-treating I had to pee. I high-tailed it to my bathroom, not realizing dad was nowhere to be found, and did my thing. After I finished I was checking my costume to make sure it was just right. I heared my closet door creak slightly, thinking it was just my cat I ignored it. Then it creaked again. I turned and watched as the door slowly opened and out jumped a clown (with one of those really creepy masks) and a large, fake butcher's knife.
Thank God I peed already otherwise I would have need to change my tights...
20 years later I am absolutely petrified of the circus and anything that resembles a clown. Thanks, dad.
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Thanks, Fluffbunny! Glad to see your dad had a good sense of humor! Can't think of too many times when that's a bad thing...
Shakey, I loved your story. It reminds me of what we tell our kids and what we don't. I have to admit to keeping my kids on a strict need to know basis regarding some of the more "sensitive" aspects of my life before them...
I guess it's obvious, but I miss my dad today, too. Not a given. Not every father's day hits me. There were some years in fact, when the hurts he was responsible for (as much as he was responsible for it) was too fresh to see the good things. But I do, I miss him today. He died young. Been gone a lot of years now.
And HL, I think it was the butcher knife that may have been a bit too much. Most clowns I know don't carry them.
Shakey, I loved your story. It reminds me of what we tell our kids and what we don't. I have to admit to keeping my kids on a strict need to know basis regarding some of the more "sensitive" aspects of my life before them...
I guess it's obvious, but I miss my dad today, too. Not a given. Not every father's day hits me. There were some years in fact, when the hurts he was responsible for (as much as he was responsible for it) was too fresh to see the good things. But I do, I miss him today. He died young. Been gone a lot of years now.
And HL, I think it was the butcher knife that may have been a bit too much. Most clowns I know don't carry them.
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I too am terrified of clowns. Though I don't know why. All I know is that they scare me.
mirandashell
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Indeed.
They're just waaaaay too creepy...
With their smiley faces, big shoes and red, rubber noses.
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Indeed.
They're just waaaaay too creepy...
With their smiley faces, big shoes and red, rubber noses.
Yeah, just what are they hiding behind all that?
Some of them, are clearly up to no good!
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My dad, Sid, was born February 13, 1904 in Egypt, Indian Territory. His mother's name was Sarah Jane (Jennie) Dee and his father's name was Charles Robbins. His favorite songs were 'Jole Blon' and 'Mona Lisa'. He loved playing dominoes. He loved going fishing – and there was many a night he came home late because he had to stop and 'wet a line'. He never went anywhere without his fishing pole and tackle box. He loved his children – and he loved the men and women his children married like they were his own.
Born the 9th of 10 children, Sid grew up both motherless and fatherless after the deaths of his mother from gangrene and his father from typhoid. In a time and a situation where he and his siblings could have become the dregs of society, the family managed to stick together through the determination of the oldest brothers and their grandparents, Tom and Bette Dee. Sid didn't know he was living through 'hard times'; he had nothing better to which to compare them.
His brothers, all quite a bit older than he was, worked on the railroad; and all of them insisted they didn't want dad to join them. He hitched a ride north into Kansas in search of his fortune, found a wife and had a couple of kids, then moved them all back to Oklahoma where he became a furniture re-finisher.
I suspect Sid was quite a carouser in his youth – more than once he came home after having had 'one too many', but it wasn't until he came home one night to hear his teen-age sons plotting to 'kick the ol' man's ass' for him that he decided 'carousing' wasn't the way to raise a family. His children were always of paramount importance to him – as was his wife – and overhearing his sons plotting against him didn't sit right with Sid.
He cut out the carousing, but the drinking stayed with him until late in his sixties when he finally decided he didn't need that anymore, either. Unfortunately, he couldn't give up his beloved Copenhagen Smokeless Tobacco – snuff – and he put a 'pinch 'tween cheek and gum' up until the strokes that eventually killed him made him forget he even liked the stuff.
There's one story in particular that reveals his tender heart and it's my favorite of all the tales I might tell. I had left home to go to college and my mother got a hankering for some fresh chicken and dumplings - which, to her mind, required a live chicken that my dad would have to dispatch. He went and bought the chicken and put her in a cage in the back yard, then piddled around until mom was ready for him to do the deed. He piddled around some more, went to do it, got distracted by something and showed up in the kitchen without the carcass.
Mom sent him back outside with a sharp word or two (or possibly more) and he came back in again, again without the chicken. When Mom asked him what the hell was wrong with him, he held out his hand and showed her an egg cradled in his palm.
"I couldn't do it," Mom reported he had said. "She's a mother."
I think they ended up getting burgers at the TasteeFreeze that night. The next day, Dad took the chicken back where he bought it; and eventually they had chicken and dumplings made from a store-bought hen. Dad never was asked to play hatchet man again.
Born the 9th of 10 children, Sid grew up both motherless and fatherless after the deaths of his mother from gangrene and his father from typhoid. In a time and a situation where he and his siblings could have become the dregs of society, the family managed to stick together through the determination of the oldest brothers and their grandparents, Tom and Bette Dee. Sid didn't know he was living through 'hard times'; he had nothing better to which to compare them.
His brothers, all quite a bit older than he was, worked on the railroad; and all of them insisted they didn't want dad to join them. He hitched a ride north into Kansas in search of his fortune, found a wife and had a couple of kids, then moved them all back to Oklahoma where he became a furniture re-finisher.
I suspect Sid was quite a carouser in his youth – more than once he came home after having had 'one too many', but it wasn't until he came home one night to hear his teen-age sons plotting to 'kick the ol' man's ass' for him that he decided 'carousing' wasn't the way to raise a family. His children were always of paramount importance to him – as was his wife – and overhearing his sons plotting against him didn't sit right with Sid.
He cut out the carousing, but the drinking stayed with him until late in his sixties when he finally decided he didn't need that anymore, either. Unfortunately, he couldn't give up his beloved Copenhagen Smokeless Tobacco – snuff – and he put a 'pinch 'tween cheek and gum' up until the strokes that eventually killed him made him forget he even liked the stuff.
There's one story in particular that reveals his tender heart and it's my favorite of all the tales I might tell. I had left home to go to college and my mother got a hankering for some fresh chicken and dumplings - which, to her mind, required a live chicken that my dad would have to dispatch. He went and bought the chicken and put her in a cage in the back yard, then piddled around until mom was ready for him to do the deed. He piddled around some more, went to do it, got distracted by something and showed up in the kitchen without the carcass.
Mom sent him back outside with a sharp word or two (or possibly more) and he came back in again, again without the chicken. When Mom asked him what the hell was wrong with him, he held out his hand and showed her an egg cradled in his palm.
"I couldn't do it," Mom reported he had said. "She's a mother."
I think they ended up getting burgers at the TasteeFreeze that night. The next day, Dad took the chicken back where he bought it; and eventually they had chicken and dumplings made from a store-bought hen. Dad never was asked to play hatchet man again.
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Tastee Freeze! wow! Id' forgotten that. Dad's idea of fine dining! It was his job to take me to kindergarten and give me lunch on the way. He worked "night tower" in those days and got home in the morning so his day was reversed for years. Mom was busy with my baby sibs. He and I spent many a happy corn dog and ice cream lunch together at the Tastee Freeze on Washington Street in Great Bend, Kansas. Mom thought he was taking me to White's cafe for vegetable soup!
Just down the block we used to visit Mr. Lang, the local barber and this is how I got my first job at the age of six as a receptionist. I would sit up front and welcome the customers. I would tell them that Mr. Lang was in the backroom and I would go get him. Sometimes the customer would sit and sometimes he would follow. The backroom was a busy place--lots of shouting about boxcars and new shoes. I thought it might be something religious because my dad, Mr. Lang and their friends were all kneeling and throwing Monopoly dice.
Anyway I always got a fifty cent piece for my trouble and had all the comic books in the barber shop to read. If a word stumped me Dad was always there to help me sound it out. Great Memories and I was the best reader in first grade!--s6
Just down the block we used to visit Mr. Lang, the local barber and this is how I got my first job at the age of six as a receptionist. I would sit up front and welcome the customers. I would tell them that Mr. Lang was in the backroom and I would go get him. Sometimes the customer would sit and sometimes he would follow. The backroom was a busy place--lots of shouting about boxcars and new shoes. I thought it might be something religious because my dad, Mr. Lang and their friends were all kneeling and throwing Monopoly dice.
Anyway I always got a fifty cent piece for my trouble and had all the comic books in the barber shop to read. If a word stumped me Dad was always there to help me sound it out. Great Memories and I was the best reader in first grade!--s6
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That's quite a family saga you've laid out. It struck me that it was the realization that his sons had such resentment for his behavior to have been plotting his ass whoopin' that finally set Sid straight. Us sons will put up with a lot from a father- guys will be guys kind of thing. But when our mothers are deeply hurt that's too much, and we will most often side up against the old man. I went through that when I was in my late teens. I loved the old man, but as far as my bottom line loyalty went, he didn't stand a chance. And truthfully, he wouldn't have had it any other way.
Receptionist or Look Out? What a vivid memory that must be for you. But 50 cents? Let's face it, you shoulda been in for a piece of the action.
Now I could've told the story of the collapsing deck chairs, or the fart in the German restroom, or the time in the cable car, or the Hoover Dam lift. I could've even mentioned the 'Just keep walking' technique, or the 'ear drinking' incident, or countless other funnier and more telling stories -- but this is the one that came to mind.
Time: Mid-Eighties
Place: The Dales
The peak: Pen-y-ghent
Me and the old man are hiking to the top. I don't know why we're doing it -- I hate hiking and my old man hates heights, but here we are. We've been up since daybreak and now, halfway up, just before the killer ridge, my little legs are aching. The bastard ridge is only a few hundred metres ahead and the sun, despite it being Yorkshire and England and summer, is burning down like God herself is shining a super-charged spotlight on this moment in time.
'I can't go on,' I say.
'I'm not leaving you behind,' the old man says.
'Go on without me,' I say. 'You can make it.'
'I won't leave you.' I don't notice the fear in his voice -- I can't notice it; I'm only a kid.
'I'm done for,' I say.
The old man looks to the killer ridge and back to me. I don't know what he's thinking, but he looks like Captain Kirk, Hawkeye Pierce, Reggie Perrin and everyone I ever wanted to be .
'I'll do it for you, son,' he says.
I watch him walk--legs moving like he can't stop them--his daddly frame getting smaller and smaller, higher and higher, until he gets to the start of the killer ridge.
He's just a little red dot in the distance now. A bright red cagoul worn just in case it rains even though it must be 25 degrees. I see him start out onto the ridge, my kid self sits there on the path, alone.
People walk by me. A few look. Eventually one stops.
'Where's your mum, son?'
I don't answer. Been taught never to talk to strangers.
'Oh my god!'
It's the stranger talking, she's looking up to the killer ridge and my eyes go there too.
'That man!'
There, on the killer ridge, clinging to the hillside, a red cagoul like a dot in a painting I saw in the Tate that time he took me to London.
'What's he doing?' says the stranger.
'He's just ...' begins another hiker. 'Laying there.'
I look to the little dot of red laying on its back, bravely holding the mountain up, blocking the traffic up the killer ridge to the top.
The stranger looks at the dot a while; it doesn't move. People move past it, skirting round the edge of it. Moving on. There is no great panic on a ridge under the blue Yorkshire sky.
'He must be ok,' says the hiker, and, problem solved, he moves on.
The stranger, a women with an unfamiliar accent, stays. She looks to the red dot and then to me. The spell is broken.
She says, 'where's your kin?'
Kin, I think, what a funny word.
She says, 'where's your family?'
And I point to that little red dot laid out on the mountinside and say, 'That ... is my Dad.'
Later, my old man overcomes his vertigo and walks under his own steam to where I'm sitting. He says something like, 'I didn't make it.'
I say something like, 'you did alright to me.'
We trudge back down the softer slopes of the hill, across the fields and all the way back to the beaten up Vauxhaull Viva and by the time we get there it's all become a funny story, a joke, a tale of the time my Dad got scared on the mountain.
And it was like that, only it wasn't like that at all.
Time: Mid-Eighties
Place: The Dales
The peak: Pen-y-ghent
Me and the old man are hiking to the top. I don't know why we're doing it -- I hate hiking and my old man hates heights, but here we are. We've been up since daybreak and now, halfway up, just before the killer ridge, my little legs are aching. The bastard ridge is only a few hundred metres ahead and the sun, despite it being Yorkshire and England and summer, is burning down like God herself is shining a super-charged spotlight on this moment in time.
'I can't go on,' I say.
'I'm not leaving you behind,' the old man says.
'Go on without me,' I say. 'You can make it.'
'I won't leave you.' I don't notice the fear in his voice -- I can't notice it; I'm only a kid.
'I'm done for,' I say.
The old man looks to the killer ridge and back to me. I don't know what he's thinking, but he looks like Captain Kirk, Hawkeye Pierce, Reggie Perrin and everyone I ever wanted to be .
'I'll do it for you, son,' he says.
I watch him walk--legs moving like he can't stop them--his daddly frame getting smaller and smaller, higher and higher, until he gets to the start of the killer ridge.
He's just a little red dot in the distance now. A bright red cagoul worn just in case it rains even though it must be 25 degrees. I see him start out onto the ridge, my kid self sits there on the path, alone.
People walk by me. A few look. Eventually one stops.
'Where's your mum, son?'
I don't answer. Been taught never to talk to strangers.
'Oh my god!'
It's the stranger talking, she's looking up to the killer ridge and my eyes go there too.
'That man!'
There, on the killer ridge, clinging to the hillside, a red cagoul like a dot in a painting I saw in the Tate that time he took me to London.
'What's he doing?' says the stranger.
'He's just ...' begins another hiker. 'Laying there.'
I look to the little dot of red laying on its back, bravely holding the mountain up, blocking the traffic up the killer ridge to the top.
The stranger looks at the dot a while; it doesn't move. People move past it, skirting round the edge of it. Moving on. There is no great panic on a ridge under the blue Yorkshire sky.
'He must be ok,' says the hiker, and, problem solved, he moves on.
The stranger, a women with an unfamiliar accent, stays. She looks to the red dot and then to me. The spell is broken.
She says, 'where's your kin?'
Kin, I think, what a funny word.
She says, 'where's your family?'
And I point to that little red dot laid out on the mountinside and say, 'That ... is my Dad.'
Later, my old man overcomes his vertigo and walks under his own steam to where I'm sitting. He says something like, 'I didn't make it.'
I say something like, 'you did alright to me.'
We trudge back down the softer slopes of the hill, across the fields and all the way back to the beaten up Vauxhaull Viva and by the time we get there it's all become a funny story, a joke, a tale of the time my Dad got scared on the mountain.
And it was like that, only it wasn't like that at all.
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