Part 3 - Tribute to my Dad

Rewinding back a few years, back to the beginning of me playing soccer. Playing soccer worked out pretty well because I’d call Dad on the pay phone (back before cell phones, or young kids carried cell phones every where), after I was done with practice, and he’d pick me up on his way home from work. I’ve heard many a parent wonder how to let their kid know it’s time for deodorant – I’ve had the conversation with our neighbor – well – after having driven me home in the truck with no air-conditioning a few times, my Dad couldn’t deal any more, I can still hear him “Hey Honey, I think if you’re going to continue to play soccer it might be time you started using something to help with that smell, especially if you want a ride home!”

My Dad was on the sideline for most of my home games. I’ll never forget the way he’d cheer me on. One day one of my teammates asked “Who’s that hairy guy over that that keeps cheering very loudly for you?” and with a great big smile on my face I’d say “That’s my Dad”. He wondered why I was/am so loud and I think really I got it from him, he just knew how to control his volume better than I do. When the nurse asked why he might not hear as well in one ear as the other, he said “Well that’s the side my daughter sits on at the dinner table”, Brian has made a mental note of this, so if he’s ever having his ears tested and one isn’t as good as the other he’ll know why.

Not my Dad's truck, but it looks very similar

There was a day when (not really to the surprise of my Father), I fell out of that big blue truck and got gravel from the driveway in my knee. My Dad helped me up, took me inside and helped me, as I cried, scrub my knee “to get all the gravel out, so you don’t have bumps on your knee that will hurt much worse later.” Every now and then I can see a bump or two from some gravel that didn’t come out and I think of that day.

(Isn't that house ugly?! We had to look at it forever! We were all so happy when they tore it down!)

Another thing involving the big blue truck – I like to sing along to the radio, and as Brian can attest to – I don’t always know the words so I make words up or just sing a bunch of noises. My Dad always used to say “If I wanted to hear you sing I’d shut the radio off and just listen to you”, always with humor in his voice of course. In turn, my Dad would be “singing” around the house and my brother and I would ask him not to quit his day job or we’d all be very hungry! His sisters definitely got the musical talent.

Brian laughs at me because I have had hoof and mouth disease, the reason – my stubbornness, which without doubt I inherited from my Father. We were gardening, back when we had a garden and it took up most of our yard and sat on top of our leach field (I cringe now, with my background in Civil Engineering), and Dad’s cigarettes had fallen out into the horse manure we were using to fertilize, and even after being told over and over that cigarettes weren’t for me (the stubbornness) I bent over and picked them up, and as a consequence, ended up with hoof and mouth. To this day I can honestly say all of my Dad’s telling me NO cigarettes aren’t for little girls, something stuck, because I have never and will never smoke.

Hoof and Mouth Disease Day