Father's Day Memories

 Memories on Dad

I didn’t have a father, I had a Dad. He died when I was in 5th grade so my memories of him are limited but those memories always make me smile and I hold them in my heart.

Dad was full Norwegian and grew up with parents that barely spoke English. I never knew my Grandparents on Dad’s side. But I heard they didn’t show a lot of emotions and taught Dad that raising children was women’s work. It was ok to spend time with the boys because they would be men, etc. Still I knew that Dad loved us and it is those little things that made it all worth while.

Little things like:

We couldn’t go to bed until we found where Dad was and gave him a hug. It didn’t matter if he was in the garage working on some wood project or in the living room listening to the TV. We always said we loved him and he would put give us a one armed hug. He might have said he loved us but I can’t remember. I remember him smiling and nodding and for me that was enough.

He would go fishing with the boys and they would help around the farm as they grew up and such but he didn’t ignore us girls. He would make these statements out of the blue like “I’m out of root beer” (even if there was a full gallon sitting over in the corner) which meant we had to go to A&W to get some and if we were quiet and behaved we would get small root bear floats. He would then pick up a gallon (in real glass containers) of root beer and we would drive home. Not much conversation was held during those times but we soaked up the good feelings.

Every or every other weekend we would go to Wisconsin Dells/Lake Delton where we would either stay with our cousins (Lake Delton) or in our own trailer. That was a trailer that was before they put a/c units in it, before refrigerators (although we had a small area where he bought a block of ice that lasted most of the weekend), and before bathrooms in the trailer. Dad would bring a couple of turkeys from work up with him, give one to Tommy Bartlett so we could watch his show for free, and then give one to the guy who had the trailer park that was a couple of blocks away. In exchange we could then use his showers and bathroom. Then before we went home we would have to go to the local roller skating rink and while my sister and I would slowly go around that HUGE (to us) rink, we kept asking Dad to skate with us. He kept saying no until it was the last skate. Then he would take each of our hands, one on each side of him, and skate around the rink. Just that once. He was worse at skating then we were but he did it for and WITH us.

The other time that he would do something with us was during the Sandwich Fair. We would go every year and, if I remember right it was on Sunday, so Dad could go see the races and demolition derby and we could eat Mom’s fried chicken, apple pie, and other food. Pat, my sister, would go with me around the Fair in daylight but when it got dark, we were to go home. Before we left though, Dad would take us on one ride. It was the same ride. I’m not sure what it was but it was low to the ground, I was squished between Pat and Dad and then we would be whirled around and around. Once again, it was a one ride only rule with Dad. But it was enough. The other big thing on Sunday nights was The Fugitive. I don’t mean the movie but the old TV series. It was the one show that Dad “wouldn’t miss” and the bonus was that we could watch it with him and stay up past our bedtime! He was very patient with our questions of “will they get the bad guy tonight?”

Dad was a patient man. He never got tired with my questions when he and my brother Tony tried to teach me to follow football. I didn’t care who won, I was in my heaven. I was between Dad and Tony. It was Tony who eventually told me if I wanted to follow the ball, just waited until I saw a bunch of guys on the ground. The guy and the ball would be under all of that. It worked; eventually I was able to follow the ball from the snap.

I was fortunate that my short time with Dad held good memories. It wasn’t colored by neither teenage angst nor disagreements about “why can’t we” and such. I never felt deprived during my childhood and that was partially due to Dad and the memories that I have of him.