A Daddy's Girl

I'm pretty sure I never stood a chance of being anything but a daddy's girl. From the stories I've been told and the pictures I've seen of my early years, Daddy and I were always pretty tight.


From the moment I fit into the palm of his hand.


And, as the gods would have it, I have to say I'm a lot like him. While I favor that side of the family, I'm not the clone of Daddy that my sister is of my mother. (That one is just scary - total strangers will walk up to her just about anywhere and identify her as being our mother's daughter. She could NEVER get away with anything.) But I picked up a lot of his mannerisms and overall stuff. And when we were named, I carried my dad's initials and my sister carried my mother's. Worked out perfectly.


Was my daddy perfect? Oh no. And some days he was less perfect than others. I wouldn't try to tell you otherwise. And my memories may be veiled with a daughter's blinders. But today, on what would have been his 68th birthday, I want to remember the good stuff.



Daddy was hysterically funny, articulate, intelligent, well read (read the newspapers cover to cover every morning and you all know the old joke about checking the obituaries to make sure he wasn't in them), fiercely loyal to those he loved (nearly took out the guy at the car wash once for not believing my mother when she said it was eating her quarters), and a really terrific dad.


Mom was a school teacher so the first day of school duties fell to Daddy. Meeting the teachers wasn't a problem but buying the school supplies would stress him out. And he was a by-the-booker. If the supply list said I needed a box of 16 crayons then there was no point in asking for the box of 24. Wasn't happening. College-ruled paper? Nope. Anything other than those giant husky pencils? Not if that was what the list called for. And if, heaven forbid, the list wasn't specific enough, then Mom would have to pick it up the next day at school. (Back then there was a little room in most of the schools where you could buy supplies if you ran out. Probably don't have those any more.)


He had the same problem just going to the grocery store. I remember one time he was gone forever and came home with only about 3 things off the list. It wasn't specific enough. Mom would write "Tide" on the list but when he would get there - powder or liquid, what size, what scent? The choices were overwhelming! This was pre-cell phone days so he would just give up.



But, when I started 7th grade I had to ride the bus to school. Including the first day. And Daddy cried. Not where I could see it, but I heard about it. I was growing up a little. That caused him some trouble as well.



Daddy was a traveling salesman and I used to get to go with him sometimes during the summers. To a kid, it's like a vacation. Staying in hotels and going swimming in hotel pools. But I loved riding in the car and going places with him. I was a pretty good kid so I could be left alone in the lobbies while he made his sales calls. Like him, I'm never without reading material so I could occupy myself. And he had a routine at every hotel - work or pleasure. He always scoped out the newspaper box and the ice machine. Once he had located those two things, everything was fine.

He loved to be outside - not the camping, hiking or fishing kind of outside, just outside. Give him a lawn chair and the sun and he was happy. A beach - even better! I'm working on a whole series of blogs of our summers in Florida. Yes, there is that much material. One year, just because he wanted to and wanted to be able to say that he did it, he slept on the beach. Note to self, just because it is 95 degrees at high noon it probably won't be twelve hours later. I remember him walking back up to the house at sun up. Shaking and freezing! It was cold coming off that water all night and all he'd taken with him was a towel to cover up in. He never did it again, but he could say that he did it.

He was kind, but didn't make a big deal out of his acts of kindness. I remember hearing a story about my sister's after-prom breakfast. The parents had organized it at a park close to the river (basically the middle of the night but they wanted the students to have something safe to do after the prom) and someone noticed my dad was not standing there as he had been a few minutes before. They spotted him taking a plate of food to a homeless man. He'd not said anything about it or made it known, he just did it.

No, he wasn't perfect. There were times that he disappointed us, same as we disappointed him. But, overall, he was a good man and gave us (that's the collective family "us" which includes his friends) 55 years of memories and lessons and a role to model. I remarked not long ago that I knew I got some of the bad stuff (asthma, allergies, temper, hard head) but I hoped I'd gotten some of the good stuff, too. There was a lot there for the taking.

He could have been and done anything but I think he made choices based, at least somewhat, on his family. His job allowed him some flexibility and sometimes he was the only daddy in attendance at school functions - an 8th grade home economics fashion show comes to mind - but his girls were important to him. I learned much later that his girls were really everything to him. He had a hard time when we married and moved away. Left a big hole that he had trouble filling.

His heart was big, as were his hands. They cradled me when I was tiny and they held me when I was 21 and thought my world was coming to an end after a bad break up. They trembled when he walked me down aisle to the other man in my life.

But Daddy was always my first love. I still miss him every single day. There is a song that I like and a line at the end talks about someone coming to the singer and saying "I hope to meet your dad someday." The singer, who has talked about seeing his father in the mirror and tried to be like his father, says " I hope you already did."

I hope people will say that about me - that they see my father in me. It may be the good, the bad and the really not so good, but its a package deal. We don't get to pick our parents, and we don't get to pick the traits we inherit. We may manage them differently but its all a part of the bigger picture.

I was blessed two really wonderful parents. They both contributed to the person I am today. I think if anyone sees either parent in me or my sister, then we've done well.