Happy Birthday, Dad!

My Dad’s birthday is one day after my Mom’s. They are the same age for exactly one day.

My Dad didn’t have the same request for writing down special memories for his birthday. He’s getting it anyway. He just didn’t want anyone to know how old he was. 

My Dad is my role model for handiness. I know if anything breaks, Dad can fix it. If it was a toaster, a hair dryer, or an iron, it is repaired within minutes.

When I was eight years old and taking gymnastics lessons, my Dad made me a practice balance beam. He took measurements at the gym so it was a precise replica. In true kid fashion, I don’t remember using it much.

Every Halloween, my Dad made our costumes from scratch. Usually, they involved a box as a base. Some examples were a deck of cards, a box of crayons, or a head on a table. The costumes were the talk of our tiny town.

When I was a child, my Dad coached my brother’s little league team. There were no options for girls and I wanted to play. My Dad and Mom went to “bat” for me to be the first and only girl on the boy’s team. I made them proud by picking flowers in left field and never making a play. But, we made White Haven history. They had my back. The next year, a girl’s team was started. Inadvertently, this fanned my feminist tendency. 

Our family vacations mostly involved the outdoors. My Dad taught us how to set up a tent, and how to make a fire. He tried to teach us common sense. I remember once, he and I were standing near the top of a hill. He asked me, “If you needed to find water, where would you look?” I was flustered, unsure of the right answer, and pointed uphill. My Dad patiently explained how water would flow down the hill with gravity. And how we would be more likely to find a stream or lake at the bottom of a hill. Important stuff. I still think of that lesson when I hike.

On the first day of trout season, my Dad would take me and my brother fishing. We stopped casting once we caught the legal limit of 8. When we were old enough, my Dad showed us how to clean our fish. He sliced the belly and scooped out the innards to prepare it for cooking. I was traumatized. There is a picture of me at age 6, sitting next to a table that had six gutted trout on it. I was crying. Unknowingly, he taught me to be vegetarian.

A favorite summer activity was blueberry picking. We each had an empty gallon ice cream container with an arm through the wire handle. We would spend hours filling those buckets at my Dad’s secret blueberry bush spot. My mom would then make her signature blueberry pie. We were high on our accomplishment and sugar.

(Blueberry Pie

Crust: 1-3/4 cup flour, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 4 TBSP cold water

Knead together and divide in thirds. Use 2/3 for bottom, 1/3 for top. Use rolling pin to make crust. Line pie pan.

Filling: 1-1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 4 cup berries, 1-1/2 TBSP butter, Knox gelatin packet, squirt of lemon juice

Assemble pie. Bake at 425 for 35-45 minutes.)

Our town was the home of 2 well known ski resorts. My Dad took up skiing in the 80s. Once he got good enough, he succumbed to our pleas to go. The cost of a single ski ticket tripled with the 3 of us and that was a lot of money for my parents. Sean and I loved it. When we were in college, Sean and I both got jobs at the ski resorts, which came with free season passes. My Dad skied daily every winter until my parents moved to Chester County in 2015.

I knew my Dad could help me with anything that involved building. For one of my college art classes, we were given a design efficiency assignment. The minimal instruction was to build a structure that could hold 10 pounds, using the least number of toothpicks. I called my Dad to ask for help. He said, “OK, the most sound option would be shaped like a telephone tower.” He also said, “You know, like triangles one on top of another.” He pictured a thin, straight telephone tower.

I pictured, and then built, a pyramid with a flat top. I wondered why I had to keep getting more and more boxes of toothpicks. The professor laughed when he saw it, but gave me credit for grit and perseverance. My roommate and I used it as a chair for the rest of the semester and it held at least 130 pounds.

For the father-daughter dance at my wedding, I chose the Barry Manilow song, “I Am Your Child“. I had dreaded this dance for months. That sounds terrible. I knew I was going to sob and my still-immature self was embarrassed to cry openly in front of so many people. My Dad and I both cried through the whole song. Towards the end of the dance, I whispered, “Don’t worry, it is almost over.” He replied, “I never want it to end.”

Ten years later, when tearfully, I told my family members and friends that I was getting divorced, most asked me if I was sure. Of course I wasn’t sure. My energy was low. I was so wrought with trying to make the right decision that I was barely able to decide on breakfast. When I told my Dad, he said, “I am sure you know what you are doing.” I never forgot that he believed in me and my ability to make good choices.

After I got divorced, I bought a house in a suburb of Pittsburgh. It needed a lot of work. My Dad visited for a week with me. He helped me replace the kitchen countertops, fix electrical outlets, and everything else on my list. We would eat dinner together every night, share our experiences of the day, and laugh about any mishaps. It was wonderfully bonding, working together to make a home where I could heal. I made him a CD of father-daughter songs to listen to on the way home. We both cried when he left.

My Dad of today is a quiet man, full of thought. He cherishes his granddaughter with a love without end. As he did us, he teaches her and watches over her growth. My Dad enjoys biking, even though the number of people on the trails in Chester County compared to Luzerne County is quite overwhelming for him. My Dad works out at the gym every day, keeping fit for other activities. He misses being able to ski every winter day. But, he sees the trade-off of having two out of three children, a son-in-law, and a grandchild within five miles of his home as a fair one. Gradually, he is making the house in West Chester feel more like home to him. He added a garage, a hot tub, and fixed things to his liking.

Every day, I encounter a lesson that my Dad has taught me. Whether it is rigging up a broken vacuum cleaner or taking a Sawzall to an unnecessary wall, I remember where those lessons originated.

“Whatever I know
I learned from you.

Whatever I do
You taught me to do.”

Barry Manilow