The Barrette Incident.
We had less than ten minutes before I had to catch the bus to first grade. My dad stood with me in the bathroom, combing my hair and trying desperately to get the red plastic barrette to stay in place. Finally, as thin locks of hair kept slipping through, I took hold of it myself and tried. It wasn’t working for me either though. Whether you have the hands of an adult male or a seven-year-old little girl, making a barrette stay put in fine hair can be tricky. And this wasn’t exactly his expertise.
Little did I know that my mom was in the hospital with complications from her pregnancy with my brother. My sisters and I did not realize she was sick. We just figured all mothers stayed in the hospital a month or so after having a child. My dad was under strain with three kids home, a new baby, juggling work, and making dinners for all of us. My grandmother was helping out too, but it must have been difficult for him.
Just the same, he wanted to get it right—and years later, I am so touched by that. It’s a minor detail and yet it speaks volumes about him. He didn’t delegate it to another family member. He just did it.
He finally secured the barrette and I went hopping off to school. It was not as mom would have done it, but I didn’t care. Dad had gotten the barrette to stay on my head. And as a first grader, that’s all that mattered to me at that moment. And somehow, he sensed that.
Dad’s Travel Adventures.
My dad kept travel diaries of our vacations. I never gave it a thought at the time. He would record all our trips, including the many nicknames we’d give each other. Taking four children on vacation was a lot of work at times—and meant keeping the kids getting along, so Dad could be relied on to crack jokes and come up with inspiring nicknames for each child. At times, he had the ability to make you feel as though you were the only child.
My Dad would drag us to Civil War battlefields throughout Virginia and throughout the South. To me, we were seeing huge fields and nothing more. I only had thoughts of Disney World. But he would walk around, explaining various tactics, how many men perished, the speeches and errors that Grant and Lee had made, the lack of medicine and how both sides, Confederate and Union, had suffered.
Looking back, I wished I’d listened more, but years later he must have stirred something in me, as I became a history major in college, focusing on U.S. History.
More importantly, Dad inspired in me a love of travel. Halfway through a trip to Florida, he was already planning another trip, to Montana. My mother would roll her eyes and say, “We haven’t even finished this trip yet!”
Maybe it was a little obsessive, but trip planning came naturally to him. It still does. I find that I, too, have become an obsessive trip planner. It must be genetic. There are worse traits to pass on to a daughter, so inspiring a love of adventure and travel sounds okay to me.
Postcards of Love.
I did not truly start to appreciate my Dad, his sense of humor and warmth, until college. Whenever I brought home new friends, he welcomed them into the house—and they always seemed to like that. It was something I’d taken for granted up until then. Away at college, I would laugh at the many postcards that arrived. A postcard could make my day—or alter my outlook—in seconds. My college roommate especially enjoyed the postcards, eagerly looking over my shoulder at my parents’ current travel destination (Bermuda again?), jokes, or quirky Pop Art cards with feminist takes that he knew I’d enjoy.
It felt good to have a Dad like him. I suddenly appreciated his openness, his charm, and his ability to talk to anyone. Thanks Dad, for being you.
