I was thinking early this morning about some of the funny stories from my childhood, and how I’d like to be able to preserve them. The crazy thought popped into my brain to start sharing them on my blog, so I plan to write a post about each one of my family members with at least one story about them, starting with my dad.
I probably have more stories about my dad than about anyone else in the family. My dad is still a kid at heart, I think, and he spent a lot of time with all five of us children when we were growing up. He read us bedtime stories, he helped us build forts, he played sports with us, and he laughed at our childish jokes.
When I was about five years old or so, I decided to plant a maple seed (or “helicopter” as we called them because of the way they would spin around when falling from the trees) so I could grow my own maple tree. I planted the seed in the backyard out near the shed, and lo and beyond a green plant sprouted! My dad noticed that I was very attentively caring for a little plant in the backyard, but instead of being a maple sapling, it was a poison ivy plant! Without my knowing it, he replaced the poison ivy with a proper maple sapling, and I was none the wiser until my teenage years when my dad finally told me the story.
Me and my dad at my undergrad graduation, Photo by Rima Laviano
My dad is currently living in the same house my siblings and I grew up in (in Virginia) with his wife Keson. I don’t talk to my dad or visit him nearly enough. My favorite things to do when I visit him are tossing the football around and working on cars with him. I enjoy weeding the garden with him, or changing the oil in the truck. It’s some good quality time.
This question of the day is aimed at my siblings: Any good dad stories to add?
micheledodge
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
such a kewl story!!! thank you for sharing it =o)
http://sweetspicestory.blogspot.com/
I didn’t know that dad did that too. When hiking/camping, I’m the one who has everything in my pack. When someone gets hurt, I’m the only one with a first aid kit. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had binoculars? I whip out my binoculars. Someone runs out of water, I have an extra liter. It starts to rain and someone didn’t bring rain gear, I whip out the extra poncho.
And my pack isn’t particularly big either. I have everything but a machete. And if I were going to be in a heavily vegetated area, I’d add a machete. Somehow I always found room in my pack for 40 lbs of rocks a day. Good times.
Now I know that I got that from dad.
My fond memory was baseball. I didn’t like to play the game. I was a terrible player. I still liked having dad at those games. He’d always get a spot on the outfield fence away from the other parents.
Even though I didn’t get any hits or catch many balls, dad would still let me know he enjoyed watching the game.
Dad was also fun to have in Boy Scouts. He had this old aluminum frame red pack. We’d all call it the Big Red pack. Someone would say “You know it’d be great if we brought… blank.” Then Dad would pull it out of his pack. It became a joke that he carried everything in there.
We used to call them “helicopters” too. Nice story.
What a sweet story about your Dad 🙂 Sounds like something mine would do.