Cherishing each phrase of my life

My father always knows how to say it best

“Don’t worry, honey. We’ll buy her pretty clothes and develop her personality.”

This was the first thing my Dad said to my mom when he saw me, his first-born.

Granted, this was 1963, I had a forceps-dented forehead, and the only labor fathers participated in those days was pacing the hospital halls and handing out cigars, so seeing this very un-Gerber-baby-like creature might have been a bit of a shock. Why he repeats the story every birthday is another matter.

Keep this in mind as I begin to tell you about a few of my father’s other favorite phrases. While most people’s Dads offer cliched fatherly wisdom about walking miles to school in the snow, earning just pennies an hour for backbreaking labor, or eating your vegetables because of starving children in faraway countries, my Dad is nothing if not an original.

Pain is Your Friend

Ask any of the 6th graders who helped to taunt, I mean, lead the kindergarteners through an obstacle course for a recent Vieja Valley School fundraiser, and they will tell you that this is my Dad’s favorite phrase. He coached them to use it to goad my 5-year-old son, who’s been the fortunate — or unfortunate — recipient of two generations worth of pent up Dinaberg testosterone. Koss was more impressed that all the 6th graders seemingly knew him.

Growing up with a football coach father, my mom, sister and I would often reflect on how lucky it was that we didn’t have any boys in our family. And surely it’s not coincidental that my sister and I both chose husbands who prefer golf and channel surfing to any sport where they might actually get hit. Luckily for Grandpa Bob, my son Koss, his only male grandchild, loves to wrestle, tackle and play rough, and Grandpa’s edict to “toughen up” doesn’t phase him any more than his bloody noses do.

Developmental Task

Pain was our friend and, according to Dad, if we couldn’t manage to play through it, we could always learn from it. Anything we didn’t want to do — from painting the sundeck to finishing our homework — or wanted to do but couldn’t — like going to that chaperone-less party because “everyone else was allowed to” — became a developmental task for my sister and I to learn from.

I repeated both of these adages to myself as I went through my own labor and delivery, where pain was most certainly NOT my friend, and my developmental task was to realize that I should have demanded an epidural at least two weeks before delivery. I really should stop saying you never taught me anything, Dad.

On Scholarship

My Dad never takes us out to dinner, golfing or to a movie. It must be the former athletic director in him, because we’re always “on scholarship,” and like the coach who is always fighting for more on behalf of his team, my generous-to-a-fault father, gives out many more scholarships than his finance director (mom) would like him to.

I’m Having Fun /Let’s Boogie

Delivered in an infectious singsong voice, I can’t help but smile every time I hear these Dad-isms. He is nothing if not fun to be with, and ready to pursue fun at any opportunity. Not many 41-year-olds still skip through parking lots with their fathers. I probably laugh more with him than anyone else … even, or maybe especially, at the most inopportune moments.

Call Me Sir

Having long given up on me, my sister and our girlfriends to show him the proper respect (Pa, we ain’t southerners!), my Dad has tried, to no avail, to get every male who’s ever come in spitting distance of us to call him Sir. Even his grandchildren stumble over the words. There’s just too much dissonance between the proper “Sir,” and the loveable, affable, completely improper guy that my Dad is.

I wouldn’t want him any other way.

Scoop Bob

Working for a small town newspaper in the same small town that my husband and I both grew up in, you’d think I’d have a pretty good ear to the ground when it comes to news. Certainly better than my father, who sometimes has to be told things a half dozen times before they sink in. But oddly enough, that’s not the case. While my mother often knows about things weeks before they hit the news, and is far too discreet to ever say anything, Scoop Bob works overtime to keep me in the loop about anything remotely newsworthy, including the cat that got stuck in Mrs. Haigh’s tree and the new Wow Cow flavors at McConnell’s.

As I slowly got out of the car on Sunday (“Hurry up mom,” Koss yelled.), I weighed the relative benefits of taking a nap versus checking my email. While my husband put in yet another load of laundry, it occurred to me — for the first time in my life — that I truly am my father’s daughter.

“It’s good to see me,” I said to myself, as I dialed my Dad’s number.

“Happy Father’s Day, Sir. Let’s celebrate by scholarship-ing me to some pretty new clothes at Nordstrom.”

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on June 16, 2005.

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