Father

My father is smart.  He can recite the Declaration of Independence, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and countless Shakespearean sonnets and soliloquies on demand. 

 
My father doesn't know a stranger.  When the Jehovah Witnesses came to our door and my mother urged him to tell them we weren't home or, worse yet, that we were Catholic, Dad would answer the door.  When the kindly old lady announced that she had a message for us from the Lord, my dad invited her in for coffee. 

 
My father made me feel important.  He regularly took me to work with him at Miami University where he taught English literature.  He'd tell the class that I was his assistant instructor for the night and let me pass out papers and sit up front with him. 

 
My father was an impetuous romantic.  When the Village Square Townhouses apartments were scheduled to get new carpet installed he spray painted a big red heart three feet in diameter on the shag green rug and wrote "1-4-3, Dee," his short hand way of saying I love you to my mom.  She was aghast, but he reasoned that they were just going to tear it all up anyway. 

 
My father was fun.  When I was four or five he'd pretend he was a polar bear.  He'd get down on all fours and let me ride on his back.  If there was any leftover pizza in the fridge, and there usually was at our house, he hand me a piece saying, "Here little bear, have some cold walrus."  I was about 12 before I finally realized that there really was no connection between walruses and cold pizza. He let us have food fights on the nights mom was away at law school.  We almost got away with it until we left a telltale piece of baloney stuck to the ceiling. Once mom spotted that he had to think of other ways to have fun.  He went through a phase where he loved model trains, and he installed a train that spanned the length of our large dining room table and made a huge oval path.  He took our lunch orders and then delivered lunch via electric train.  We were entranced. 

 
My father can sing.  If he has stage fright, he hides it well.  He can do more than carry a tune, he can sell a song. His specialties are "Brandy" by Looking Glass, "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits, and "Steamroller".   Even in the midst of chemotherapy he belted out "Black Water" by The Doobie Brothers with my little brother at a karaoke bar in town. 

 
My father loves to eat.  If what you're eating at a restaurant looks good to him he'll ask, "Are you gonna eat that?" or sometimes he'll just help himself to your plate.  Once I brought a new boyfriend around and dad just started eating the man's pancakes.  I nudged my boyfriend and told him, "This means he likes you.  He feels comfortable enough to eat off your plate."

 
My father never judged me even when I judged myself.  When I learned I was pregnant out of wedlock in the spring between my junior and senior year of college I dreaded telling him.  Instead of disappointment, he embraced me and said, "That's great news."  He practically jumped up and down yelling to my mom, "Dee did you hear?!  We're going to be grandparents!  This is great!"

 
My father made me feel pretty when I felt anything but pretty.  In junior high I was shorter and heavier than the other girls in my class.  Everyone seemed tan while my pale skin freckled or burned. But every day through junior high and high school my dad would stop me before I headed out.  He'd look me square in the eye and he'd say, "Bridgid, you're alright."  And eventually I started to believe him.