What I Sincerely Learned from My Father

Page 263. What. What did you sincerely learn from your father?

My parents are very different, in some ways polar opposites. I wonder if it doesn't come as a surprise to those who know me or read my writing that my childhood influences were, as far as my parents' personalities, varied and sometimes confusing. While my mother may tend to be highly fearful of doing the wrong thing or being perceived negatively, my father appears to most who know him as the proverbial free-spirit. He's the one standing out in his yard after a snowstorm swinging an imaginary golf club, zenfully practicing his swing. This is after he's plowed the sidewalks of every house on the street from one end to the other because he proudly owns a snowplow and he likes making people happy. If my mother owned a snowplow she might worry whether Bob down the street even wants her to plow his sidewalk, what if he desires the exercise or the sunshine or the, I don't know, wet boots? What if he likes his walks plowed a certain way, what if he doesn't appreciate the snowpile of blown snow it might leave on his yard? There are many possible ways to offend people and it is her life's work to dig them up and avoid them.


My father may have offended a few. He would never intend to do such a thing, I don't think he ever has. But when one lives large and wide open and perhaps with a bit of childlike captivation, this can happen. He was the one who came home earlier than most dads and chased the kids around the neighborhood pretending to be a crazy wildman. Curiously, the boys on the block taunted him with calls of: "Grandma Moses!" That was the call of the wild and then the wildness started. He'd make one or two sweeps of the yard or street, screaming kids dashing behind a garage or scrambling up a low limb as he passed, then he'd disappear into the back door.

Once on a late night walk around town, I remember my dad pointing at the sky. He loves the sky, especially the night sky, the stars, the planets, eclipses, and the wonderment that explodes there above us. He told me at the end of Roosevelt Avenue that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sands on all the worlds beaches. I've often said, when attempting to sum up my parents' influence into one illustration: mom told me to pull in my stomach, dad told me that there are more stars than grains of sand.

In college, when I was failing Cell Physiology, a picture came into my mind. I was sitting on the moon, looking back at the earth and I had to wonder, what difference could it possibly make to anyone, anything there on that blue and green ball of amazingness if I fail Cell Phys? Just go back down there and try again, you silly. I sat on the moon a lot in college and a few times since and I think I was taken there solely by the free-spirited rocket that is my dad.

What I sincerely learned from my father is: It's okay. Plow neighbors' snow. Scare their children mercilessly. Look up into the sky. And wonder.