Ack, why is it always shocking to me how busy June is as school and kids’ activities wind to an end? You’d think I’d know by now. (Yes, that’s my pathetic excuse for not posting anything recently.) Thankfully, a contest through my workplace resulted in the perfect way to put something on my blog and also celebrate Father’s Day. The request was for “Dad-isms”:

We want to hear your favourite Dad-isms–sincere advice that they’ve given you, a ‘dad’ joke (groan), or a story of something only a dad would do….(you know what I mean…Don’t pretend you don’t know…)

Up for the challenge over my coffee break on Friday, the following is what I wrote:

My dad was the type of guy who always had a joke to go with any situation. If we were squeezing into a tight spot in the parking lot, he’d say something like, “That’s tighter than a duck’s ass in a power dive!” A hot day would be, “It’s hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut!” Not sure what the theme was with making jokes about animal butts, but he thought it was funny as hell and would giggle to himself every time. And even though we’d laugh the first few times he’d try out a new one, and then groan heavily when he continued to say them for years to come, they were always funny because they were him.

Once, when my cousin, Kurtis, and I were kids, we were fighting over who would get the next turn in the wicker chair that hung from the ceiling in our log house. My dad pretended to get angry with Kurtis and pulled him into the bathroom as though to give him a stern talking to. The relatives and I stood there clueless as to what he was up to. Soon after, we heard some hollers from my dad and some screams from Kurtis escaping the closed bathroom door. We watched with anticipation as the bathroom door opened and the two of them came out, Kurtis topless with ketchup smeared all over his back, as though my dad had beaten him. Of course, we all laughed hysterically, knowing it was a joke. (To this day, I have no idea how the ketchup made it to the bathroom.) That’s just the way my dad’s mind worked, with a bit of dark humour from time to time—he had a tough upbringing and maybe that was his way of letting it go. He let it go with a yelling, fiery temper sometimes too, but I never doubted the love he had for my mom, sister and I.

One of my best memories with my dad was when I was around ten years old and it was a few days before Christmas. I was walking with him through the Overwaitea parking lot in the small town I grew up in. He loved saying “Merry Christmas!” to people he knew as they walked by us. I recall feeling such pride as I held his rough mechanic’s hand and everyone called out, “Merry Christmas to you too, Arne!” He then turned to me and said, “You know, if your mom and I had all the money in the world, we would buy you and your sister everything you ever wanted.” I don’t know why this impacted me so much. I think it was because it was his way of saying he would give us the world if he could—and in saying that, he did.

~

Happy Father’s Day to my dad, my husband, and to all those dads out there who, despite their imperfections and mistakes they’ve made, have let their kids know that they would give them the world if they could.

By the way, what are your dad’s dad-isms?