He mowed the grass in a tie!!!

This is a photo I took of my daddy one summer…and yes, he’s mowing in a tie!

When I was growing up, he usually had a tie on every single day. And he’d leave it on until bedtime because he never knew when a parishioner would need the pastor! It wasn’t until he retired that I saw Daddy in sports shirts and slacks!

His brother, Virgil, used to tell me that Daddy always looked like he’d “…just stepped off of a bandbox!” He told me that Daddy would press his own clothes so he’d get them just right. Grandma thought he was vain for doing that, and told him so. She was a member of the Friends (Quaker) denomination and pride was a thing to be shunned. (Guess it should be for anyone!) Uncle Virgil said that Grandma’s critique didn’t stop Daddy from looking his best. He was quite a handsome young man, so I’m sure all the young ladies appreciated his extra efforts!!! A few years later, our momma certainly did! Then she started ironing his clothes! (smile)

As a little girl – and even as a teenager – I would help my dad with chores. He’d be on one of those wheeled dollies that you lay down on to slide under a vehicle…and he’d pull me under the car with him on a gray wool blanket, so I could hold the light and hand tools to him as he worked. I still have that blanket. I remember at the age of nine, helping him change the shock absorbers on our 1957 Chevy! I loved it when he’d change the filter on his cars so I could cover them in aluminum foil, to pretend they were swimming pools for Barbie, Ken, Midge, and Skipper!!!

This past Friday, I took lunch to our very pregnant daughter. Sitting at her dining room table, I saw her New Yorker magazine cover and it made me smile and feel tears welling up in my eyes…all at the same time. It looked like something my daddy and I used to do! I was his shadow!

We had our moments – like the time his hearing was better than I anticipated. And the time he tried to teach me to drive a stick-shift, then stormed into the house, threw the keys at my sister and said, “I’m too old for this! YOU teach her!!!”

When Daddy was sick for three months, I spent a lot of time with him. He was in a nursing facility, but the medical folks were gracious enough to let me sleep in his room on a cot at the foot of his bed. I bathed him, helped him in the bathroom, changed his sheets, measured and emptied the bag filled with fluid coming from his liver, and anything else he needed. He cried one day as I bathed him, saying he hated that I had to do that for him. I told him it was my privilege…then to stop his tears, I told him a funny story about Mother. It’s the story I tell in my comedy routines now! He quit crying and chuckled, then laughed.

It was the last time I heard him laugh.

During those three months, we took care of some things. I asked a lot of questions. He answered them. I had a problem with the decision he and my mother made when they moved to take another church between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I asked why. And he told me. I was satisfied with the answer. And, as it turned out, that move was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me.

Another Father’s Day has come and gone without me being able to call Daddy to tell him how much I love him. He’s been gone for 17 years.

So I’ll tell you that I miss the man. I love him to this very day…




And just as I always do at the end of my blog postings, I’ll remind you of this: If you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count!