A Summer Evening With My Dad
I drive my 14-year-old son to a youth event and then instead of driving all the way home I figure I’ll stop by my parents’ house to see my dad. Mom is out of town and I’m sure the place feels empty without her. I guess he could probably use some company.
I pull into their driveway and get out of the car and the thick June air is starting to cool as the sun drifts westward. Everything is still. The trees are wilting. Dad has just finished mulching and sits in a chair by the house, leaning back, knees splayed out.
“Hey, Pops,” I say. There’s another chair right there beside him, so I sit.
He updates me on life and I listen and eye up the yard work he’s been doing and notice how white his beard is these days. Mine, too. There we are, 68 and 47, but whenever I’m with him I feel about 14. Or 8. I think about my boys at home, how when my youngest is 47, I’ll be in my early 80s.
I realize, sitting there, that I don’t do this enough. Life and all that.
We go inside for a cold glass of meadow tea then sit in the living room recliners and watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and Price is Right at night, all the while talking about his brothers and sisters and old friends and remember this and what about that. Have you seen so-and-so lately? Did you hear about what happened?
It’s getting darker outside.
Watching Price is Right is both cringe worthy and nostalgic—the silly things we have in our society, this endless stream of plastic and dollar signs and convenience. Do we really need another waterproof such-and-such? Another portable what’s-it-called? Handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash prizes willy-nilly while people around the world can’t scrape together ten bucks for a meal? Open the right box and you win $100,000.
But the show also reminds me of when I was three or four years old and my mom watched that show most afternoons, and I’d sit there with her, and we’d cheer and cheer for the contestants to win the brand new car from Bob Barker, willing the Plinko chip to fall on the big prize, waiting while the wheel turned, and then when it was over she’d walk me and my sister along Gap hill and then across Route 41, the asphalt all hot and cracked and baking, to a small little house on the corner that served as a kind of corner store. There, she’d buy me an ice cream, usually a fudge bar or an orange pop or an ice cream sandwich. Maybe an orange creamsicle push-up pop. And then we’d walk back through the summer heat and up the stairs to the apartment, where I’d while away the time until Sesame Street and Mr. Rodgers came on.
The house grows dark. It’s time to go. I hug my dad and we tell each other “I love you.” I never knew what a small miracle that is, for fathers and sons to voice such a thing, probably because I grew up with it, but a few years ago I was in a car with a friend. I was on the phone with my dad. At the end of the conversation, I said, “I love you, too.” My friend looked at me with a confused look on his face, something close to astonishment.
“Did your dad just tell you he loves you?”
“Yeah,” I said shrugging.
“My dad never said that to me,” he said. He didn’t sound upset about it. It was more a reflection, a matter of fact, something he’d rarely thought could be any other way. “I don’t think he knew how. That’s pretty cool. That your dad tells you that.”
I walk outside, down the driveway. The sun is setting in a dull rust color over the storage yard where High Steel stores their massive steel beams. I can hear cars rushing by on the freeway. The fireflies are out now, flashing their yellow-green, floating lazily like lost stars.
If you’re looking for a fun way to spend a summer evening, here are some events coming up at our bookstore:
A conversation with Ned Bustard and Douglas McKelvey, creators of Every Moment Holy.
An evening with Christie Purifoy, author of Garden Maker and Placemaker.
An afternoon with Auntie Anne Beiler, founder of Auntie Anne Soft Pretzels, where we’ll talk about her new cookbook and the childhood stories that go with them.
Wonderfully-told reminisces, Shawn. You reminded me of one of my last visits with my dad in his nursing home. We sat holding hands and watched an old Shirley Temple movie. Those loving hands of his had made countless repairs around our house, painted interiors and exteriors, built furniture, played five musical instruments, and much more. By the time we watched Shirley Temple, Dad's hands were impaired by arthritis, but they could still express love.
I watched Wheel of Fortune and all of the game shows with my grandmother. She was particularly good at Wheel Fortune (she did the crossword puzzle every morning and whipped my brother and I at Scrabble). I didn't have the "I love you's" at my house very often but I did at her house. So yes those shows are cringe now but once they were safety and love and cozy recliners, shaggy carpet and the comfortable hugs of a gray-haired granny in her house dress.