Shared stories help us cobble together the indelible impressions of Dad

My father finally consented to come to the wedding but he refused to escort me down the aisle. He found many reasons to enthusiastically dislike my chosen lifetime companion.

For one thing, the groom was a soldier, a newly minted second lieutenant (“than which there is nothing lower” my Dad would add). “And you know,” he’d say darkly of soldiers in general, “they’re just after one thing.” I was none too certain what that one thing was — there was no TV or social media yet — but I was pretty sure I was in favor of it.

Dad had been a cowboy and a roustabout in the oil fields, a gandy dancer for the railroad. He saw the world through a gritty curtain of dirt and hard work.

“I can’t remember hearing Dad laugh,” my youngest son mused last week when I asked my six for memories of their Dad. “I’m sure he did laugh, but I just don’t remember seeing it.”

“Yes, he had a great laugh,” said our firstborn. “We grinned together when he walked me down the aisle.” She added, “I will say, his organization and strict attention to detail led me to become one damn fine operation room RN!”

“Pretty much I remember the model airplanes,” said number two son, “and getting yelled at.” Well, of course, that’s how you know you’re loved.

Their Dad built beautiful planes of silk and bamboo, works of art which often sold for several thousand dollars — when he’d part with them.

When the older children were 4 and 5, their Dad designed three-sided kites and took them out to the grassy quadrangle by our quarters at Aberdeen Proving Ground to introduce them to the art of kite flying. After awhile, he came into the house —alone — and sat down to read the paper.

“Where are the children?” I asked. They were out on the grassy square, with eyes the size of dinner plates, each with a trihedron kite tied to their wrist, standing statue still. As long as they were tethered to the kite and the kite was airborne, he’d know right where they were, he reasoned.

Oldest son reports, “He made me a gorgeous glider for a birthday. (I never did have the touch.) We launched gliders with an electric motor powered by a car battery. I’d seen about a million glider launches, had done a few myself, but I was going to solo on this one. He said, “Pull back hard while the motor is pulling in the towline.” So I stomped on the battery, pulled back hard on the joystick, and the glider shot up like a scalded cat. At some point (about 200 feet high?) the motor was trying hard to pull the glider forward and down and me pulling back hard was pulling the glider back and up, so the wings (about 5 feet long) decided they’d had enough and snapped in half so hard the wingtips touched. I’d never seen anything like that in my life. I don’t think Dad had either.

“I think there was a whole semester of aerodynamics, strength of materials, physics, and human psychology lessons packed into the 10 or 15 seconds it took for the nearly wingless glider to screw itself back to earth. No one said a word. I think we just collected the pieces and went home. Life lesson: Sometimes there are no words to describe what just happened, so don’t even try.”

When Father’s Day was created in Spokane in 1910, The Spokesman Review wrote that it would have been a lot better if Sonora Smart Dodd had just instituted a National Fishing Day. Sometimes a special day helps.

I never really understood my own Dad until I had the chance to watch him playing on the floor, engaged with his grandchildren as he could never have been with his own kids, telling the story of three little pigs with a different voice for each pig, and sending the wolf home embarrassed to have committed a faux pas but not really hurt.

My husband didn’t live long enough to see his boys become fathers. And I guess my point — in case you’ve been wondering, “What is her point?” — is that we all understand each other in small glimpses. A broken airplane, a kite string, an old song by the Limeliters. I can’t ever seem to collect all the pieces, but once in awhile, we can take a day together to share the remembered stories, put the past back together — a little bit at a time.

Where to find Dorothy in June

• 1-3 p.m. June 12: Launch event for new book on artist Fred Oldfield at the Western Heritage Center, Puyallup. Readings from the new book, “Better Than I Believe,” with the Silver Sage Radio Players. You can attend in person or on Zoom; register at https://CowboyFredOldfield.com
• 9 a.m. June 14: Zoom Coffee Chat (and Change the World) Honoring Fathers and celebrating men in general. A fast hour of guests, resources, ideas and fun. Register at www.mygenerationgap.com

Catch Dorothy’s podcast, Swimming Upstream Radio Show, at https://SwimmingUpstreamRadioShow.com

Contact Dorothy at P.O. Box 881, DuPont, WA 98327 or phone 800-548-9264 or Dorothy@itsnevertoolate.com.

This story was originally published June 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.