Memories of Dad

Two posts in one day! It's always feast or famine around here. The following is a disjointed, stream of consciousness type post, but that's how memories tend to be, right?

Father's Day is bittersweet for me since my father passed away nearly two years ago. Dad was 58. Not young, by any means, but by no means was he old, either. He was a man who enjoyed his life and was ready to finally retire. He'd retired before, but
always got sucked back into working. He loved a challenge, and even though he enjoyed golfing and relaxing, too, he didn't really like sitting around for long, and usually had several projects going.

Classic cars were a favorite of Dad's. From the time I was born, there was always at least one cute little sportster in the carport/garage/shed (as we moved to nicer houses, there were nicer places for the cars Dad was working on to inhabit). If you were to look into the garages (yes, plural) at Dad's final residence, where my stepmother and their various cats and dogs still live, you'd see 3 newer cars in the main garage, and 4 classics in various states of repair that Dad was reconstructing in the garage out back.

My Mom likes to tell the story of how when we lived in Gainesville, Florida, Dad would commandeer our metal swingset to use as an engine hoist. Yes, Dad was an engineer, and never needed to buy new things when he could make do with old ones. My first "big kid" bicycle was a boys' bike Dad spray-painted hot pink for me. It definitely did the trick, even though I gladly replaced it with a brand new rainbow bike when I received that as a birthday gift a few years later.

Growing up, most nights after work and dinner, Dad would go down to the garage to work on a car or some other project. He'd come up sometime in the evening, still wearing his "Latka Suit" as we called it (yes, named after the character from Taxi) to watch TV with us and have some popcorn.

Dad didn't just work on cars. He loved home repair, too. He turned the basement of our first house in Massachusetts into a recroom (complete with the old chairs he'd made out of barrels years before), and my brother got to move into a really cool bedroom in the attic, while his old bedroom was turned into a guest room and a master bath.

We moved into an older home a few years later, and that involved lots of work for everyone. Dad worked on the exterior and bathrooms, we kids helped strip ancient wallpaper from the walls using spray bottles of vinegar and putty knives, and Mom re-wallpapered everything in updated, not-so-hideous wallpapers.

One of my fondest memories of Dad involves one of the classic cars. When I was 10, when we were living in the older home mentioned above, I was on a pet kick. My gerbil, Sting, had just died, so I decided to replace him with a rabbit instead of another gerbil (we had another gerbil named Pinecone before Sting). I had a bit of a problem with the rabbits, though. (Hmm, rabbit problems. Sounds familiar.) The first one I bought at a pet store. He was a beautiful gray and white Dutch rabbit I named Peter. (Original, no?) A few days later, he started screaming. Hearing a rabbit scream is horrifying. We took it to the vet, who said it had a bacterial infection, and "put it to sleep." I got another rabbit from the pet store to replace poor Peter. This one was a black rabbit I named Satin. Satin had an outdoor hutch that was low to the ground, and escaped the next day. I think I didn't latch the door properly. Yeah, I was a bad pet owner. (Actually, that's not true. We had ducks when we lived in a house on a pond, and our first three ducklings didn't make it because they were allowed in the pond too early and were killed by snapping turtles, except for one, which our vet adopted. It had one partially amputated foot, so could only swim in circles. After that, we got two more ducklings, which I raised as my own. They followed me around, and when their adult feathers grew in, I let them free in the pond. Flebster and Webster lived on for many years.)

After that, Dad decided to take me to a rabbit breeder to pick out a new rabbit. This was the breeder his company used as a source of lab rabbits. Yep, pretty morbid, but I didn't care if my new pet rabbit was albino and bred for blood work! As it turns out, the breeder had many breeds to choose from, and I chose a beautiful black and white lop-eared rabbit. So, what does this have to do with cars? Well, Dad took me to pick out my rabbit in one of his cars. I don't remember if it was an Alfa-Romeo or an MG, but either way, it was a small two-seater with a leaky convertible top, and it was raining out. I didn't care, because I was riding shotgun in a cool car with Dad, and I got to hold a beautiful rabbit Dad had bought for me on the ride home. After playing with my new bunny, I put him in the hutch that was now attached to a tree, double checked the lock, and went inside. The next day, the cage was hanging from the tree, and the door broken open. This time it was definitely not my fault. That rabbit was huge, so it's possible he had escaped on his own, or it could have been a predatory animal of some sort. But either way, that was it for me and rabbits for a while! I moved on to guinea pigs after that.

When we visited last year for my stepsister's wedding, the pool had a snafu, and water had backed up in the garage with the classic cars. Hubby hosed them all off, but was concerned that these cars should be sold as soon as possible, as they are not getting any younger or repairing themselves, and the longer they sit, the more chances that something bad can happen to them as they sit under tarps. I doubt my stepmother has acted on Hubby's advice, though. My stepmother is still getting over Dad's death, I know. I wish we lived closer so we could help her tackle everything, but then again, I don't think she even wants to tackle any of it. My stepsister and her husband are close by at least.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! I miss you!