June 6, 2008 Chautauqua

From the Editor's Computer


It will soon be Father’s Day, and I would like to share with you some of my childhood memories of my Dad.

I can remember being a preschooler and playing with my dad. Okay...I played while he laid down on the couch. This put him at the perfect height for me to use his head as my playing area. My dad always had a brush cut, making the crown of his head (especially right after a haircut!) the perfect lush ‘field’ to ‘graze’ my toy cows or ‘gallop’ my toy horses across. Looking back now, I can only say that he was infinitely patient with me and could obviously tolerate a lot of pain! Take a moment to imagine a hard plastic horse, in the hands of a preschooler, ‘galloping’ across the crown of your head.

Dad would also spend lots of time driving dinky cars around a track approximately 2 feet by 1 foot with me. Around and around...and around and around...For variety, we would sometimes prop the track up slightly, thus creating an incline to race our cars down. If done correctly, the cars would continue across the floor as we didn’t have carpet!

Often when Dad was working outside in the yard or garden, I would ‘help’ him with my own set of miniature garden tools, imitating his actions, or I’d be stirring up a large batch of mud pies in his wheel barrow.

It is said that any man can be a father, but it takes a special man to be a DAD!

Happy Father’s Day to All the Fathers!

Beth

*Reprinted, with revisions, from the June 7, 2002 issue of the Chautauqua

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