The Sayings of My Dad

I was having a conversation with my cousin and his daughter on Facebook yesterday and my cousin told her part of that old story I’m sure everyone has heard, about how tough he had it when he went to school. You know the one about walking barefoot in the snow ten miles to school everyday…uphill both ways. It got me thinking about the funny things my Dad used to say. My Dad was always making us laugh with his goofy little sayings, and I have planned for some time to write them down so we wouldn’t forget.

Dad was always a fan of big cars, and when I chose a much smaller one, he called it a Putt Putt. He would try to convince me that it would never last long because it was small. Every time I was over, he would ask, “Well, is that Putt Putt still running?” And then act shocked when I said it was. And yes Dad, it is still running, even now.

One of Dad’s biggest delights was teasing his kids and grandkids. He used to chase us around and when caught you knew you were going to get his famous “whisker rub” because that was his threat during the chase. Now for those of you who don’t know what that is, it is when he rubs his whiskered face due to the famed 5 o’clock shadow on your face. Now you might think that we would hate that, but once you got a whisker rub, every one of us would say, do it again…do it again!!! Silly I know, but he just made it fun.

Many of the girls (and we were a family of few boys) had long hair. Dad would try to tug on our hair without having us see who did it. Of course, we always knew, and would usually “retaliate” by flicking him with our finger. Then as if in totally innocent shock, he would say, “You struck me!” I wonder why, Dad.

My Dad was not a man to cuss. His main saying for things that many people would cuss about was, “Dad burn it” and was used for many different things. Anything, in fact from something that annoyed him to something he was teasing us about. It was a phrase we grew to know well, mostly because he used it often to embellish funny things. Dad wasn’t a man to be angry often, so “dad burn it” he had to have another way to use a favorite phrase.

My Dad was a very happy person. He couldn’t see the sense in being mad all the time. Grudges simply have no useful purpose in life. I hope I can learn from his examples, to be perpetually happy too. And by the way, Dad also told us the story about walking ten miles in the snow, barefoot and uphill both ways, but he added that they used to hop a train so they didn’t have to walk…but I’m told this part was true.