Happy Birthday Dad!

(Sorry about the lack of paragraph breaks. For some reason I cannot get them to stay in. I will attempt another edit later, but for now I just have to accept this is a Blogger glitch.)

Yesterday my dad turned 53. I didn’t get a chance to post then because I was on the webcam with him. It was an hour or so well spent.

My dad was born in Red Lodge, Montana and lived a number of places growing up; Texas, Mississippi, Montana and Wyoming. He and my mom married the summer after they graduated from high school and I was born that following January. My dad enjoys and has enjoyed since I was a child, playing guitar. I get my enjoyment of music from him. He enjoys cooking and BBQ’ing and drinking beer. For my dad, spending time with family was the end goal of each day.

While I was out at lunch today the song Workingman’s Blues by Bob Dylan came on and the words reminded me of my dad. He started out working as a teenager on oil rigs in Wyoming. He eventually got a job at a uranium mine in central Wyoming. When I was a little older he switched to mining coal and my family could all breathe a lot easier since this was about the time the movie Silkwood was making headlines. My dad was an incredibly hard worker who started out at the bottom and by the time he left his job in the coal mine six years ago was a well respected production supervisor. He and my former stepmom relocated to Texas six years ago seeking a simpler life, without the hour plus long commute to the mine and the harsh effects that life was having on my dad.

It is amazing the things that impact us as children. I remember when I was a little girl going to a car dealership in Casper with my dad. He was talking to the dealer about a new truck. The dealer headed off to go check on something and my dad said to me, “did you see his hands? That man has never done a hard days labor in his life”. This made a huge impact on the way I looked at men from there on out. I knew then that I would never marry a man who couldn’t do a good days labor, be it at work or even just around the house. I made it a habit to look at the hands of every man I dated. If they were soft, he was a no go.

Life was good growing up in our household. Things didn’t always come easy. My dad worked shift work, which was hard on him and hard on our family. But from this experience there was always a huge sense of devotion and satisfaction from a good week’s worth of work that we felt from him. My dad was proud to support our family and despite the fact that he worked long hours he was always at school plays, softball games and track and field day. We went on summer vacations in the car around our region; Yellowstone, Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore, and Denver.

My dad is a very traditional sort. He takes pride in being the man of the house and the sole provider. Unfortunately he also tended to marry women who while they liked that idea to start, it was never quite enough. That’s not to say that he ever didn’t allow either my former stepmom or my mom to work, but for my dad I truly believe it was a source of his own pride to be able to take care of his family.

When I think of my dad I also think of his lofty ambitions. I get this from him. My dad has always had big dreams, to own a cabin in the mountains, to have a boat… Sound familiar? I hope that someday in his life, he is able to have these things he has longed for since I was a child.

As I grew older my parents divorced. We spent every other weekend and the summers with my dad. We gained a stepmom and two stepbrothers. Some of my fondest memories come from spending the summers at my dad’s house. We would ride dirt bikes, go swimming, go to the State Fair, canoe the North Platte River and go camping in the middle of cow pastures. (Ok, sometimes at the reservoir too.) We would fish for trout and watch wildlife. I was never overly fond of my stepmom, my sister and I just never really felt like we belonged with “her family”. I liked her enough I suppose, but I never got a real warm, gushy feeling from her. I understand now that there was a lot more to her, she was more complicated and struggled a lot in her own life, and that it really wasn’t me. We were close with our stepbrothers and they are still dear to my heart.

My dad was always the favored neighborhood parent. All the neighborhood kids hung out at our house. My dad has a great personality that all the kids loved. There were many times I felt like I just wanted them all to leave so I could have my dad to myself. But I was quiet like that. I liked one on one interactions, while my dad was the life of the party. (Which is frighteningly like my son…)

I remember one time openly defying my dad. My dad was always opposed to piercings and according to my mom he was none too happy when I was five and she brought me home with my newly pierced ears. When I was about 13 or 14 I stuck a cube of ice on my ear, pushed a needle through creating hole number 3 or 4 and stuck an earring in while my stepbrothers sat and watched me in the bathroom. That night at dinner it was quiet and Brett, my youngest stepbrother, asked what happened if you pierced your own ear. My dad replied that it would get infected and cause nerve damage to your face and the side of your face would slough off. Or something to that effect. I remember Brett sitting across the table from me with tears in his eyes and his lip quivering. I glared and glared at him, begging him with my eyes, to keep his mouth shut. My dad saw through this, not surprisingly, and asked who pierced their ear. Brett immediately blurted out that I did. I am quite sure my dad didn’t speak to me for a week.

As I entered high school and we moved to Colorado I spent far less time with my dad. My sister and I had our life, our friends in Colorado and it was increasingly harder for us to take the summer to go spend it in Wyoming with my dad. Now as a parent I realize how difficult this had to have been on my dad. To my sister and I, we always just thought, “well he has his new family now”. As a parent now, I realize how mistaken we were.

I had a special kinship with my dad growing up as well as today. I always felt like he “got” me. He could read my mind. He understood the ambition I had in life. I was always at home with his rationality. I have never known my dad to be particularly driven by emotions until these recent years. Which is both good and bad, and I am happy to see some of his emotions popping through. I can rely on my dad to offer sound, rational advice that isn’t driven by selfishness. In offering advice he told me the truth and not necessarily just what I wanted to hear. My dad is expert at playing the devil’s advocate, which is probably why I am so tolerant of this with AB.

I love you dad!

Happy Birthday Dad!