#99 - My Dad

And so the story starts!  I'm not sure if my dad wanted a boy for his first-born, but what he got was me.

#99 became a dad on September 29, 1970.  Before this day, he had pretty much one thing on his mind.

This

Then this

Then this

and this

and finally this

When I was born, my dad was a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins.  I was born here in town, but lived part of the year in Minnesota and the off-season back here where he worked selling cars.  Way back in the day, ball players played professional ball for the honor and the joy of the game.  They did not do it fo the money.  My dad definitely did it because he loved it, and he was good at it.

After he retired from baseball, he quickly moved up the ranks in the car field while he pursued his other passions.  One of his favorite sayings is, "Treat every day like a holiday and every meal like a feast."  Here are some of his favorite things to do.

He has perfected the boil of all things seafood which starts with the perfect wash.  I do not think he uses soap to clean his crabs, but I am not totally sure.  He has passed on his recipe to Jeff, and now they tag team most crawfish, crab, and shrimp boils.

My dad has been in the water twice in his life.  This is the first time which was in about 1975.

The second time was in 2008, but I don't really have proof.  This is usually where he loves to enjoy the beach.  With a cold toddy on the balcony where he checks out all of the people walking on the beach with his binoculars to make sure they are not getting sunburned while making sure our gumbo doesn't burn.

For a long, long time, he was very active in Mardi Gras.  He loved to dream up new and exciting ways to make his entrance at the tableaus.  I remember one year, I think he came down via the ceiling of the auditorium in a space ship fully equiped with strobe lights and smoke. 

My dad has been a hard post to write, not because of all he is not, but for all he is.  Let me explain.

The following words start to explain what my dad is:

husband

father

grandfather

friend

podna

loyal

athletic

smart

kind

makes a mean potato salad

He takes care of all of his family and that includes his brothers, sister-in-laws, parents, in-laws, and sons and daughters in law.  This also includes all of his many friends and children and spouses of his friends.

Some of my favorite things about my dad are:

* He has always supported me in whatever I wanted to do.  He was at most every one of my various sporting events as well as academic ceremonies.

*I remember him driving me to camp at a kid.  I totally will not tell anyone that I overheard him telling my mom that she was crazy when she offered to come back and get me in Alexandria about 5 minutes after they got home.  I had broken my arm about an hour after they dropped me off.  There were no cell phones, so we could not contact them until hours later.  He loves me, but not as much as he hates traffic.

*Speaking of traffic, he has been known to leave on  vacation at 4 am, just to avoid traffic.  He has an irrational fear of the Mobile Tunnel.  I'm not really sure why, but usually on the last day of vacation, he is pulling into his driveway when the rest of us are just getting up.

*He is a great listener.  He listens not only to me, but to all of his family whenever they need to talk.  He also is a wonderful boss and often goes above and  beyond to help out a podna in need.  I got several rides home from school from down on their luck fellas, just looking for something to do.  Thank goodness this all turned out ok.  Who can forget Ray, Ansel, and Mr. Vedros.  But in turn, these guys will do anything for him, and have.  I remember many podnas helping me move apartments...more than once, all because they would do anything for podna.

*He is a wonderful grandfather.  He has figured out the perfect way to connect with each of my children.  He and Blake have read a book about body language and love to discuss what people are really thinking by the way they present themselves.  Blake is also learning from PaPa how to cook.  He sees a lot of himself in Zachary and reminds me that everything will turn out ok, whenever we are struggling with studying.  He is working with Zachary on his pitching, and realizes that great athletes are not taught, they just are.  He and Seth have a world record going for how many teeth they can pull out of Seth's  mouth in one year.  He is also teaching Seth how to boil seafood.

*One thing he hates is sickness.  I mean really, really hates it.  I laugh and say that I am never sick, because when I was sick as a child, he got mad.  "Don't cough, go take some medicine!  And not over the counter medicine, go to Dr. D and get a shot so you can get better faster."  He did not want to hear us blowing our noses for the next week.  I don't know how I got in the medical field coming from my dad, but he should be glad because I will take care of him when he gets old.  Whenever we go out to dinner, he always wants to pay.  His favorite saying is, "I got dinner, but when I'm old, you can't put me in a nursing home."  Deal!

*Another favorite saying is, "Mighty good, if you like it!"  These are the famous words of Don Barnett.  Most of you probably don't know who Don Barnett is, but that's ok, we don't either.  It doesn't really matter.  He now has my husband saying this, and I think I overheard Seth saying it the other day also.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here.  I love you Dad with all my heart.  Thank you for always being there for me and supporting me.  You have given me a wonderful model to follow to be a good parent, and I hope when my boys are my age, they can say the same about me.

OK, wait...one more story/thanks.  When I got married, Jeff and I had our reception at someone's home.  The dad before the wedding it monsooned in town.  The entire area beneath the tent was in about 4-6" of water.  My dad took a deep breath, rallied the troops, bought out all of the sheets of plywood at Lowes (see background of picture), and floored the backyard.  Presto, wonderful wedding.  Then at 10 pm (after we had been at the reception for about an hour), he decided that it was time for Jeff and I to leave.  He pushed ushered us out of the door, turned off all the lights so everyone else left,  then he and his buddies started the real party.  I know he enjoyed it as much as Jeff and I did.  Thanks Dad!