That’s My Dad

I currently have a “poem” that I wrote about my dad drafted, finished, and scheduled to be published in April. So I wasn’t really planning on writing about him today, but I just passed by the hospital where they took him after he passed away and it struck a nerve. Surprisingly, it struck a good nerve. I really did not expect to drive by there, this is the first time I’ve been in that area since he passed. Luckily, I started to think about the good times instead of falling into the typical “moody and missing my pop” mood. So, as I passed the hospital two stories came to mind. The first was our water fight.

My dad was a goofball. He was a nerd who liked to joke around, to the point where if you knew him these stories would not be surprising in the slightest. One random day, way back when, I accidentally spilled a glass of water on him. He then proceeded to throw his water on me.  I dunked my cup into a near by fish tank and returned the favor, he grabbed a big gulp cup and did the same. We spent the next 20 maybe 30 minutes running around the house throwing cups of water at each other. When my mom came home, she walked in the back door to find my dad in the kitchen, standing in a puddle, holding me above his head, while spraying me with the hose from the sink… Needless to say, she did not approve… Every party needs a pooper (thanks mom). The other story that came to mind was about the picture that I used for this post.

You see, my mom made those vests and dressed my father and I in them for Easter one year. At the time, my family was going through some weird blackish “embrace your African roots” phase. We had a black Santa Claus (not a REAL black Santa, oh no no no, this was a white Santa that my grand-mom put brown paint on and dressed in gold and white with a crown instead of a hat) on the top of our African themed Christmas tree that year. This African theme stuff had kind of engulfed our lives for a time and as you can imagine it got to be a little much. Looking back, this might have been my way of lashing out, I don’t really remember.

Ah, I got off topic… The picture… One of my favorite pictures of the two of us… I was reprimanded right before this picture was taken. You see, dad and I spent a good bit of the car ride down to my grand-mom’s house making fun of the vests. You know, stereotypical African tribe noises, hilarious and child-like movie references (random blogger note, I really enjoy adding links like this to my posts, it adds a little je ne sais pas), imitation drum beats, the whole nine. Of course, me being the goofy goober son that I was, I took the joke too far and upset my mom. She shot my dad a look, he told me to knock it off, I kept joking, he raised his voice, I got the hint, we hopped out of the car, and took this “ya’ll better smile in this picture” picture. And, um, VOILA!

That’s all you get for now… Until next time, Hakuna Matata.