Did you ever try to locate something and you just couldn’t find it, but you found something much better? Well that happened and I found a little book my daughter Nancy presented to me on my birthday ten years ago. It is precious. What a perfect thing to read for Father’s Day. There is no title on it but the last words of the dedication say, “Oh my Papa, to me you are so wonderful.” There are eleven stories, each one more special to me than the last.
Here is a bit from First Date.
As the oldest daughter of four children, I craved attention and loved to be the center of it (some things don’t change with age). We did a lot of things as a family, but rarely got Dad to ourselves. I can remember watching my Mom getting ready for a special evening out with my Dad. Oh how I longed to experience a date. One Friday night, I must have been 9 or 10, Dad asked ME if I’d like to go see a movie. I couldn’t believe it. Just Me. After dinner we got in the car, just the two of us, and drove to downtown Battle Creek. We parked behind the J.C. Penny’s store and walked, hand in hand in the early evening nightfall toward the Michigan Theater. As we approached the Elks Club on the corner of State and Jackson, Dad started to skip. I joined him and we skipped all the way up the block. I don’t remember the name of the movie but I’ll never forget how I “skipped” on my first date.
Nancy had so many loving memories of our family crammed into that little book. A surprise short train ride with the kids just to get ice cream cones in Charlotte and then a short ride back home. Another with Nancy 9 and Dan to Chicago to celebrate good grades at school and how we all sang “On Moonlight Bay” together as we discovered Chicago. And the special holiday rides from Battle Creek to Detroit in our Chevy Impala station wagon-four kids, my wife and our dog, Jackie. “I remember on that back seat with a pillow under my head pretending I was in my berth on a train bound for wonderfully, exciting places.I’d watch the windows steam up from all of us breathing in a closed up car because it was often snowing outside and I’d imagine going through a mountain pass.”
So much more in Nancy’s little book. “I was in the 7th grade, 12 years old and I absolutely loved “The Association”.They were a rock and roll band with the hit songs “Cherish”,”Along Comes Mary”, and ‘Wendy”. She tells how her dad used a Press Pass and got them back stage at the Kellogg Auditorium and she met the whole band and personally met Russ Giguere and he shook her hand and she had her picture taken with him and……and…..
Oh, such stories I have never read before. What a blessing to have found this book to read again on Father’s Day and what a joy to read about all our children-David and Amy and Daniel and my wife Ruthie, and our dog Jackie and our big red brick house with three stories of big heavy storm windows that I hauled up and down the ladder while all of the kids plus Anita, Nancy’s friend, joined in and they washed and dried those windows and we all ended up near exhausted but then we’d all climb into the big station wagon and go to the A&W for tall glasses of root beer.
Thank you Nancy. Oh, thanks for the memories.
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