As I was driving home from dropping Sean off at school the other day, I noticed the long line of cars wrapped around Starbucks and the crowded parking lot and I got to thinking how no one drops by for coffee anymore.  It seems that everyone goes to Starbucks instead.

Friends dropping in for coffee is all but a remnant of another era and I think that is kind of a shame that we aren’t available for spontaneous interaction anymore, that we don’t open our homes for that sort thing, that we are just too busy or that we don’t think our homes perfect enough or clean enough or whatever enough.

As I have mentioned here before, my parents live in the same house they bought in 1956.  In that time, they have served approximately 23,436 cups of coffee to neighbors, wayfarers, odd-ball relatives and the occasional long-lost friend who just dropped in.  My parent’s coffee pot has been on for 54 years.

My parent’s kitchen defies everything Southern Living tells us we need to create a warm and welcoming space for visitors.  Their home is not big and bright and you certainly will not find anything new or matching or from Pottery Barn there.  Their kitchen would make Martha Stewart cry.

The avocado green paneling is circa 1972. The pattern on the linoleum floor is all but worn off and slick from the constant ironing of the rolling chairs. (Aside:  I’ve always thought that chairs with rollers were an interesting choice for a kitchen so small you can reach anything without having to get out of your chair.  And in a 100-year-old house that has settled substantially, rolling chairs on slick linoleum means you could potentially roll out the back door if you are not paying attention.)

The refrigerator is covered in pictures of grandchildren and great grandchildren and postcards and magnets with wise sayings.  The table is always so cluttered that you have to scooch books and puzzles and prescription bottles aside just so you might carve out four square inches of real estate to set your cup down.  The trick is scooching it all en masse, like a tectonic plate, to just the correct degree, so that whatever is on the other end of the table doesn’t fall off like California into the Pacific.

The 45-year-old Melmac coffee cups don’t match, nor do any of the not-silverware.

My mother does not serve fancy or flavored coffee — it’s Folgers or whatever is on sale and if you want cream, it’s store brand Coffeemate.

Their kitchen is teeny tiny and cramped and cluttered and woefully out of date.  It’s not fancy or comfortable and would not pass the white glove test.

Nonetheless, people want to go there and hang out for a time and chat,  and they have for more than half a century.  Something there draws ‘em in and it ain’t the kitchen or the coffee.

Must be the conversation and the company.

I recently received an email offering me samples of Rubik’s Revolution, an electronic version of the Rubik’s Cube as well as an electronic pocket-sized version of the popular game show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? I told them not to send the Rubick’s Cube because I am in still in therapy from when it came out the first time in the 80s.  Between the Rubiks Cube and Pac Man, the 80s were really stressful for me.  I am not wired to do those kinds of things.

But! I love the game show Jeopardy! and so I figured I would like the Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? game. And I do, even though I am not.  I’m not even smarter than my 4-year-old most of the time.

If you think you would like to have one of these little gadgets and have a US mailing address, leave a comment on this post before midnight on Sunday, telling me your dad’s first name (or your favorite dad-type person) and some fun factoid about him.  I’ll randomly select a winner or just whomever I like the best.  KIDDING! I’m just messin’ with y’all.  Monday I will email the winner.

I’ll go first.

My dad’s name is Ed, but anyone who really knows him calls him Shorty.  When I was growing up, the family across the street had a scruffy little dog named Shorty and sometimes that would get confusing when they opened the screen door and hollered for the dog to come home. Oh, and my dad makes the best boiled hotdog ever. I should know. He made me one for lunch every single day the year I went to kindergarten.  Every. Day.

Happy Father’s Day everyone!

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Edited to add:  I am loving your comments y’all – it just blesses me to read this treasure trove of tiny stories. If you have a blog, or even if you don’t, I hope you will consider expanding your comment into an essay or short story for future generations.

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And the winner is….. Natalie!  Natalie, look for an email from me with further instructions on how to claim your fabulous prize!

I am fascinated by stories of people who manage to survive in the most extreme and unimaginable conditions.  When I hear those stories, I wonder what it is in them that keep them hanging on and I wonder if I have it in me.

Sometimes, when I imagine that I’ve accidentally fallen off a cruise ship, I don’t really see myself treading water for days at a time.  If faced with bobbing up and down in freezing waters, I would probably take the easy way out and allow myself to slip away.  I would be happy to move along to the next life sooner rather than later as opposed to suffering for any extended period of time.  I am not afraid of what lies beyond.  I know where I am going when this life is over.

On the other hand, I really like my life and am in no hurry to leave it all behind.

About 14 years ago, I was in danger of drowning, not in an ocean but in my own sorrow.  Like a person lost at sea, I felt hopeless – without hope, not one ray of sunshine could I find.  I couldn’t see that life would ever be good again.  I started thinking that maybe it would just be easier to slip under the waters, to yield to the darkness.  All the while everyone was saying, “You are amazing!  You are so strong!”  I didn’t understand that.  How could they not see how desperate I was?

During that time, my dad came out to Texas to hang out with me.  Unlike everyone else, maybe he sensed that I wasn’t holding it together as well as it appeared from the outside because one day he sat me down and told me about a story he had read about a girl who was lost in a great forest.  He said that every day she would climb the tallest tree she could find and she would shout at the top of her lungs, “I am a survivor! I will survive!”  And then she would listen for her own voice echoing back, “I will survive I will survive I will survive…”   Eventually she was rescued or found her way out of the forest, I don’t recall.

I don’t know if my dad really read that story or if he just made it up on the spot, but on that day, I became the girl who climbed a tree every day, shook her fist at the world and shouted, “I will survive!”  On that day and in that moment, I made a decision to carry on, to go on and live and to live well.

A decision — the difference between life and death. That is the certain something that survivors have in common. 

When my dad retired about 15 years ago, along with wood crafting and front porch sitting, he took up metal detecting.  It’s been a great way for him to be out and about, get some exercise and occasionally bring home a treasure or two. 

He keeps a tally of his findings and on average he digs up a couple of hundred dollars in loose change every year.  He also digs up a shoebox full of Hot Wheels cars which he cleans up and gives away to grandkids or neighborhood kids or any other kid he happens to come across.

One morning last week, the weather was still nice so Dad decided he would go metal detecting one last time before it gets too cold.

He was walking in a familiar and well travelled area, near a school and across from a church, when he noticed a teenage boy walking towards him.  For whatever reason, he got a bad vibe and decided to head for his car. The kid came up to my dad and asked him for some money. My dad said “no” and kept walking. The kid grabbed at him.  My dad swung his metal detector and whacked him good upside the head, hard enough that it busted a chunk off the base.  My dad lost his balance and fell backwards to the ground. At that point, the criminal got up, pointed a gun at my dad and demanded his wallet.  Of course my dad handed it over. The kid took the cash, all of $21, threw the wallet down and ran off.

Since I found out about this incident, I have been sick to my stomach thinking of what could have happened. And I have also been thanking God over and over and over for what didn’t happen.

My dad twisted his back when he fell, but other than that he is no worse for the wear. He is 76 years old and for all intents and purposes he kicked that kid’s ass and I take pleasure in that.  A lot of pleasure.

I suppose I should be praying for that kid, that he will turn from his evil ways, but what I really find in my heart right now is the desire that he rot in hell.  When you mess with my kid or my parents all bets are off.

I am a Christian, just not a very good one.

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On our recent visit to Illinois, Sean got a lesson from Papa Ed in the fine art of goofing off. Of course, he’ll never be as skilled at it as I am, but I have studied under the master for 47 years. And it has served me well.

Happy Father’s Day Daddy. Thanks for holding the nail while I learned to hammer.

While both of my parents are easy going sorts, their parenting styles were quite different.

My mom had very elastic limits. You could push her quite a bit before she pushed back. And even then she would go out of her way to help you make a good choice and avoid getting into trouble. My dad on the other hand, although an extremely patient and quiet man, had clear limits. No meant no the first time.

Sean learned this the hard way about my dad when my parents were here visiting last month.

Wivian and Papa Ed were walking behind Sean as he screamed down the jogging trail on his red Radio Flyer tricycle. As they approached the street, my dad told Sean to stop and turn around. Being stiff-necked and headstrong like his mother, Sean decided that he’d rather go on ahead. My dad gave him one last warning to turn back, which is one more than I ever got. When Sean still refused to yield, my dad picked up his tricycle with Sean on it, still pedaling furiously like the Wicked Witch of the West, and turned him in the opposite direction. He set him firmly down and then gave his tricycle a little shove from behind with his foot for emphasis.

Sean was a bit taken aback but he got the message that Papa Ed meant business. And he hasn’t forgotten it either.

When I told Sean that Wivian would be here in a few weeks, he said, “Well tell her not to bring Papa Ed. He turned me around!”

Yes, Sean. Papa Ed turned you around. That’s what good parents do. They turn you around when you are heading for danger and get you back on the path.

Nothing has been more healing to me this past week than to see Sean interact with my parents. He simply adores them. And the feeling, of course, is mutual. Whereas I shaved about 20 years off their lives back in the 70s, he has added that many years and more back, just in the past week. He makes them laugh, and to hear the three of them giggling together, all caught up in some private joke, is a joyful noise.

I did not grow up with grandparents. Regrettably. And I guess we all want for our children that which we did not have ourselves. To see his eyes light up when my dad walks into the room or to watch him maneuver to sit next to my mother or hold her hand has blessed me and filled me beyond what I could describe here.

Yesterday morning at breakfast, my mother mentioned something about when they would be leaving, and no kidding, in mid-bite Sean dropped his fork to his plate. He could not believe his ears. He was incredulous. “You can’t leave!” he gasped in disbelief. “You can’t go!” He searched all the faces at the table for someone who would tell him it wasn’t so. It had not occurred to him that they would ever leave.

Last night after Antique Daddy had bathed and dressed him for bed, he scampered up the stairs to jump into bed between them to tell them goodnight. Papa Ed tells it that Wivian suggested to him that she might just take him home in her suitcase. “Okay!” he exclaimed. And then he sprang out of bed, dumped all of Papa Ed’s clothes out of his suitcase and onto the floor, tucked himself inside and pulled the lid shut. Then he popped open the lid like a jack-in-the-box and announced victoriously, “See!? I fit!” As if that sealed the deal.

Then, in the middle of the night, I awoke to the sound of teeny tiny jingle bells – the familiar sound of Mr. Monkey accompanied by Sean, both stealing up the stairs to the room where my parents sleep.

“Sean!” I whispered in my stern mommy voice from the bottom of the stairs, “Get down here! What are you doing? It’s 4am.” He whispered back in a little boy way that is not really a whisper, “Oh, I was just going upstairs to look at Wivian.”

The image of him kneeling beside the bed, gazing upon the form of my sleeping mother made my heart stop. And in that split second of frozen eternity I allowed myself to wonder what he will remember of her. Maybe nothing more than looking upon the shadow and line of her face in the transparent moonlight as she slept. Maybe only that she adored him. And that would be enough.

Departure day is upon us and it is going to be a sad, sad day all around.

And let me tell you, there’s going to be an airport-style baggage check too.

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It is earlier in the week. We are sitting around the breakfast table. I am not actually sitting, I’m kind of slouched over in my chair with my head on the table because I’m still feeling like last night’s piñata from my adventures in organ removal. But I’m pretending. I’m trying real hard. My parents are reading the newspaper. Sean is being Sean.

My dad looks up from the newspaper and over his eggs and toast, he says, “Hmmph!” as though he’s just discovered something. And he has. He just noticed the day’s date and that today is their 52nd wedding anniversary. In the chaos and the crazy of the past week, everyone had forgotten.

Dad scans the heartwarming Norman Rockwell scene around the table: his doped up middle-aged daughter with her face in her plate, his grandson spooning yogurt down his pajamas and his bride of 52 years obliviously working a Sudoku puzzle.

From the look on my dad’s face, I was guessing that maybe he was imagining himself as a young man standing at the altar of St. Al’s 52-years ago, full of youth and hope, kissing my pretty mom with his hands around her tiny waist. Or maybe he was thinking he just didn’t see this coming.

Nonetheless.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. We’ll celebrate next year, except without the morphine.

Photo: Wivian and Papa Ed, 1955

In 1965, I was in Mrs. Kelly’s afternoon kindergarten class at Wanless Elementary School. Because my parents were young and poor, my dad worked nights and my mom worked at a bank during the day. That meant that my dad had to look after me in the morning and get me to school.

My dad has never changed a diaper or gotten involved in the care and feeding of his kids. Most men of his generation just didn’t interact with their kids like they do today and that’s a shame. But that’s just the way it was. In spite of his nearly queasy discomfort with childcare, he took care of me every school day for an entire year. He fixed my lunch, made sure I had on some kind of clothes and then took me to school in our beloved car that we called Clunker #2 (which was later replaced with Clunker #3).

Every day before school, my dad boiled a hot dog, put it on a fork and served it up on a Correlle dinner plate garnished with a splotch of ketchup for dipping. I remember sitting at the kitchen table eating my hot dog in silence and watching my dad read the newspaper. He didn’t pay much attention to me, but I didn’t mind. Our relationship has always been about just hanging out.

After lunch, he would stand me up on the bathroom sink and awkwardly try to wipe ketchup off my face as I flitted and twitched and fidgeted. 41 years later, I now understand the difficulty of this feat. Then in an exercise of futility, he would clumsily try to convince a comb through my unruly hair before we headed out the door for school.

Looking back, my dad was a pretty sorry mom. He would be the first one to admit that. But I don’t remember it that way. I remember thinking he was a gourmet cook, even after hot dog #83. I remember sitting at the kitchen table and being fascinated with how his soft brown arm hair laid around his wrist watch. I remember sitting beside him on the front seat of Clunker #2 unable to see anything but the dashboard and bumping down North Grand on the way to school. But mostly, I just remember it as being a special time when it was just me and my dad.

And that gives me hope. It gives me hope that Sean won’t remember my many failings and shortcomings and ineptitude as a parent. But that maybe 41 years from now, he will just remember these days as a special time in his life.