what's deserved: a father's day honorarium
Sunday is Father’s Day.
Recently, on our way to dine Ya-Ya-style, the fellas and I saw palm trees for sale along the highway. We live in Jersey, as in New Jersey, which some people call Dirty Jersey, the Garbage State. Having lived here for what is coming to be four years now I can attest that not all of Jersey deserves these pejorative nicknames. Nonetheless, the Jersey-palm tree connection is a poorly academic stretch into a questionable thesis.
An idea: we each should buy a palm tree "for our fathers." Since the fathers of one of the fellas and me live afar—you can probably imagine it isn’t easy to ship a palm tree—we’ll have to keep those palm trees. Solution: we place one at each end of our new badminton net, along with the new tiki torches (which we don’t yet have)—and, I’m all for some hermaphroditic hula dancers swinging their hips on the bleachers and lifeguard chair (which we don’t have yet either); we photograph the scene, umbrella-ed drinks in our hands, and send the evidence to our fathers with a note: Dad, you’re the freakin’ best!
My dad really is the best. He’s funny even when he doesn’t intend to be, but also when he does. He says "I reckon" and "Beens I’m hungry, I guess I’ll eat" and he keeps a tally of how much change he’s found while riding his new bike around in hotel parking lots. We share concern about the general drop in math skills because of the widespread use of calculators. We play foosball together (even though he kicks ass and I only think I kick ass). And he isn’t even my father by blood. What more could a daughter ask for?
The day I met my dad I was five years old. My mom had begun dating him and wanted us to meet. At the time, he worked at a gas station. We pulled up, he poked his head into the car, and she introduced us. He disappeared into the building for a minute, then came out not with one Dum-Dum lollipop but a whole box of them. Four years later he and my mom married, and he adopted me.
My dad deserves a palm tree (which might come in the shape of The Professional on DVD).
(p.s. Today has been absolutely nuts. I need me a beverage.)
Recently, on our way to dine Ya-Ya-style, the fellas and I saw palm trees for sale along the highway. We live in Jersey, as in New Jersey, which some people call Dirty Jersey, the Garbage State. Having lived here for what is coming to be four years now I can attest that not all of Jersey deserves these pejorative nicknames. Nonetheless, the Jersey-palm tree connection is a poorly academic stretch into a questionable thesis.
An idea: we each should buy a palm tree "for our fathers." Since the fathers of one of the fellas and me live afar—you can probably imagine it isn’t easy to ship a palm tree—we’ll have to keep those palm trees. Solution: we place one at each end of our new badminton net, along with the new tiki torches (which we don’t yet have)—and, I’m all for some hermaphroditic hula dancers swinging their hips on the bleachers and lifeguard chair (which we don’t have yet either); we photograph the scene, umbrella-ed drinks in our hands, and send the evidence to our fathers with a note: Dad, you’re the freakin’ best!
My dad really is the best. He’s funny even when he doesn’t intend to be, but also when he does. He says "I reckon" and "Beens I’m hungry, I guess I’ll eat" and he keeps a tally of how much change he’s found while riding his new bike around in hotel parking lots. We share concern about the general drop in math skills because of the widespread use of calculators. We play foosball together (even though he kicks ass and I only think I kick ass). And he isn’t even my father by blood. What more could a daughter ask for?
The day I met my dad I was five years old. My mom had begun dating him and wanted us to meet. At the time, he worked at a gas station. We pulled up, he poked his head into the car, and she introduced us. He disappeared into the building for a minute, then came out not with one Dum-Dum lollipop but a whole box of them. Four years later he and my mom married, and he adopted me.
My dad deserves a palm tree (which might come in the shape of The Professional on DVD).
(p.s. Today has been absolutely nuts. I need me a beverage.)
4 Comments:
it was like going back to that day with you. i drink with you to family and palm trees.
fantastic. i'll carve your name into one of the palm trees when it's parked next to our badminton net.
Jersey's great!
The Professional's great!
Foosball's great!
Dum Dum pops are great!
The slow erosion of mental math skills from US citizens as they lean harder upon modern conveniences, not so great.
so you and my dad and i have got to hang out, watch The Professional, play foosball, eat Dum Dums, and despair about the decline in math skills--in Jersey, of course.
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