Nov 4th- Dad

You may note that it is in fact November 5th. Here's the thing. I write my blogs late at night.... normally I start at around 11 or midnight... only last night I came home at 9:30 with a bad headache and took some Excedrin,  made some tea, sat down on the couch in the office and pretty much fell asleep within minutes. (I laugh in the face of caffeine!) I only woke up once to gulp down some more tea, and then at 11 for a few minutes to help Nathan get to bed.. (He's not moving too easily these days.) Then I went to my actual bed and continued the snooze fest. Granted I could have written when I woke up this morning, but it just felt weird, so I decided to pull a double doozy tonight, though I shall give each person their own blog post.

Nov 4th- Dad

You ever hear someone discussing the "strong, silent type?" They are pretty much talking about my dad. My dad is the eldest of 9 children and I think that growing up he learned a few things. 1) Eat fast and 2) Talking isn't really necessary unless you have something to say. He had some kidney stones at one point when I was growing up, so he slowed down the eating some, but the second is pretty much the same. If my dad calls me, I immediately get worried, because we do not talk on the phone... It's happened about 2 times since I went to college and  they both involved a serious illness in the family. Don't get me wrong, he can talk for a long time about things he knows about... Big A's/ fertilizer and internet recipe websites and turkey bone sleds. (I unfortunately wasn't paying enough attention during the discussion of that last thing, so all I know is that my father knows something about making (miniature? life sized?) sleds from the bones of turkeys.) It is also worth noting that my Dad is very smart. His father got very sick when Dad was in high school and passed away a few years after he graduated, so he doesn't have a college education. Too busy trying to keep the family farm/business going, to have a chance to go off to school. I asked my Dad what he would have done if he had been able to go to college and he wasn't totally sure, but mentioned being a doctor. He definitely could have been. Apparently he and Mom used to clean up on Trivial Pursuit nights with friends. My dad really likes to read, but doesn't really own any books. He just picks up whatever other people are reading... and if they want it he hands it over and if he never finishes, he doesn't seem to mind. (That would drive me bonkers!) He does collect and read (not in the bathroom) the "Uncle John's Bathroom Readers." It's all the disparate bits of knowledge. They call to him.

Living in a house with all girls he did have a tendency to get teased quite a bit when we were growing up, but my father is the mellow-est person I know. He "just goes with the flow." I think I've seen him get mad about 5 times in my life- Normally when Rhonda and I weren't doing something that he told us to do about 20 times in a row. I think this is because he has a very active imagination... at least I assume it's imagination that makes him jump and duck and jerk around when he's watching a fight/action scene in a movie. Yeah, that is pretty hilarious to watch. My Dad does a lot of the cooking at home, and he (and myself, growing up) were the bakers in the family... but he always does the harder things...Cinnamon rolls, regular rolls, pie crust, ect. Dad's "cornmeal" rolls are incredible. (They just have a little bit of corn meal in them, they are not cornbread or anything) and his coconut cream pie, is about the most delicious thing on the planet... (though I have to wheedle pretty hard for that one, cause it's a lot of work/ time consuming.) He's a jack of all trades- part electrician, carpenter, chef, mechanic, and professional computer solitaire player...if such a thing existed. He's a workaholic and his only condition for Nathan marrying me was that we "try to avoid the busy season" (We did the best we could but since I was teaching at the time we had to get married during the tail end of it.)

Dad has a presence. It has some to do with his height and strength, but it isn't just that. He has the biggest hands of nearly anyone I know. I'm not sure how that lends to his presence, just trust me on this one. He's larger than life and sometimes stories about him sound like tall tales. For example: My father has fallen off a grain bin. In case you are not familiar, this is what a grain bin looks like

They vary in height, and that is a smallish one, but it's got the right kind of ladder for the story. I have no clue how tall the one in question was. You see he was on top of a grain bin... I'm not really sure what he was doing-- Hooking something up, probably. Then when he went to get back down the side he missed a step on the ladder and couldn't catch himself and went tumbling. Oh and see the concrete pad there? Pretty much all grain bins are on concrete pads like that and this was no exception. In fact I think the concrete pad may have been built father off of the ground than that one and he hit the edge(?) of it... with his face. I've never visited the scene of the fall, so I'm not totally sure. Anyway my dad fell off and walked away without a scratch! .... ok not true at all... that really was a tall tale. He did fall off and hit some sort of concrete with his face, though. He broke bones in his foot and his hand, knocked out several teeth and had to have his jaw wired shut for several weeks. Now he has fake teeth. Seriously how many people can say they have dentures because of a grain bin fall? I pretty much think my Dad is a super hero. He even has the Clark Kent hair.