Dad's Ditties

After writing about one of the books I have been working on. . .I couldn't go to sleep last night. I began writing more funny expressions my Dad says, and I wrote several pages before my husband woke up and asked me if I was reading.

"No, writing." I responded. "I keep thinking of things Dad says. Do you want me to turn out the light so you can sleep?"

"That would be nice."

"Okay."

So I turned out the light, and lay in bed thinking of more stuff that I could have written down. If it hadn't been for my hair appt - to "get my hair wrinkled" as Dad would say - I would have gotten up and written a bit longer. I only hoped I'd be able to remember what I hadn't written down this morning. . .

No problem. I woke up, wrote down a few more Dadisms and went to my hair appt with notebook in hand. There, I wrote a few pages while waiting for my hair to "wrinkle."

I have carried that notebook around most of the day - remembering - writing - remembering and writing. I even remembered some of Dad's antics. For example, when Barney's Sooper Market was built in Pinehurst in '67 or '68, they had the first automatic doors I had ever seen. You would step on a rubber mat leading to the door, and voila' the door opened for you. Dad would walk up to the door, grab the handle, and let the door fling him inside stumbling with atonishment on his face. My sister and I would laugh our heads off (not literally) each and every time Dad pretended not to know that the doors were automatic. He did this for years, as long as he had an "audience" - namely us. I don't think he ever did it when he went to the store alone, with Mom, or with anyone else. It was primarily for our entertainment.

Today, I wondered if any of the checkers ever saw him fly into the store (more than once) and wondered about his sanity. If they ever did, they didn't tell anyone. The town was too small for something like that to go unheard.

Dad doesn't "goof off" now when he enters a store. After a hip-replacement, with a walking cane - to help stablize him when he "teeters." He lets his quips and wits be the source of entertainment.