A Small Memory
Today I drove by the Gibbs Farm, a frontier history museum that all the kids get taken to in 2nd or 3rd grade, and it triggered a memory for me. One of the few really nice memories of my father.
Before the field trip, the school sent us home with an instruction sheet of things we were and were not allowed to bring to the frontier school house. On the list of forbidden items were all lunch boxes and bags. We were allowed to tie our lunches in a cloth bundle, or to put them in a metal pail like a coffee can or empty paint can.
I dreaded giving my parents the instructions. My mom was working very late every night at the time, and my father was not one to enjoy having to spend extra effort getting me ready for school.
When he got home from work, I gave him the sheet. He simply said "I see." and then went down into the basement for an hour.
The next morning I was handed a beautiful lunch pail. He'd taken an old coffee can, and had decorated it with flowered wall paper left over from my room, which was a very old fashioned pattern. My lunch was covered with an old flour sack dish cloth. It was so pretty, and it made me feel very special. Just thinking about that feeling now makes my eyes water a little.
He may have been a monster, but every once in a while, he was a really good father.
(some day maybe I'll write about the flea circus he built for me when I was a clown in a talent show. that was a hell of a thing.)
Before the field trip, the school sent us home with an instruction sheet of things we were and were not allowed to bring to the frontier school house. On the list of forbidden items were all lunch boxes and bags. We were allowed to tie our lunches in a cloth bundle, or to put them in a metal pail like a coffee can or empty paint can.
I dreaded giving my parents the instructions. My mom was working very late every night at the time, and my father was not one to enjoy having to spend extra effort getting me ready for school.
When he got home from work, I gave him the sheet. He simply said "I see." and then went down into the basement for an hour.
The next morning I was handed a beautiful lunch pail. He'd taken an old coffee can, and had decorated it with flowered wall paper left over from my room, which was a very old fashioned pattern. My lunch was covered with an old flour sack dish cloth. It was so pretty, and it made me feel very special. Just thinking about that feeling now makes my eyes water a little.
He may have been a monster, but every once in a while, he was a really good father.
(some day maybe I'll write about the flea circus he built for me when I was a clown in a talent show. that was a hell of a thing.)