Lucy Reflects

For as long as I can remember, my dad has had rugged hands, tough and stained skin with cuts and scars telling the story of long days at work, manual labor at home, fixing cars, or dealing with plumbing issues in our old farmhouse.

We had a monster of a furnace in our basement that had a mind of its own. The whole house rumbled when the furnace broke, often leaving a puff of black smoke and a stench creeping into to the upstairs.

“Merv, the furnace again!” my mom would yell.

After hearing banging of pipes echoing through the house and some choice words, my dad would emerge from the basement, covered in soot, flash my mom a smile and say, “Fixed it.”

When it came time to teaching us, he often took an unconventional approach. He taught me how to drive stick shift in his diesel welding truck. As he instructed me to stop on an incline on Chapel Road, he coached me on how to use the clutch and gas.

“I can’t really reach the pedals, dad,” I told him, nervous for what was about to happen.

My family always joked that I was the runt of the family, which was either due to the Three Mile Island leak of 1979 or the time I was in a tent under a tree that was struck by lightning.

“If you’re going to learn, you’re going to learn now. In the Redcay Welding truck. Now let the clutch out and give her a little gas.”

If the truck didn’t stall, it would roll off the road and into a field. Each time I couldn’t get it made me more nervous.

“I’m like a midget in this truck, dad! I can’t do it! Jesus, who learns how to drive like this!” Over and over we tried, until I finally got it.

“Time to look for a car! I’ll match what you saved, how much you got?” My dad asked.

I had $400. He kept his word and that’s how I got my first car, an $800 Pontiac T-1000 with red interior, no power steering and a backfire that sounded like gun shots. I learned quickly that if I shut the car off and let it backfire and coast into my destination I’d save myself some embarrassment.

My dad is not only adventurous, but strong and stoic. We rode in the bed of his old pick-up truck. He picked me up from softball practice on his motorcycle. He came to our rescue when giant thousand leggers visited the house. He catapulted a snake from the sandbox that went flying like the blades of a helicopter across the street when it invaded our space. He coached my brother’s baseball team and I played as the only girl on the team. One night, he planned a snipe hunt, a practical joke played with an imaginary fluffy animal too cute too imagine, but was really a ploy to scare the daylights out of whoever was the victim. Which was me that night.

He allowed us to seek out our own adventures and let us learn by experience. We often went fishing off a small bridge in Middle Creek. One evening, my brother slid off the bridge and into the creek. My dad picked him up by the shirt, set him back on the bridge and said, “Don’t tell your mother.”

He also built us a go-kart. He agreed to let me to try it out and I ran it into a creek. He sprinted to drag me off the embankment.

“Don’t tell your mother,” he said.

Despite all the adventure, my father was sometimes hard on us, too. He taught us to be workers and compassionate. He showed us how to make a family unit work. We did chores at an early age. He didn’t tolerate disrespect or fighting.

These life lessons, these experiences, made me the tough and scrappy woman I am today. My dad has taught me compassion and love and to seek adventure and live in the moment.

For Christmas a few years ago, he made me a mobile that reads “There is never a time when your life is not this moment,” a quote from one of his favorite authors, Eckhart Tolle. And he made me a bag of beef jerky. If there was ever a better lesson, it was this. Live in the moment always. And eat beef jerky.

We’d love to hear from you. Share some memories or stories with us about your fathers!