My father. Oh boy. I was hoping @ericvancewalton wouldn’t ask. But here it is, perhaps the most difficult-to-write post I will ever publish on Hive.
The task is to talk about my favorite memory about my father.
What is meant by “favorite" memory? The memory that gives me the strongest warm and fuzzy feelings? The one I like most to talk about? Is my favorite memory of the moment I revisit most often?
I imagine that what I am about to say would make my father very sad were he to ever hear it. Hopefully, the act of writing to this prompt will help me find a memory I can call my favorite, because, to be honest, I don’t like to think about my father very much.
The town Jimmy C was born and raised in was, and still is, a very small town, the kind of upstate New York village where nearly everyone knows nearly everyone else.
It's safe to say that, for a period of time, absolutely everyone in the whole county knew my father at some point in their lives.
After many decades of being involved in just about all things public - as a popular high school chemistry teacher and college professor, as board member or director of several entities, as election commissioner, and as town supervisor, for starters - my father was elected Mayor of our fine village. He was eighty years old. The villagers, who knew him well in that tiny town, elected him mayor at the age of eighty.
My father had been gone about ten years when I returned to my hometown, the same as my father’s, to live as an empty-nesting retiree. For the first few months, people regularly stopped me to tell me what a great guy my father was, how much fun they’d had with him. And how proud he was of me.
My father was fun? My father was proud of me?
I was the eldest of my parents’ five children. As the eldest, I was the child they first learned parenting chops on. My father, like most fathers back then, was strict. He was demanding. He was very easy to enrage. He had a very loud and deep voice. I never knew which of my actions would bring down his booming wrath on me. Although he very rarely raised a hand to any of us, it only took once before we worked very hard to toe his lines, which seemed capricious. I became invisible when he was in the house. I learned how not to argue, how not to have an opinion of my own, lest he lash out at me with his scary voice and exuberant anger.
My memory of my father is hazy. I am struck dumb. I have no choice but to freewrite here, and to see what comes out of my understory. Come with me while I meander down memory lane (a stuckist endeavor perhaps?) and let it all hang out:
I don’t remember being punished very often. I don't ever remember being grounded, sent to my room, or any of the other punishments other kids experienced. I simply strove to never anger my father. It was easier that way. I was once slapped across the face that time he wouldn’t let me go out in broad daylight with my neighborhood friends. As the teenager I was on that day, I had uncharacteristically dared to talk back. I think the slap shocked both of us.
If I wanted anything, anything at all, the idea would have to be approved by my father first. When I wanted my first pair of jeans, my mother said “Let me ask your father.” I dreaded his response but, surprisingly, he said yes and I got my first pair of jeans. This is a nice memory, and one that helped me see that he wasn’t such a capricious tyrant after all, that he was just having a human experience.
I got my gift of giving good speeches from my father. He could give a fantastic speech. Funny, honest, and uplifting. I credit him with my love of being on any kind of stage. As much as he appreciated a good audience, he was also well-known not only for attending every single performance involving his progeny, but also for falling almost immediately asleep, and snoring loudly through all of his offspring's shows.
Here’s a specific memory that might just be my favorite memory of my father and me, because I remember it very often. My father and I clicked on this night, we had an understanding, and we both found our places.
I wish I could erase the look that was on his face when he walked in. This was the first sleepover I had ever hosted at my home. We snuck out, like we did at all of our sleepovers. We’d go out skulking around the residential streets of our very small town in the middle of the night. Chances were pretty good that, should anyone see us, they would know exactly who we all were, so what we did out there was run and hide whenever the rare car happened along. Nothing bad ever happened, and it felt magical, like being in another world.
But that night, when we got back, The Father’s car was gone. My father’s car was gone.
We were all sitting on the living room floor when he walked back in. I was looking right at him. And he was looking right at me. That look. I’ll never forget it.
He said nothing. He quietly stepped over us to get upstairs, and that was the last I ever heard of it. I never again asked to host a sleepover. That was my punishment, to remain forever silent on the subject of sleepovers.
There is so much more to say but...
telling the story
of a lifetime?
This is my entry to the fifth installment of @ericvancewalton's Memoir Monday initiative. Every Monday Eric posts a question about our lives for us to answer, in hopes that, after a year, the participants will have produced a valuable collection of memories.
In Eric's words:
Someday all that will be left of our existence are memories of us, our deeds, and words. It's up to you to leave as rich of a heritage as possible for future generations to learn from. So, go ahead, tell your stories!
