Dad's Birthday is Today!

This year I have written blogs about my kids on their birthdays and I really enjoyed doing so.  I'm playing with the idea of doing this on many birthdays over the course of next year.  I thought I'd start with my Dad.

Dad was born this day in 1941, in Pearl Harbor, just nine days after the bombing.  I think that is incredibly cool.  I was wondering last week if he could join the Pearl Harbor Survivor's club....he was technically there.  He grew up in La Mesa after a brief stint in Cleveland.  He played little league in La Mesa and lived on Dana Drive, which was close to where my Mom grew up on Harbinson.   He had a great dog named Tippy and a duck that hated his Mother.  Mom and Dad went to the same school, but Mom was younger so they didn't date until later.  Dad joined the Air Force and spent some time in Germany.  See, I did listen.  You said I didn't listen!

Some of my first memories with my Dad are when we would go "dirtin" in the back yard.  I loved to help him in the garden.  He was always great about giving me my own plants.  I always got a couple of my own to plant or an area with just my seeds.   We had fucshias, ferns, vegetables and boysenberries.   One time we were working in the garden in the very back portion of our huge yard and a swarm of bees came swooping down the giant hill the lead into our yard.  We had to run to get into the house.  That was cool!  When Dad built the patio onto the house we had a tarantula on the patio.  That was creepy.  Speaking of spiders and creepy - one time I was putting my bike away behind the gate.  I got the gate open and then realized there was a very large black and yellow spider.  Bigger than the tarantula.  I KNEW it was going to jump on my face and kill me and I froze, while screaming.  My Mom came out of the house and told me to get away from the spider.  Seems so simple, but I sure as hell couldn't think of it.  She made my Dad come home from work and he killed it with a big stick that had a stiff wire net on it for catching crawdads.  Dang it sounds like I grew up in Alabama.  My Dad made the crawdad catcher thingy and we went hunting in the riverbed of the San Diego river if I recall correctly.  Once I figured out what the hell a crawdad was, I was OUT.  I think I was about seven.  Luckily he saved the day by catching a huge tadpole that we raised to frogdome and let go at Lake Murray.  So lots of good childhood memories.

Then I grew up.  We parted ways when I was about 13.  Just couldn't get along.  By then the parents were divorced.  I had been living with Dad in the house I grew up in.  Mom moved away when they divorced.  In a stroke of parenting genius Mom and Dad figured a way for Dad to leave the house and Mom to come back and I got to stay put.  Good work parents.  I loved that house and neighborhood, leaving would have destroyed me.  So we had some rough years.  

I think things started getting better when I had Samantha.  Unfortunately, for reasons I now totally get, Dad and Sandee (Step Mom) moved to North Carolina.  At the time, I was so angry.  I spent some years pretty angry.  No need to discuss that here, it's all water under the bridge.  Given the circumstances I sure as hell would have left as well.

Today I am so lucky to have such a wonderful Dad.  I'm so pleased that we are closer than ever.   This year we had a great trip to Vegas and I am so glad we went.  I think we should go once a year and I mean that.  I do wish you were closer, but I understand, I really do.  I am so glad you have a wonderful wife that makes you happy.  I am grateful that I was able to find a man, like you, who puts family first and works hard to make me happy every day.  Happy Birthday Daddy.