I've said before that every daddy needs a little girl. Daddies of little girls learn how to be gentler, softer, more compassionate - qualities every man should have. And daddies of little girls get love from their little girls - a kind of love that's totally different than the way little boys love their daddies. A man with little girls is rich indeed. And I think that every little girl needs a dad like my dad. He is a man who never grew up, which makes him very fun to be around. He is very loving and protective. He takes care of his family. He is a father to emulate. And I'm very glad he's my Daddy. Here's my favorite memories of you, Daddy, growing up through the years. Thanks for being such a wonderful mentor, parent, and friend to me. I love you.
My Little Baby's Gonna Bust Her Butt
When we were little girls, my Daddy would come home from work and play, play, play with us. Our favorite game: My Little Baby's Gonna Bust Her Butt. This consisted of my sister and I running in very slow motion around the couch in the family room while my dad sang a song he had (obviously) made up. The words were "My little baby's gonna bust her butt, gonna bust her butt, gonna bust her butt" repeated over and over. He would start singing (almost chanting) very, very slowly, and we would match his speed in our slow-motion run. Each time he repeated the words, he got faster and faster and faster, and our speed in running increased with the speed of the song. Eventually he was chanting the words as fast as he could while we ran as fast as our little legs would carry us; my sister and I would be squealing with delight, and my dad would be laughing so hard, we could barely understand the words to the song. Then, inevitably, one of us would bust our butt - hence the words to the song. But we were so excited to play that we'd jump right back up and start all over again. I loved this game. I hope to play it with my kids.
Mr. Finger
My dad invented Mr. Finger. It was his index finger that took on a life of its own whenever we were upset, frustrated, or just plain angry. Mr. Finger had a very high pitched voice and felt very bad that we were having such a bad day/hour/minute. Usually Mr. Finger appeared in the car, coming at us from behind the front seat. Mr. Finger was very concerned and compassionate, but my sister and I hated him. When you are mad or upset, the last thing you want is Mr. Finger coming around the front seat with his stupid high-pitched voice, trying to make you feel better, because Mr. Finger would make you feel better - and that's not what you wanted. You wanted to wallow in your frustration, not be entertained out of it. So Mr. Finger was very badly abused by my sister and me. We would bite, kick, pinch, and twist Mr. Finger. If we were at home, we'd run to our rooms and slam the door whenever we would get upset. A few minutes later, Mr. Finger would appear under our bedroom doors. "Hello, it's Mr. Finger. Please let me in. I want to play with you." This would always result in my sister and me stomping on Mr. Finger as hard as we could. "Ow, ow, ow! Mr. Finger just wants to play. Don't be mean to Mr. Finger!". Being mean to Mr. Finger was very cathartic. And it would always get us out of our bad moods. Pretty soon we would be laughing at Mr. Finger's pain and misery. And that is why Mr. Finger is a genius.
Startlin
I think every daddy has at some point gotten down on the floor on all fours and pretended to be a pony, letting his children climb on his back and he carries them around the room. But my dad took it to a whole new level. He was a pony named Startlin. We could not ride him unless we referred to him as Startlin. He even fashioned a reign and harness out of an old canvas belt that he would put in his mouth, so we could pull on the reigns to tell him which way to turn. Startlin was also a talking pony, which made him more fun, and would always try to buck us off his back whenever we asked. I never asked my dad what Startlin looked like, but I am sure he had his mane, coat, tail, and eyes all pictured perfectly in his head as he carried us around on his back.
Never Do This in a Restaurant
This is another game that my dad invented that is sure to be played at my dinner table. My dad claims this was a game to allow us to do silly things with food while teaching us to behave in public, but I seriously believe that he was doing this so that he could be immature with his own food. Whenever we played this game, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted at the dinner table (within reason), as long as before we participated in whatever usually-unallowable behavior we said "never do this in a restaurant". It was like a free pass. We could put our feet on the table, our green beans up our nose, throw our dinner rolls across the table at someone else, whatever. My dad of course always came up with the most entertaining things to "never do at a restaurant". And since we were allowed to do some of the behaviors we always wanted to do anyway, we did end up being very well behaved in restaurants.
Childhood storytelling
My dad is an excellent story-teller. He would tell us all kinds of stories from his childhood, that I still have memorized to this day, because he unraveled them like he was reading a very engaging story. He grew up as a true Southern boy, and his stories include things like fishing for crawdads in the sewer drain, climbing pine trees as high as he could and not being able to come back down, going fishing in the creek, and everything else that little Southern boys did. I love these stories. I need to write them down, because I want them to remain a part of our family history. It makes me very sad that my children will never know my dad the way I know him, and that these stories will not mean the same to them as it does to me. But my sister and I would request these stores over and over again. We named them and would recite parts of them along with him, they were so ingrained in us.
Second Chance
My dad is a good singer, as long as he is singing the melody. But once he tries to start singing parts, it all falls apart. He can sound very much like a wounded animal. These attempts at harmony always resulted in my mom, me, or my sister elbowing him as hard as we could in the ribs. He said he always had bruised ribs after sacrament meeting every week. But the all time classic story of my dad singing happened one Christmas when I was home from college. He was in the bishopric of the university ward in town, and they were having a Christmas program one night that included a Christmas sing-along. My dad and I sat together and didn't have a hymn book, but we were singing songs that we knew the words to, or so I thought. While singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", we were singing the verse that says "Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second...". My dad was fumbling along singing this part, not really singing the words as much as he was humming the tune and mumbling incoherently. Now if you're paying attention, you know that the next word after second has to rhyme with "earth". But my dad heard the words "born to give them second" and knew that the next word had to be "chance". It was the only word that made sense, right? So, with his new-found confidence in the words, he belted out "chance" very loudly, and was dead wrong on his word choice. The correct word is "birth", not "chance" - but I laughed so hard I couldn't finish that song, or any other song we sang that night. My dad and I had tears in our eyes we were laughing so hard. We probably should have gotten up and walked out, but we were in such a fit of hysterics that we were glued to our chairs.
Guitar Hero
The New Year's Eve after Shaelyn was born, my immediate family came into town for Shaelyn's baby blessing. Jeremy and Erika came to play that night, and me, Michael, my sister, her husband, and Jerms and Erke played Guitar Hero. My mom held Shaelyn while we played, but we kept asking my dad to join in on the fun. He said he was content to watch, and sat in the kitchen reading his Johnny Cash book, occasionally looking up and acting interested. Finally he came over to the couch and said, "hand me a guitar". He then proceeded to put the guitar strap on over his head like a necklace. I thought I would be helpful and point out that he had his guitar strap on incorrectly, to which he responded, "Don't nobody tell Jimi Hendrix how to play no guitar!". Oh, oh, oh! Excuse me! Daddy then proceed to kick our butts in Guitar Hero. Who was the genius who invited him to play, anyway?
The Jimi Hendrix of the family
There's obviously a million more fond memories I have of my daddy, but these are among the favorites. I wish he lived closer so that my children can get to know him even a fraction of the way I know him. They'll just have to take my word for it that he is an awesome guy!
