Sudden Memory Clips 2

I remember... my dad.

He had his 'very cool' moments, my dad did. I remember him tackling the waving grass in the field across from our home... a task that took him days to complete,... simply so that the neighborhood children had a place to play ball.

The 'family project' every year, where we would go across the way to an older lady's house to stomp out the high thick grass/weeds there with mighty golf swings of our hand threshers... and the bitter grumbling from my brother, who had things he would much rather be doing.

Camping out at the lake... ah the beauty and fresh smell of an evergreen canopy coupled with the timelessness of the lake.. wavelets gently lapping the muddy shoreline and me, watching from where I sat on the shore, near the warmest bit of shallow water I could find, my toes curling into the soft mud under it all.

Taking me with him to work for a drowsey yet exilerating evening of working the plow and sander on the icy roads. The snow falling from the night heavens always seemed to facinate me, so much so that I invaribly got a crick in my neck from trying to watch as it settled on my cheeks and eyelashes. Once, he stood and watched it fall with me.. for a time. The silence of the moment seemed.. comfortable, I think.

What a bear he would become if he was desturbed while at work and how, if truely angered, you -seriously- didn't wish to be the one for whom his wrath was dirrected... often in the form of Roaring! and a doubled belt or stinging willow switch from the tree around back.

The night, one of the brood of our evil nasty neighbors, the 'paw-can's', threw a mushy apple through his window screen, thinking it was one of us kids... and dad's quick march through the living room, trying his robe belt with a jerk and snatching up a switch before heading out the door into the dark... and hearing just when the kid was caught, about 2 blocks away, by his agonizing howl of dismay and sudden pain.

His 'spring-chicken' exuberance, the bounce in his step and laughter in his eyes, his 'fainting fists' as if he were going punch you in the side, which we always took for a 'tickle' gesture... since it was, coming from him. and we would flinch away and laugh... everytime.

The many times he recited the cow-jumping-over-the-moon poem, which, for some reason, always got me to laughing myself silly. Maybe it was more his delight in having gotten me to laugh then the poem itself, that had the tears of laughter spilling down my cheeks. Delight was most certainly his best look.

New Years evening, when we would all gather snowsuits, boots, hats and blankets, and bundle into the sleigh for a dash across the midnight landscape to awaken our neighbors with whoops and squeals of joy in which to bring in the new year. then a final gathering at my Uncle Phil's house to help anounce the arrival with clapping, yelling, and great snow-dancing blasts followed by a sombering starwatch before heading back home... which I never seemed to stay awake for... and my dad would carry me, blanket, hat, boots and all, to bed.

The desperate saddness/stillness/stiffness that would overcome him at odd times after mom died. Missing her and knowing he still had to carry on for us... because we needed him, even though there were times, one or the other of us would deny it. He would sometimes say, he hoped to 'go home' someday to be with her again.
....He finally did too. I think, perhaps, with some of that childlike exuberence that brought him and mom together in the first place. I believe in the end result, he was truely delighted to finally be on his way. I am happy he finally got to see mom again after all this time... but there are times.. I really do miss him... its a melencoly thing, really. I'm glad I had the chance to know the man a little. He had this way about him... and some 'very cool' moments, which always seemed to pale the bad times into practical non-existance for me. He was a gruff back-woods stubbren old man whose good times, I think, were well worth whatever bad times we had.


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And as a footnote to the evening.. a personal note to the big bearded fellow who, one time in history, tossed me out through a door and locked it, growling that I had no idea... like something out of an old Nancy Drew novel.
I know this, mystery brute, the past as we know it, is still ours. My grandpapa knew it too, thats why I wanted to look. You.. what you did... more supported his words, in my mind, then not. What was it, I wonder that you sought so hard to cover up? Was it more then the words in a dusty old book? More then my family's tight-lipped silence, perhaps? Is the skeleton truely dead and buried yet? I think not. I think my Grandpapa knew the truth of it.. and my dad did too. Even you seemed to know more then you were willing to share. Mystery, I'm afraid, fuels curiousity in me. Are you still somehow watching, I wonder. lol! Well, I certainly hope you didn't think I just... forgot about the incident. That would have been very clueless of you.
Perhaps I will share more of this at a later time. Watch this space, friend. One never knows... does one. :) Besides, it might be nice to hear from you again, when next I manage to ping a nerve, eh? Otherwise I might truely have 'no idea....'