Do you ever have those days when something just feels off but you don’t know why you feel a little down or a bit out of sorts? Today, I woke up like that and as I was stirring the half and half into my coffee, the song The Long and Winding Road by The Beatles started to play in my mind and I began to think about my dad and the good old days.
It’s been two and a half years since my dad passed. Memories of my childhood, flooded my heart and my mind. Maybe it’s the time of year… ah summertime. I was my dad’s buddy. There were many times he would come home during the day when I was on summer break and ask me if I wanted to go back to work with him. I honestly can’t remember a time that I ever said no. Sometimes I went out on job sites with him and other times I would just sit at his desk and doodle or even play around with one of the typewriters in the office and eat sugar cubes that were out by the coffee maker.
Yup, it was 1980 something and that’s all that was around back then…typewriters, no computers, no cellphones or internet. Life seemed a little slower, a little less hectic and a bit more peaceful. The lazy days of summer in my childhood a lifetime ago. I miss those days. Even the TV went off the air late at night. It went from the playing of The National Anthem, to a test pattern, to static or some might say the flea races. That is until cable TV came along and then there was always something on to watch. I guess that is when the world decided to be open 24 hours a day… even before then the 7-11 store was not 24 hours it was literally open from seven in the morning until 11 at night.
It’s funny how life goes in chapters like a book. My mom and dad divorced and I moved with my mom to a different state but always spent a month or so with my dad in the summer. We had fun doing everything from putt-putt golf and arcades to sometimes doing nothing but just hanging out at the house watching movies.
Statistically back in those days a large majority of divorced men would also become estranged from their children. I have to give my dad credit though no matter what he always called on Saturdays. We’d talk about nothing and everything for as long as I wanted. I never felt rushed and looking back I guess whatever it was that we talked about was worth the investment for him in both time and money. Which is another fun fact of the 80’s there was such a thing as the long distance phone call and it actually cost money for every minute that you were on the phone.
Later when I was grown and had children of my own… he never stopped calling. It had also become a thing that we would pack up the family somewhere around 4th of July and would make the trip from Dallas to Nashville to stay a week and visit my dad. We would be the getting close to his house and there he was… He would actually sit on the side of the highway and wait for me… then he’d get on the highway, pass us and take the lead to all the way to his house. When we arrived, I could barely get out of van and he’d be at my door with a “Hey Tiff”, a kiss and a huge hug. I feel honored to have been loved so much by this man and oh how I love him!
This was another time in my life, that week that I would spend at his house, when the world seemed to slow down. He lived in a sort of rural area north of Nashville. My kids could run around outside and play. I spent the evenings just sitting with my dad and talking. There were even times we’d stay up until the wee hours.
Since then my kids grew up and I didn’t go on those yearly vacations. The visits with my dad became more sporadic mostly revolving around graduations, weddings and other special events. Porch talks turned into Facetime chats and while I’m grateful for all of those I’d wished I would have kept up my yearly visits as that is just one of my regrets.
It’s late afternoon now and I have so many things to do but today even if I wasn’t physically with my dad it was good to “sit with him” on a lazy summer day and take the time going on a mental stroll down The Long and Winding Road of memory lane.
Sometimes you just need to take a beat, slow down and reminisce.
