Random Stories About My Dad

This is the 30th post in November. Looks like I pulled it off after all. I'm gonna close out this run with some random stories about my dad.

* My mom once told my dad that our cousin wanted to come visit us in the worst way. My dad responded, "By covered wagon?"

* I didn't do too well at the first track meet of my senior year in high school. I ran a 5:35 mile, and I guess I didn't seem too concerned about it. On the way home, my dad pointed out that this was my last high school track season, and I shouldn't let it just pass me by. That I should set my sights high. I don't know if he suggested running a mile in under five minutes or if that was my idea, but that's what I ended up doing.

* Some people think that my dad pushed me in my sophomore year to beat his sophomore year 800 meter time. The only thing he did was tell me what that time was when I asked him. The rest was all my idea. I didn't beat it, incidentally. He was pretty good at running, even when he was 15-16.

* He mentioned to me, once or twice, that he sang "Going To The Chapel" to himself the morning he and my mom got married. I made a point of including that song in the pre-wedding music at my wedding.

* Sometimes, when my brother or I would tell him something was happening at a certain time, such as "the party starts at 2," he would say "o' clock?" I drive M a little more insane every time I do that to her.

* When I was a kid, and I would ask him what time we were going someplace or doing something, he would say "4:17," rather than "4:00" or "4:30." He stopped doing that by the time I was a teenager.

* He knew who won pretty much every Olympic track event, at least since the 1920s. One of the things I often did during hospital visits was quiz him from the World Almanac. He would need hints sometimes, but not too many. The last coherent conversation we ever had (spoken conversation, anyway) was me quizzing him on Olympic champions.

* He had a very large backyard, growing up. He made a 440 yard track back there (by mowing the grass extra low, I think) and maintained it until he went off to college. I would have liked to have had a regulation-size track in my backyard.

* Back in 1983 or 84, when Michael Jackson was becoming a huge thing, my brother asked my dad if he could moonwalk. So my dad started bouncing around like Neil Armstrong.

* He was really, really bad at singing. Truly awful. Fun to listen to when he did, though. Didn't happen often.


And, with that, I must get to bed, as it is pretty late, and I'm mind-numbingly sleepy.