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Saturday, March 14, 2009

I Am My Father 's Child

My Dad was a wonderful man. He could fix anything. He could build anything. He could cook anything - yes he would use every pan in the kitchen cooking it, but he could cook anything and everything. Now, he was a bit "cluttered". He had everything you could imagine in his barn and boy was it messy. He loved to work on bikes, cars, tractors, boats, motor scooters, four wheelers, anything that ran or at some point in it's life did not run. He was notorious for buying junk and fixing it up for us kids, so we would have things to ride around and play on in the fields.
He was a plumber and an electrician. He could paint, hang sheet rock, and install windows. I am telling you he could do anything he put his mind too. Sometimes, he was grumpy but aren't we all. He loved Lowe's and Home Depot. We would go there together and just shop - and leave with nothing. One year for Christmas he got me the thick book from Lowe's that has everything they carry in it - sort of like a catalog! "What in the world am I going to do with this I asked?" He just knew I enjoyed the store like he did.
In 2001 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and 10 months later he was dead. Those 10 months we made a lot of memories together. Like getting him to eat Chinese food from PF Chang's only! Watching Fried Green Tomatoes in the hospital bed with him, watching sumo wrestling? whatever he wanted - He always made chemo fun, trying on the wigs - he looked funny in the ladies wigs. We would go to Denny's after chemo for a Grand slam breakfast and see who could eat the most of their plate.
Then shortly before he died, he got really weak and could not do those things anymore. He was angry that he could not even walk from the parking lot to the front door of a store with out being short of breath. He was a good man. And he was concerned that I did not know how to cook when I was a teenager. I didn't have too, I had two older brothers who did, and I cleaned. My goal was to marry a man who could cook!
Well, my man can cook a little, but I did eventually learn to cook. But I also must have inherited a couple of other traits from my dear old Dad! We had an electrical plug outlet that was bad - Luke had fried it - I won't dare mention how - anyway, I called to see how much it would cost to be repaired. The answer on the other end - $130.00 Holy Cow! I thought, this can't be that hard, just find the circuit that provides that box power, cut it off, buy a new one, and take the old one apart, carefully remembering which wires go where, assemble the new one in the same fashion and viola! a working outlet for $14.99 - the cost of the new outlet box. No I am not for hire. Neither was my Dad.

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