RaisingDad

When my Dad thought his radio was broken, and all it turned out to be was that the volume control knob was turned down, it made me laugh... but it made me sad, too.      There was a time when there was nothing my Dad couldn't build or couldn't fix. When he was twelve years old-- eighty-one years ago! --he used work on his uncle's car for the opportunity to drive it around town. For all I know, even at twelve, he was trying to woo the fairer sex with a ride in his jalopy. When he was in the Army during World War II, and stationed in the Philippines, he built a washing machine for his platoon. He used a metal barrel, a jeep... and his own personal smarts. I don't know if there was even such a thing as a washing machine back in the 40's, but my Dad had one, the one he built. I have a picture of it. He's standing next to it with a big smile on his face, proud as all get out. Years later, after he was married and I was old enough to pay attention, I r...

I'm at the kitchen counter enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee, reading this month's issue of the AARP magazine. Yeah, I'm that old. My wife is cleaning the counter tops. My Dad walks in. I look over the top of my magazine. He has a look on his face. I recognize that look. He has a problem. And it's about to become my problem.      "Ahhh," he says. Smack, smack, smack! Click, click, click! My Dad makes these smacking noises when he talks. Even when he doesn't talk. Sometimes when he just sits. Now he's started making clicking noises as well. "Hmm, I don't know. I just don't know."      "Don't know what, Dad?" my wife makes the mistake of asking him. She has a heart of gold, she does. My Dad shakes his head, and lets out a weak laugh.      "I don't know about those house cleaners you have," he tells my wife, seeing as she's the only one listening to him. "You know those house cleaners?"      ...

It's not the big things that you drive you nuts... it's the little things.      When I first asked my 93 year-old father to move in with me and my family, I knew that there would be a period of adjustment. What I didn't know was just how long that period of adjustment would be. Here it is, years later, and I'm still adjusting.      My father? He's doing just fine.      My father had been the head of his household well into his 80's. Myself, I've been in charge of my own life since I turned 18, when I put what little I remembered from school about geography to use and went to college out of state.      As a kid, I learned early on that no one was allowed to touch my father's morning newspaper until he was finished reading it. And he took a looong time reading it.      "Pop," I would ask him, "can I have the comics?"      "No," he would always answer. My father was...

When I was a kid I must have driven my parents crazy.      When they took me to the store, I was always asking them to buy me something. Spiderman comic books. The Man From UNCLE camera that turned into a gun.      And candy.      I was always asking for candy.      "You'll ruin your teeth!" my mother would warn me.      I'd think to myself, "If I can't have candy, what's the point of having good teeth?"      This was before I discovered girls, and how they had the annoying habit of preferring guys with good dental hygiene.      I remember one Christmas, when I was about ten-years-old, I pestered my parents for a chemistry set that was probably more expensive than they could afford, but, on Christmas morning... there it was.      Did I play with it?      Not even once.      ...

I was probably a pretty rambunctious kid, because I remember my Dad always after me for one thing or another.      When I was a Senior in high school, and prone to staying out late on a Friday or Saturday night, my Dad would always make it a point to get me up early the next day.      "Why do I need to get up early?" I'd ask him.      "Because everything has a price," he'd tell me.      I'm sure he was trying to teach me something, but it was something I didn't want to learn, so, after a few early mornings of me getting up to do nothing but learn a lesson, the only lesson I learned was that if I got out of bed so he could see me, and then, when he went inside, immediately laid down on the floor of the far side of my bed, the side facing away from my bedroom door, so that he couldn't see me, then I could happily spend the rest of the morning in dreamland. ...

I'm in the kitchen sitting at the island. Reading the morning newspaper, disagreeing with everything Dear Abby has to say (her answers are a little too politically correct for my taste), and enjoying my noon coffee. I have the dimmer switch to the lights set on low.      As usual, I'm listening to the blues on the TV in the great room. I love the blues. Right now they're playing  Mean Old World, one of my favorite songs. Maybe I like the song so much because I like the title so much. It is  a mean old world. You only have to read the paper or watch the news to realize it. This version is   by Little Walter and His Night Cats. I prefer the song by T-Bone Walker. Maybe I just like the name T-Bone. There may be a dozen other songs called Mean Old World, but those are the only two I know of.      In a way, the blues have ruined my appreciation for the music I grew up listening to in the sixties and sevent...

My Dad walks every day-- EVERY day--rain or shine.      Today was not only one of the shine days, but it was also one of the hot days.  The very hot days.  I try to pass along this information to him, but if there's one thing I've learned from dealing with my Dad, it's that I can't deal with my Dad.      "Dad," I tell him, "it's hot outside."      "No, it's not."      "Sure it is."      "No, it's not."      "Dad, I was just outside.  It's hot."      "It feels cool to me."      "It feels cool to you, because we're inside the house.  Outside, it's hot."      But my Dad isn't really listening to me.  He's trying on the new pair of Nike walking shoes that I've just brought him from Tucson.      "Yeah," he tells himself, "these feel good.  It's just what ...

Lest you think I consider my Dad a burden, I don't.  It's just if all I wrote about were unicorns and rainbows, both you and I would be bored.       Besides, I find everything my Dad does incredibly entertaining.  Maybe not at the time, but when I look back.  Now I understand the saying, "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you."  I'm not laughing at my Dad, because I'm just like him.  I'm laughing with him because I can see what the future has in store for me.       Old age takes pity on no one.      One of the reasons we bought this particular house, is because it had a small guest house in the front where we knew Dad could live and have his privacy.  It was a way of him keeping his independence, and yet letting us keep an eye on him at the same time.       In his home away from home he has his own TV with its...

My Dad's favorite sport is baseball.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's because he comes from a time when there was nothing else to do.  Back when he was growing up, it didn't matter that a baseball game could go on for hours and hours.  And hours.  What else were you going to do?  Go home, cut an apple in half, and watch it turn brown?      My wife tries to make it as enjoyable as she can for him.  She fluffs his pillows.  She makes him snacks.  She even sits him down and turns on the TV for him.  The only problem is, he won't stay sitting down.  He gets up and goes to his room constantly.      And when he does, after ten or fifteen minutes, we'll change the channel.  But my Dad must have some kind of radar, because, when we do, that's exactly the time he decides to come back.  He'll walk into the family room, stand on one side of the TV, look at it, at us, at it, ...

There's an old joke that goes:       An elderly man says to his doctor, "Doc, I have this problem.  I keep throwing these silent little farts all day long.  (See?  There goes one now) .  I can't help it, doc.  I keep farting and farting, but they make no noise.  ( Oops!  There goes another one.)   I don't know what's wrong with me.  I can throw the most massive farts, and they'll make no sound.  ( Ahhh, that's three in a row.)   What do you think?"      "Well," the doctor says.  "I think you need to have your hearing checked."        Now, I told you that story to tell you this story:        My Dad has his own room.  His room, actually, is in a guest house in the front of our main house.  If it's not called the Father-In-Law House, then it should be.  His ro...

"Honey," my wife says to me.  She's giving me her sweetest smile.  I know something's up.  "I need you to fix the shower curtain in Dad's bathroom.  It fell."      Again ? I think to myself .      "I just fixed it," I tell her.      "Fix it again," she tells me.      "It can't be broken."      "And yet it is."      Again?  I think to myself.  Again?   I must have fixed that darn thing, what, eight, nine, ten times?  It seems I retired from a job I enjoyed just to spend my retirement fixing my Dad's shower curtain.      "The problem," I tell her, "is that Dad uses the curtain for support when he gets out of the shower.  We have the same kind of rod in our shower, and how many times has it fallen.  Zero times."      "Just fix it," my wife tells me, thus ending the ...

My father and I have just returned home from an appointment with his doctor.      It's 11am. Still early. He's studying the medicine his doctor prescribed, and which we've just picked up from the pharmacy.      "Can you believe the price of this medication?" he asks. Of course I can. I just paid for it. "Now when am I supposed to take it?"      "The doctor said you have to take it in the morning when you first wake up," I tell him, "with lots of water. Or you can take it right before you go to bed. But you have to take it on an empty stomach."      We walk into the kitchen, and seat ourselves at the table. My wife comes up to say hello.      "How did it go with the doctor?" she asks. "You guys hungry?"      I look over at my wife. It's been a long day, and it's not even noon. She can see it in my eyes....