RaisingDad

My elderly father and I were sitting in the waiting room of his doctor du jour . I'd make a joke about how old the magazines were, but what would be the point? Besides...       If the patients can be elderly, why not the magazines?       Another elderly man sitting next to us was taking advantage of one of those magazines, however. It was an ancient issue of People, and he was doing the crossword puzzle. Crossword puzzles never age. If you haven't done it, then it's new to you.       The elderly gentleman went through it pretty quick, but then got stuck on one particular clue.      My father, always quick to make another person's business his own, leaned back and sneaked a peek over the man's shoulder.      "Wager," my father told him.      "Excuse me?" the man said, lifting his eyes.      "A five-letter wor...

If there's one thing my parents taught me, it's that marriage  has its ups, it's downs, and it's amber waves of grain.      Many were the times that during the time change (Spring forward, Fall back), my mother would change the clocks on her way to bed, my father would change them a second time when he joined her an hour or two later, and we found ourselves being early or late to wherever we were going the entire next day.      Once, when I was but a wee lad, we were on our way somewhere (let's say church, because it sounds good), and we came upon some road construction. A worker, using a flag, waved my father in a different direction and my father obediently did as he was instructed.       This wasn't lost on my mother.      "You did what that man with the flag told you to do," she pointed out to my father, who's been known to be stubborn.      "Of course I did," he said. "He had a flag." ...

The only thing my elderly father enjoys more than shopping with my wife at one of those members-only warehouse stores is sticking his nose into other people's business. Recently, he got to do both.      We were in line to pay for our too much of everything, and my father was looking at his box of corn dogs. He was in the mood for ONE, so, of course, my wife insisted on buying him a carton of 42.      When my dad finally put it down, he looked up and saw the customer standing in front of us, who was very tall.      "Dang, you're a big one," my father told him, stating the obvious. "How tall are you gonna be when you reach your full growth?"      "I'm six-ten" the man answered. He was polite, but obviously tired of continuously being singled out.      "Wow!" our eavesdropping cashier chimed in. "I'M four-eleven, and you're TWICE as tall as I am."      My father took this in, and then lean...

I’m driving my father to visit an old military friend a few cities away. On our way there he decides he wants to visit some family members who live somewhere in between, so I make a little detour to accommodate him.     "You’re lost," my father informs me.     I sigh and say nothing. Between you and me, I'm exactly where I’m supposed to be.     "I’m serious. You’re lost," he continues, as his eyes start to bug out. “This isn’t the right street.”     One funny thing I've noticed about my father is that his eyes tend to bug out when he thinks I'm lost. Another funny thing is his eyes tend to bug out in direct proportion to how lost he thinks I am.     But I’m not lost.     And I’ve got my GPS to prove it.     Reluctantly, I tell him this. I say reluctantly, because my father is old school. He doesn't understand how a GPS works, so...