Happy Fathers' Day!
In my parents' house, my father has always been the quiet one in the background, while my mother is the loud one, the social one, the one who takes charge. So naturally, when my friends at home think of my family, they think of my mother. Drew even claims he's never heard my father talk, which is blatently not true (but still funny).

But I've seen a side of Dad that few people have. He's not all that different of a person when my mother isn't around, but he has a chance to shine. Mom can be a bit overwhelming, and he often allows her to do the talking. Without her there, he talks and shares more, from his thoughts on politics - usually a bit vague and simultaneously insightful - to his quirky sense of humor. Thankfully, throughout my childhood, I always had some time set aside that was time between just Dad and I.

When I was little, it was going to the Burning Bush town pool. Mom didn't like going to the pool, so Dad would bring me and we'd stay there for hours. I'd swim around for a while, showing off my ability to do handstands and flips underwater (I certainly wasn't doing them that well on land) and pretend I was a world-class gymnast. He would applaud, and then get into the water himself. He always got in by jumping in off of the high dive. I think he liked the cold rush of water. Eventually, I followed him and did the same. Once he was adjusted to the water, we'd go into the semi-deep part, and he'd pull me onto his shoulders. He'd crouch down in the deeper part, stand up quickly, and launch me off his shoulders into the water. It was incredible! Just for a moment, I was flying. As I got older, he taught me how to dive off of the high dive. I was scared, of course, and I think I climbed down a couple of times before I finally did it. But standing at the bottom of the ladder, he talked me through it. And then I finally did it - a different kind of flying, I never got enough of the hang of it to do anything but sort of lean into the dive, but that was enough for me. At the end of pool time, we'd towel off as much as we could, but still soaked the seats of his Taurus that we had named Mork (because everything was egg-shaped). He didn't care, so long as I was happy.

My love for the water extended to competitive sports, when I joined the swim team in sixth grade. Dad drove me two or three days a week to practice, all the way to Schenectady at first, and then to the Clifton Park YMCA. Sometimes we would listen to the radio, and not speak at all, but just be comfortable in our enjoyment of the music. (As a sidenote, as a little kid I was always impressed at Dad's ability to identify songs on the radio during their first few seconds. I thought he knew all of the songs in the world! It was a disappointing day when I found out he didn't.) Sometimes, we would talk, about any number of subjects. I would ask him his opinions, something he rarely shared with Mom around, as it can be hard to get a word in when she's sharing her opinions.

At some point in-between swim team and high school, skiing became our default activity. My mom skis, and actually taught my Dad how to do it, but was never particularly willing to ski unless conditions were perfect. Dad loved to ski, even when the snow was rather crummy. The fact that they had a Sunday afternoon family deal at Bromley Mountain only made it better, as Dad is incredibly thrifty (I get this from him as well). So for a couple of years, Dad and I would go skiing regularly on Sunday afternoons. I was almost as good as him at that point, so we were able to have fun on all of the black diamond slopes and bomb down the blue squares. Besides Bromley, we also went to Gore Mountain, which had the advantage of being relatively nearby. Skiing with Dad was immensely fun because he was always incredibly upbeat. Mom tended to complain. In contrast, whenever we were on a three or four-person lift with someone we didn't know, Dad would cheerfully ask, "Have you been to the top yet? The weather's pretty good today." I think he would have made that comment about the weather even if it was sleeting. He was so chipper that Mom and I started to call him Mr. Rodgers and sing, "Won't you be my neighbor?" As downhill skiing got more expensive and the deals seemed to disappear, we went downhill skiing less and less. But around that time, I had been on the cross-country ski team for two years, and started to do that on weekends. This time, I was the one who taught Dad how to ski. It was pretty funny at first, because he had it all wrong. But once he realized he had to push rather than pull with his poles, he kept up pretty well. We'd ski along, content in our silent company.

Once I got to college, Dad began some new traditions to remind me that he was always there for me. Specifically, he sent me the Sunday comics every week. On Sundays at home, we would sit around and read the paper, and I'd always ask him where the comics were. Since I didn't get them in college, he sent them, often with some newspaper article he thought I would be interested in. I always looked forward to getting my weekly envelope from Dad in the mail. These days, he doesn't send me comics. But instead, he's started regularly sending me something else - pictures on my cell phone. He's gotten more into texting than I ever could have thought - he hardly ever used the computer at home - and loves taking photos and sending them to me. I actually remember the first photo he ever took on his phone - of Mom and I cross-country skiing in Saratoga State Park. Since then, he's sent me photos of covered bridges, a mama duck and her babies crossing the street, Mom and him cycling, and sunsets. Basically, anytime he's doing something that he thinks I'll find interesting, he sends me a photo. Because I refuse to erase any of them, I have so many on my phone that I'm running out of memory!

Even though he exudes calm and quietness, I've always found spending him with Dad to be an adventure. He's funny in an unpredictable way, and taught me to take chances that I never thought I could take. So I'm glad to have Dad as my father, and was glad to talk to him on the phone today (and text him!).

I wrote this piece my senior year of college for a Writing for Magazines assignment, but I still like it. It covers a lot of the same stuff, but put it in context of what I was going through in college as well.



“Daddy, flip me again!” I yelled, struggling to be heard above the other screaming children in the pool.

When I swam back to him, I slowly treaded water because I couldn’t quite touch the bottom. I looked up and saw his face, strong and kind. His brown, thinning hair slicked back against his head. His large hands on top of the water, ready to pick me back up. He seemed like the tallest person in the world.

“Please?” I asked, my smiling face shining with water.

“Okay, but this is the last time. Then we can go in the diving pool!” he said, grinning.

He plucked my small body from the water and hoisted me up onto his shoulders. I adjusted myself in the appropriate position – legs over his shoulders, leaning backwards – and waited.

“Ready?” he said. He bent his knees until we were low, near the surface of the water.

“I’m ready!” I yelled, closing my eyes.

“Here we go!” he said, standing up while pushing my feet up with his hands.

I was flying! For a second, I was free of gravity. I was spinning, spiraling through the air. Splash!

Doing a somersault, I felt the cool water run over my body. I swam over to the shallow end of the pool, and did a carefully choreographed series of handstands and cartwheels. One-two-three-four, over and over and over again.

I stood up, dizzy, flinging my hands over my head in victory. “Did you see that?” I asked him, my eyes bright.

“It was great,” he replied. “Now let’s see how you do on the diving board!”

The town pool always belonged to Dad and I. In the summer, we went nearly every day. Returning home wet and happy, we regaled Mom with our adventures. Even when she occasionally came along, she was in the background, on the sidelines. The spotlight was on Dad and I. In a household where Dad was a quiet man constantly surrounded by two talkative females, it was rare to have anything focused on him.

Over time, I became too big to flip and my love of swimming turned into a competitive urge. I joined the swim team in fifth grade, and we stopped going to the town pool.

However, by that point, Dad and I shared different moments. We chatted when he drove me to school and swim practice. In the winter, we went skiing together and talking during those long rides up the chairlift. Whenever we were in a triple with another skier, he would comment on the weather and ask the person if they had been to the top yet. He was so perpetually friendly to strangers that I would tease him, singing, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

Now that I am in college, I don’t spend a lot of time with my parents. But Dad and I still make opportunities to talk together. Whenever he is near Ithaca for work, he will stop by and take me out to dinner. At times, a meal with him has been a saving grace.

On my 21st birthday, I woke up with a pounding sinus headache. Throughout the day, the headache continued, accompanied by chills and a sense of extreme fatigue. Between classes, I curled up on one of the worn chairs in a student lounge, put my jacket over my head and attempted to sleep. As I lay there, I remembered my dinner date with Dad that night, my only “birthday” plans. I decided to call him.

“I feel awful, Dad. I don’t know what happened – maybe I’m not getting enough sleep? Maybe we should cancel? I really don’t want to cancel though,” I said into my cell phone.

“You don’t sound good. Let’s not cancel right now. How about you call me back later and let me know how you feel, okay?” he said, in his quiet voice.

“Okay, that sounds good,” I said, in the most pathetic voice I could muster. “I love you.”

“I love you too. I hope you feel better and I’ll see you later. Bye,” he said.

“Bye,” I replied. I hung up the phone, and attempted to go back to sleep.

My symptoms subsided later in the day, and I decided not to cancel on him. Although I physically felt better by the afternoon, I was still miserable. No one had wished me a happy birthday, and none of my friends appeared to be planning anything. I was bogged down in work and the entire month seemed like a blur.

However, seeing Dad made me feel immediately better. I was still whiny, but I knew he would listen and love me no matter how much I complained.

We decided to go to Ruloff’s, a funky restaurant, for dinner. We were seated, and began looking at the diverse variety of junk pinned up on the walls.

“They have a lot of random crap, don’t they?” he said.

I laughed for the first time all day. He grinned. That’s my Dad, always lifting me up.