I don’t know why my dad took me to clubs, other than I loved them. I remember he took me to a place, most likely in Miami where feathered, sometimes topless dancers did the can-can. Not much else stuck in my mind except the beautiful dancers with all the beautiful costumes and their beautiful boobs.
I was about 10 years old when I saw Chubby Checker live, in Florida doing the twist. I saw him with my dad and whichever stepmother that was around then. I think we were in a small club because I remember that Chubby Checker was close to us.
If you don’t know who he is, he was a cultural phenomenon in the 1960s. His big hits were “The Twist,” “The Pony and Let’s Twist Again.”
Too bad that as an adult, I didn’t ask my dad about taking me to the horse races, he even let me hang out one time he was playing cards at the Florida house with his cronies. He also let me walk around the golf course while he played golf and took me deep sea fishing. I guess those were his favorite things to do and I was fun to be around. A bit of a smart Alec, though.
Not normal dad things to do, whatever dad things are.
My stepfather might have been more on the normal spectrum. He was very quiet, kind, loved making vegetable gardens, read a lot, was a Marine who fought on Iwo Jima during WWII and let my mom get the first and last word. If that’s what counts as normal.
I know Fathers’ Day (though I’m not a fan of commercialized holidays) has come and gone, but tell me about your fathers. I’d love to know if there are any actual normal fathers out there.
My dad didn’t like the boy I was going to marry. No one in my family did. He asked me if I was pregnant (not!), with me being just 18, it was a logical question.
Over the years my dad did try to help my first husband, by getting a life insurance package for his employees via my husband’s job as an insurance agent. He tried helping my husband in other ways, but he was really helping because of me and my daughter, his granddaughter.
I have a keepsake that my mom kept for me for decades. It now hangs in my hallway. It has a felt background with cut out felt pieces applied to the background that says “I think you are the best pop in the world.”
I must have been in kindergarten when I made it (with help!) and I don’t know which father I made it for – my dad or my stepdad. It’s amazing that it’s still around and in good shape all these decades later.
My mom had an oak chest that she kept important papers in and probably that little framed keepsake. Now my daughter has the chest.
The origin of Father’s Day came about when Sonora Smart Dodd proposed it, in 1909, in Spokane, Washington, to honor her father a Civil War veteran who raised his six children alone after the passing of his wife.
The first Father’s Day celebration was held in Spokane on June 19, 1910. It was declared an official national holiday by President Richard Nixon in 1972.
According to Hallmark, the earliest known Father’s Day greeting was etched into a clay tablet by a Babylonian youth named Elmesu, 4,000 years ago, wishing him health and longevity.
Now if I believe that, I can sell myself a big old bridge! But Google confirms the story.
What’s a girl to do?… believe everything I read? Nope.
Lucy Llewellyn Byard welcomes comments lucywgtd@gmail.com
