“Ooh eee ooh ahh ahh, ting tang, walla walla bing bang, ooh eee ooh ahh ahh, ting tang, walla walla, bing bang! Ha ha ha ha,” Daddy and I sang and laughed. What silly songs for a grown up to sing. There were more on the radio, too. He liked to have music on while doing chores, working in the vegetable patch and driving his truck. We sang along to “She had an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini” and “There was a one-eyed, two-horned, flying purple people eater” too. Daddy liked to ask me, “Lollypop, do you think the eater is purple or the people are purple?” I was certain that people didn’t come in purple.
We spent weekday mornings together, before I went to afternoon kindergarten and he to work the two p.m. to midnight shift at the local paper. Mom was working eight to five and my big brother was in school all day so Daddy and I had our mornings. He whistled while he was doing things, a cheerful man who worked hard and smiled easily. We held hands when we went places.
How I adored my Daddy, shadowing whatever he was doing. I especially liked if we had something to build or repair. I loved his tools and like a surgical nurse, I would hover at his side to hand him a screw driver asking him, “Phillips or flat head?”. I was familiar with pliers, wrench, hammer, bolt, nut, wood screw, rasp, plane, T-bar, and straight edge. I was especially fascinated with his flat carpenter’s pencil that had to be sharpened with his pocket knife. Oh how I wanted to draw with that pencil but it wasn’t for play; it was part of his toolbox. I did have a small hammer and nailed scrap woodblocks together. My pride was my own pair of pliers that weighted my pocket, thus making my pants lopsided, drooping on the right and making me feel very officially carpenterish and important like Daddy.
We rented an old farm place with a dilapidated barn, chicken house, rabbit pens, and large yards that were mostly weeds since it had been vacant a long time. Each week while Daddy pushed a power mower, I climbed a tree and looked at the world upside down while hanging by my knees. On Thursdays we went grocery shopping, first reading the ads and making three lists, one for each grocery store to shop the sales. I learned to thunk a watermelon, weigh a head of lettuce in my hands, choose tightly closed artichokes, ask the butcher to tenderize a Salisbury steak, price compare the canned goods and only buy something if it was on the lists. All the lessons stuck except for buying Velveeta cheese as I think the cool sturdy rectangular cardboard box it came in was the only good thing about it. I still enjoy grocery shopping.
Bring the Grocery List
We finished our activities in time to have lunch together. Then I’d change into school clothes and Daddy would make my hair into a ponytail, adding barrettes to keep the wisps of hair off my face. Our time together was unusual for the fifties and I felt I was the most special little girl in the world with the very best Daddy. Those treasured times saw us through later stages when I wanted to wear itsy bitsy bikinis and go to dances at the boardwalk. It made it easy to be together in high school when his schedule changed to 7:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. so we were together once again, this time after school. He took me to the orthodontist, piano lessons, church youth group and waited in the car for me to finish. When I was a high school freshman, Dad drove me to a track meet where I was competing. He gave me a Snickers bar for energy, and told me of his sports experiences. Ever since, Snickers has been my favorite candy bar and right then I wished I could have his sports nickname: Sandy. Those early times let us be close years later when he taught me to drive a stick shift and made us a team when my mom had cranky times.
As happens, I grew up, moved away, had a family of my own. My favorite role ever remains that of Daddy’s girl. When I visit my DAd these days, we hang out, comfortable as ever: reading, watching a movie or his sports teams the San Francisco Giants and the San Francisco Forty-niners. He eats just liquids now but I still shop the bargains and pick the best melons.His hearing has faded after thirty-one years operating clattering, deafening, lineotype machines to support us. I adore him more than ever and will spend his birthday week-end with him wearing a burgundy shirt, eating popcorn he has made for me, cheering for his Niners in the Super Bowl. It will be a great birthday for him if they are victorious. But I’m not worried. At ninety-two he is resilient and as lovable as ever. Besides, I found the perfect birthday card to recall those yesterdays of ponytails and goofy songs when he and I had a year of mornings together. It’s a new fangled action musical card. When opened, an articulated pop-up witch doctor chants and dances a nonsense message, “Ooga shaka, ooga ooga ooga shaka,” translated as Happy Birthday. I hope he will know my heart translates it as “Ooh eee ooh ahh ahh, Happy Birthday with love to the best Daddy ever,” and that in his mind he will be singing along.
Do you have a favorite candy bar, a fond sports memory, or do you search for the perfect birthday card? Tell me about it in the comment section below. Consider writing from my writing prompts section.
Witch Doctor Chants Happy Birthday
Write in San Diego-blog 