June 19, 2023
Greetings from the flickering images,
The campground was situated around a single oval, with trailers and tents lining each side of the narrow road, snugged so tightly against one another you couldn’t help but get to know your neighbors. You could hear everything that they said to each other, and of course, they heard your life too. I sometimes wonder if our memories got mixed in with theirs when they went home.
It was a lakeside resort town, two hours from where we lived, a little escape from the city. My Dad would haul us all up there with the station wagon pulling our little trailer, and then park us by the water for weeks at a time. Sometimes he would drive back to the city and work all week, then come back on the weekends.
During the day a car would drive through the park, its trunk lid open, someone sitting inside with legs hanging over the bumper, a man walking along behind. The man would shout: “Fresh fish!” In the trunk was the catch of the day in a box of ice. People would run out and stop the car and then go back and get the money they needed, pay for that night’s dinner.
“Fresh fish!” my Dad would shout, at random times. Somehow, it was a running joke with his friends, and his brothers when they would visit from Scotland. It was hilarious to them, especially when they surprised each other with it anywhere else but the campground.
My father was an enigma of sorts in those years, while my birthdays were in single digits. I have images of him coming and going, mowing our little patch of a yard, having his cup of tea, hollering at his brood of five to turn off the lights or close the open doors when they go out. Washing the car in the driveway, playing with the dog, who he loved more than I knew.
Opening gifts on Christmas morning, Dad wearing the pants he painted in, an old t-shirt, his hair untamed, being silly with us in the crowded living room, pretending to be delighted with whatever dime-store gift we wrapped for him. And then from the kitchen, he would shout “Fresh fish!” and laugh, and sneak one of his favorite Fudgestick cookies from the refrigerator.
I remembered that he would stand next to me in the pew at church and dare me to put my finger in the little spring-driven clips that held men’s hats. Then he would snap it shut and we would both giggle and my Mom would shush us.
I thought of him last weekend when I was tickling Ila, my granddaughter. She squirmed and giggled and was breathless from laughing but wasn’t moving away because she was having too much fun. “Penny in the bank!” I said, wiggling my finger in the hollow of her neck. I said it automatically, then remembered it was what my Dad said when he tickled us.
He was a determined man, worked hard, made a good home for his family. Built a life out of scratch and held on to it, sometimes through sheer will and steel. For a long time we lived five blocks from his job, and it seemed it was never separate from us. He was dedicated to his work, his way of taking care of his family, but also proving to himself what he could do, I think.
That took a toll, and he suffered with ulcers and in those days it led to operations. I remember him recovering from surgery, giant stitches across his belly, lying on the couch for days until he was able to climb the stairs to bed. It was a literal badge of his dedication to us.
There was that part of him that held him for much of his waking hours, and there was the part we saw, where he was our Dad. After he took off his tie, and untwisted from whatever day he had, and talked to us, had dinner jammed around the kitchen table, or cut my hair in the bathroom, or fixed our bikes, or showed me how to burn the trash behind the garage, or packed up everything we owned, plus things we could borrow, and drove to East Tawas so the kids could splash and play and be transformed by the sun. That kind of Dad.
I started with the idea of sharing one thing with you, and I’m getting there, but it brought these images, which are important for me to share. In part because I want you to know my Dad, and through that know me and my family better. And, in part because I want you to pause and linger on the memories that matter to you.
This last year has been full of incredible things, and many times I have thought “Dad would have loved seeing this.” He would have laughed with us. He would congratulate his children for living rich, full lives. He would be proud of his grandchildren. He would have been silly and full of mischief. He would have given Ila a ‘penny in the bank’, and marveled at how big Audrey is, and when Cali crossed the commencement stage, he would have hollered “Fresh Fish!” from the audience.
The images, the memories, honor those we love. It matters that we take them out and polish them and soak in those moments, so that part of us continues to matter, for our sake and for those we never want to forget. ‘You live as long as you are celebrated’ according to the old saying. I stir up these images and let them go into the air like fireflies and am in awe of the beauty.
Yesterday I stood on my deck and shouted “Fresh fish!” and laughed, not even knowing why it was funny, except that it reminded me of Hume, and that delighted me. It’s not something I could explain easily to anyone, but my Dad’s been gone for almost twenty years, it felt like a prayer of sorts. My way of telling him that we remember him, we celebrate him.
Happy Father’s Day, Scotty.
Hope this finds you celebrating,
David
Copyright © 2023 David Smith
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