My father was not a handy man. He had other wonderful talents, but fixing things was not one of them. He tried to put a ceiling fan in my bedroom when I was younger. It didn't go very well. I had to finish that project without him. My favorite instance of his lack of handiness has to be the grill he got after Jay and I were married. We went to my parents house only to discover that he'd been using the wrong screws for the first umpteen steps. We all had a good laugh and then helped him get the grill put together. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. I miss him.
He was always the punchline of the joke and wouldn't have it any other way. He once dove into a cement pool at a beach condo. He hit the bottom of the pool and did a real number on his skin. It was like road rash. None of us kids would get in the ocean with him the rest of the trip because we all agreed he looked like chum. We called him chum for quite a while after that. He loved it.
He could fall while walking on flat ground. He would just flat out roll, and he didn't have to trip over anything for it to happen. He took a nasty tumble trying to get the sled out of the storage building behind our house when there was an ice storm decades ago. Layton has this same quality. It's like his whole person is magnetized to the earth. He bumps his head on everything he gets near. Sometimes, that makes me miss Ed even more.
We always called him Ed. Friends would ask if he was my "real dad." I'd tell them that he was, but we just always called him Ed. He called his parents by their first names too.
He would cheat at card games. Like a bandit. He was always my partner at Rook. He'd find a way to let me see his cards...the reflection in his glasses...the reflection in the stove...my mother knew we were cheating, but KK didn't figure it out until much later.
He sang gospel. All the time. He'd play the piano and sing at local nursing homes on Sundays. He'd practice before he went. He sang in a quartet for a while. He practiced for that too. There are many hymns that I can't sing as a soprano...because I heard the harmony so many times growing up while he practiced...that's all I know of the songs.
Ed loved potato chips. And salt. And meat. And veggies. What am I talking about...the man LOVED ALL FOOD. He even ate my cooking which he declared as terrible on more than one occasion. He ate it anyway.
Of course he had his flaws, and things weren't always rosy around the house when I was growing up. That's human nature.
My father has been gone six years today, but the things I remember about him will stay with me for the rest of my life.