Your fav. Dad-stories
 

Hi TLDR. Father's Day is just about here, so i thought it might be a nice spot here to share some stories about our Dad's that make us laugh, make us happy, etc etc.

I don't have any really great ones, just maybe one or two good ones.

My dad was a really gifted math/science student. He had like, the 3rd highest score on some national high school math exam in Taiwan and earned a PhD from Brown in Physics and was a VP at a company which made power plant simulators. Myself, I struggled in college and ended up finishing my degree in night school. I'd never been a diligent student and generally felt like I must've been a big disappointment to him. I don't recall the specific occasion but this one time, he sat me down and told me not to feel bad about it. He told me that he had that Ivy-experience and didn't think there was anything particularly special about it, so he didn't feel like I was missing out on something important. I've always appreciated him giving me that talk...


Another time, his assistant at his company had some overseas calls that were not sanctioned and rather expensive. He called her into his office to rebuke her, but when he started by saying there had been some calls, the assistant broke down. She cried and told my dad she was having terrible problems with her family overseas and she shouldn't have called, etc. etc.

My dad didn't anticipate this and told her it was OK...that in the future, don't make calls overseas from that company phone. He told her she should come into his office and make the calls from there, because he was an executive and no one one question him making those calls. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

You guys have any good dad-stories?

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

Excellent idea for a thread, but I've played mine out a few times already. I'd be very interested in reading some more from others, though.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

He made me promise not to tell.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

My dad was so cool and so respected in the neighborhood that I had several friends tell me that they wished he was thier dad. He was a big guy, about 6'2" and went from about 200 lbs in his youth to 260 in his 40's and then back to about 200 just before he died in his early 60s. He played Hoss Cartwright from Bonanza in a Christmas parade when I was a kid and many people still refered to him as Hoss till the day he died.

When they had a retirement stag for him when he sensibly took early retirment at about 55 they actually could have scalped tickets. The hall got sold out.

I guess I could tell about a hundred stories about my old man but this one is always one of the first that comes to mind. When we were kids we used to play marbles. We called it alleys. One day dad decided to get in the game and he cleaned out every kid in the neighborhood. He put all his alleys in the bottom drawer of his dresser. My mom was pissed but he thought it was hillarious. I remember my best friend was pretty much in tears from having been cleaned out. My dad said he did it to give us a lesson on the evils of gambling but really I know he did it just so he could get all the marbles. Whenever friends came over I would take them in my parents room and open the drawer and show them all the alleys. Jaws just dropped.

I sure miss my dad.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

From the time I was a little kid, my dad always told me not to end up like him.

See - he worked in a factory. He was able to make about $100k a year for a while, but that came from working 12/7 for a long time. His commute was nearly an hour, as he wanted us to grow up in the country and not the city. So he was basically working 14 hours a day for years. There was a 2 year stretch where he didn't have a single day off. He could have had the holidays, but who'd turn down triple time on Christmas?

And he didn't have to work that hard, obviously, but he did. He wanted to make sure that we had things. He wanted to make sure that he could buy me computers and stuff (in the early 80s) because he figured that that was the future, and he figured that if I had them to play with I'd be good with them for the rest of my life. I guess that turned out to be true.

He always made sure that we had "things" and could do things. I was involved in nearly every activity possible in school and out, and for a while he even took a Karate class with me. My favorite memory of that was him sending a guy to the hospital in a tournament. Until recently, I'm positive that my dad really could have kicked the asses of virtually any other dad out there (barring professional fighters).

His life is the definition of sacrificing for others, and he gave the bulk of it to provide enough money for his family to have what they otherwise could not.

And I guess this brings me to my favorite memory of my father. He sat me down a few years ago and asked if I remembered him telling me not to end up like him. I obviously said yes, since it was a common message that he repeated. He asked if I knew what he meant. Yeah, working in a factory sucks.

"Wrong. Don't get married."

...

Happy Father's Day.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

[ QUOTE ]
My dad was so cool and so respected in the neighborhood that I had several friends tell me that they wished he was thier dad. He was a big guy, about 6'2" and went from about 200 lbs in his youth to 260 in his 40's and then back to about 200 just before he died in his early 60s. He played Hoss Cartwright from Bonanza in a Christmas parade when I was a kid and many people still refered to him as Hoss till the day he died.

When they had a retirement stag for him when he sensibly took early retirment at about 55 they actually could have scalped tickets. The hall got sold out.

I guess I could tell about a hundred stories about my old man but this one is always one of the first that comes to mind. When we were kids we used to play marbles. We called it alleys. One day dad decided to get in the game and he cleaned out every kid in the neighborhood. He put all his alleys in the bottom drawer of his dresser. My mom was pissed but he thought it was hillarious. I remember my best friend was pretty much in tears from having been cleaned out. My dad said he did it to give us a lesson on the evils of gambling but really I know he did it just so he could get all the marbles. Whenever friends came over I would take them in my parents room and open the drawer and show them all the alleys. Jaws just dropped.

I sure miss my dad.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even though I feel queasy about this story I still think it's righteous.

You know, that might be the definition of a good dad story or a good dad.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

[ QUOTE ]
From the time I was a little kid, my dad always told me not to end up like him.

See - he worked in a factory. He was able to make about $100k a year for a while, but that came from working 12/7 for a long time. His commute was nearly an hour, as he wanted us to grow up in the country and not the city. So he was basically working 14 hours a day for years. There was a 2 year stretch where he didn't have a single day off. He could have had the holidays, but who'd turn down triple time on Christmas?

And he didn't have to work that hard, obviously, but he did. He wanted to make sure that we had things. He wanted to make sure that he could buy me computers and stuff (in the early 80s) because he figured that that was the future, and he figured that if I had them to play with I'd be good with them for the rest of my life. I guess that turned out to be true.

He always made sure that we had "things" and could do things. I was involved in nearly every activity possible in school and out, and for a while he even took a Karate class with me. My favorite memory of that was him sending a guy to the hospital in a tournament. Until recently, I'm positive that my dad really could have kicked the asses of virtually any other dad out there (barring professional fighters).

His life is the definition of sacrificing for others, and he gave the bulk of it to provide enough money for his family to have what they otherwise could not.

And I guess this brings me to my favorite memory of my father. He sat me down a few years ago and asked if I remembered him telling me not to end up like him. I obviously said yes, since it was a common message that he repeated. He asked if I knew what he meant. Yeah, working in a factory sucks.

"Wrong. Don't get married."

...

Happy Father's Day.

[/ QUOTE ]

Holy sh*t. That up-ended my world for a moment. Good job.

Gigantic props on your dad being honest. I spent some portion of my life trying to get my dad to be honest with me, about anything. With only a tiny exception, which rocked my socks, it never happened. I so wish he would have let me know more. Now he's almost gone, and there will never be anything to replace what he takes to his grave.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

I have so many dad stories. He is so unbelievably generous and caring.

When my oldest daughter was just a baby I was on my own a lot because Utah traveled 5 days a week, so I spent a lot of time at my parents. I would have dinner and they would help me with my daughter's evening fussy periods.
A lot of evenings my dad, being protective of me and his first grandchild would follow me home in his car to make sure me and the baby got into the house safely.

I never asked him to and told him he did not have to come out but he would not have wanted it any other way.
It was just what he thought he needed to do.


He is also a great grandpa. He is so playful with all of his grandchildren, its fun to watch.
One time my kids asked him if he could catch any stars. So he told them the next time they were over and the stars were out he would do that for them.
So, on a summer evening we were all sitting on the deck and my kids asked if he would get them stars.
He disappears into the house and returned to the deck with a step ladder and a kitchen tong. My mom, my sister and whoever else was there all start to laugh as my dad climbs on the step stool and reaches up to the sky with a kitchen tong and snatches a star from the sky.
He leans down to my kids who are standing at his feet and opens the tongs and puts a silver star into one of their hands. He then reaches up and does it again so now both girls have a silver star.
He had remembered their request and picked up some stars and put them aside knowing that they would ask again.
He is always prepared.

It was so sweet.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

My dad taught me to drive when I was 11. We had a '66 Chevy C10 step-side pickup with 3-on-the-tree. Dad said if I could drive that I could drive anything, the rest of my life.

Next day he told me to get in the truck and gather up trash from the units around our resort (ha! motivation revealed). Coming around a corner up a hill, I panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake. Crashed into a unit and knocked it about 10 inches off its foundation.

I was really scared. Dad was a bit of a tyrant and SOB; I had no idea how he would react but didn't think it would be good.

When I finally told him, he just inspected the damage, said "hm" and had me get right back in and drive again, "Gotta get back on that horse, can't have you afraid of driving."

Then we made a father-son project out of finding new body parts for the truck and replacing the damaged ones. It turned out pretty cool.


Note: we had a guest later who was a structural engineer. He helped us put the unit back by smashing the truck in reverse against the opposite side (with a big carpet remnant for padding), while the engineer stood inside and gave instructions. Heh.

Re: Your fav. Dad-stories
 

For many years my Dad worked the evening shift so he was home in the afternoon. I came home one afternoon, (I may have been early), to find Dad in the bathroom blow drying his hair and my Deep Purple album just CRANKED on my stereo.

MM-kay Dad. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]