My dad turned 75 years old on August 25. Recently we’ve had the opportunity to reminisce, looking through old photos and hearing stories of the nearly 40 years he lived before I came on the scene. School was never his place to shine, and thus yields some of the best stories. He distinctly remembers one teacher – Donald Lamb – and a day his boredom got the better of him. As Mr. Lamb wrote on the chalk board, he made a noise in his throat, but he stopped whenever the teacher turned around. He kept quiet when Mr. Lamb asked who was making the noise, but it seems Mr. Lamb had a pretty accurate sense of aural direction, because at recess he came and stood by my dad for a long time with his arms folded. He didn’t say anything, but they both knew what it was about.

In high school my dad sported a ducktail hair style, held in place with Butch Wax, which melted and dripped down his back on hot days. High school was not a pleasant experience for him – as he puts it, “I wouldn’t go to my high school reunion if I lived across the street.” College didn’t fare much better. My favorite of his college stories is from singing class (he was majoring in music). While his classmates all chose to sing classical pieces, he showcased his southern roots by singing “I’ve Been Everywhere” by Johnny Cash.

A talented classical guitarist, Daddy made a living playing in restaurants and resorts and teaching lessons. For the most part he lived alone and subsisted on freezer meals, which is impossible for me to imagine because he has been a passionate advocate of healthy eating ever since I can remember. Then one fine day my mother showed up for a guitar lesson at a music shop in Santa Barbara, CA, and her teacher became her husband. A few years later I came along. In honor of my dad’s 75th birthday I wrote down 75 of my memories of him. I remember him:

1. Playing the guitar in the overstuffed chair, with me curled up in the corner behind him
2. Prodding my stomach with his fingers toward the end of a meal to see if I was full or “had more room” and could eat more
3. Making milk toast – a delightful combination of honey and milk and crispy and soggy bread
4. Playing his guitar on the riverbank
5. Sneezing so loud we could hear him from anywhere on our property of several acres
6. Feeding the dog every night – a combination of dry dog food, water, fruit and veggie scraps, and the leftover pulp from making vegetable juice
7. Playing the guitar in his office, long after I went to bed
8. Apologizing for hitting me (the only time he ever hit me)
9. Apologizing for getting angry and shouting a curse word (also the only time I ever recall him doing that)
10. Teaching me to drive – in the old truck, the van, and the family car
11. Working with me one summer at a peach and nectarine orchard, when I was only fifteen and couldn’t drive there on my own
12. Playing “You Are My Sunshine” on the piano
13. Showing my sister and I how to use his fancy rubber band gun
14. Enjoying music – especially Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan
15. Standing at the sink with a glass of water, trying to lessen the pain of recurring acid reflux
16. Standing in front of the wood-burning stove doing the “Sun Exercise”
17. Watching old comedies – The Shakiest Gun In The West with Don Knotts, the Andy Griffith Show and the Amos and Andy Show
18. Fishing on the riverbank, and occasionally bringing home one or more salmon or steelhead, gutting them, and baking, smoking or canning the meat
19. Making scrambled eggs and shredding beef jerky on top
20. Asking me if I needed to go #1 or #2 and his incredulity when I didn’t know which I needed to go
21. On long trips, stopping the van on the side of the road and standing “behind” the open car door to pee
22. Cracking a whip – and cracking seaweed at the beach like a whip
23. Teaching me to play the guitar
24. Pruning fruit trees
25. Playing the guitar on stage
26. Saving the best food for company
27. Buying fudge
28. Coming home from town with a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Almond Bar wrapper on the car dash (evidence that he didn’t ALWAYS eat healthy)
29. Removing boards from the front porch to get our dog and her newborn puppies out from under the back of the porch
30. “Strongly encouraging” my sister and I to sing for old people (whom he always made a point of visiting)
31. Dressing up in a suit and tie to play sacred music concerts
32. Deriving immense pleasure from people watching
33. Telling about how he got to touch Elvis Presley’s hair at one of the Elvis concerts he went to
34. Memorizing scripture – especially Proverbs
35. Reading Turkey Trott at Christmas – the only time he ever read a children’s book to my sister and me
36. Telling me not to say “crud” because it’s like saying “crap”
37. Teaching me to play checkers
38. Putting peanut butter on an apple peel, giving it to the dog, and laughing until he cried while the dog tried to lick it off the roof of her mouth
39. Giving tight hugs
40. Teaching me how to use tools – hammer, level, pruning shears
41. Appreciating beauty – in nature, in music, in art
42. Listening to NPR and “Car Talk”
43. Shocking me when he came out of the bedroom with his beard shaved off when I was very little
44. Driving like a maniac down Tiller Trail Highway to make it to the post office before the mail went out for the day
45. Buying soft serve for the family at am/pm gas stations
46. Carrying pincher bugs out of the house instead of squishing them
47. Waxing the car
48. Buying overripe bananas in bulk (to freeze for smoothies)
49. Going down to the creek to hook up the water pump
50. Taking us bike shopping
51. Going for bike rides on Shoreline Trail at Lost Creek Lake
52. Telling stories: about falling asleep on his motorcycle, the turtle that peed on him, the laundry soap commercial
53. Making a “confession of faith” in front of our church family to become a member (he had been baptized into a different denomination when he was young)
54. Standing in the doorway of our bedroom and saying “Good night” in unison with my mom
55. Carrying us to bed on his “horse back” when we were little
56. Teaching me to paint, clean gutters, sort produce, plant seeds, thin and pick fruit, crack walnuts, tend a burning brush pile
57. Recording for me an album of songs I wrote
58. Reading from his overflowing “reading stand” at meals – health newsletters, newspapers, personal letters, religious newsletters or sermons, even advertisements
59. Giving the dog corn on the cob
60. Putting his hand on my head and saying “This is Tobi” when I was four years old and getting ready to sing “My God Is So Great” with my sister in his sacred guitar concerts
61. Working in the yard early, working in the yard late: I remember waking up on summer mornings to the sound of him outside running sprinklers to water the lawn and garden
62. Unapologetically sharing his opinions about what other people ate, and how they spent their money
63. Stripping my sister and me down to brush the sand off from head to toe before we could get in the van after an afternoon at beach
64. Working random jobs in our tiny community – sorting wood at Thunderbird Furniture, being a guard at the temporary camp set up for firefighters responding to forest fires, driving the delivery truck for a local greenhouse
65. Cutting Charlie Brown Christmas trees on our property
66. Dressing up as Santa for Christmas once or twice when I was little
67. Posing everyone for pictures – especially with home grown food, or flowers/landscapes
68. Cleaning the chimney, which made the most AWFUL noises in the house
69. Taking a shower in the front yard with the solar shower he built
70. Saying with complete sincerity that my mom still had the body of a 16 year old when she was in her 50’s
71. Letting go of my hand when I was pulling him with the whole weight of my body, and then teaching me to put one leg back so I wouldn’t fall when he let go
72. Watching TV at my grandparents’ houses and in hotels (we didn’t have one at home)
73. Playing his guitar in the car
74. Wearing goggles while cutting onions to settle a disagreement with my mom about what exactly causes a person’s eyes to water
75. Leaving church during the closing hymn so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone

Thank you, Daddy, for being the brave man in a family of women (me, my mom, and my older sister), for not being afraid to have questions about life, for showing up every day no matter how hard it was, for laughing until you cried, for loving music, and for giving me these memories.

The pictures don’t show up very well in the header, so here they are again. I’m on the left in both photos – 1986 and 2020.