Recently, my sister asked me to write up a few memories of my father for a scrapbook she's putting together for her kids. It's been thirty-four years since he passed, but I still catch glimpses of him here and there, not just in old family photos, but in the things he used to say, and images of an activity or event, or the feeling of companionship in the ordinary and mundane.
I can't think of any big event per se--birthdays, graduations, music recitals, and celebrations. Those memories are cemented by photographs, which seem to take the place of the actual happenings. Perhaps the best memories come from the moments that are not recorded in a journal, photo, or video.
In no particular order:
Back when we used to buy our milk in glass bottles from a diary that had real cows, my father and I would make the milk run while my mother stayed home with the younger kids. We had to cross a railroad track to get there, and the road for some reason always flooded whenever we'd get a little rain. One rainy day, my father and I were coming back from the diary, and it was raining really hard. As usual, I was chatty Kathy a mile a minute, as the wiper blades rushed to swipe water off the windshield. Suddenly, we bounced into the dirt onto a vacant lot. My father said we lost our brakes and he didn't want to keep going because a train was on its way. Before I could say another word, another car came bouncing by us and rolled all the way down the embankment into a low, sunken place. I believe the vacant lot was sunken because they used to drill for oil there. Someone came by and towed us out, but all I cared about was the car way down in the pit. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and they got towed out, too. But to my preschool mind, that was the big adventure, getting stuck in the mud in the rain while going out to buy milk.
On my sixth birthday, my father thought I was all grown up and ready for a slide rule and a mechanical pencil. He was an engineer--you know, those men who wore short sleeve white shirts with pocket protectors. Inside the pocket would be pencils (mechanical, for precise writing and calculating), and a slide rule. I felt proud to get that slide rule and I used it too. Don't ask me if I remember now how it worked, but I was pretty proficient, doing all the slide rule exercises. Later, he gave me a circular slide rule and I thought I was pretty cool, showing off both my linear slide rule and my circular slide rule.
One summer, my father bought a Heathkit so he could build his very own color TV. That was exciting for all of us because we only had one TV and it was black and white. While other fathers had workshops in the garage, my father spread out all his stuff on a large table he made from a large piece of wood (it might have been a door) and two sawhorses in the family room. We were, of course, told not to touch anything as he laid out all the transistors, diodes, capacitors, and circuit boards. My dad did let us drop solder on scrap metal while he laboriously assembled the color TV with four children milling around with strict orders not to touch anything! I still remember the day he plugged in the TV and I was afraid it would blow up! But yay! The TV turned on and the picture was in color!
My father was a good cook for men of his generation. He always had his "specialties." One favorite was his version of spaghetti, which was Chinese noodles [the type that is white], a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti sauce, a splash of soy sauce, and chopped Spam. Another dish was his chili macaroni. It had to be made with Homade sauce which comes in a round jar, and he brought it to potlucks--guaranteed kid pleasers. Thinking back, a lot of Chinese American kids back in my day refused to eat Chinese food. Whenever we had a get together, there would be an adult table with the Chinese food and a kid table with hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza. My brother and sisters and I wanted to eat at the adult table since the Chinese food was tastier. Unfortunately, the adults wanted to eat the Chinese food and they didn't want to share! So, sadly, we were relegated to the kid table to eat hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza. My father's chili macaroni was a kid table favorite, so it wasn't that bad. My parents were mavericks in those days, teaching us how to speak Chinese and eat Chinese food. But back then, the Chinese parents wanted their children to be Americanized, and not eating Chinese food was seen as a positive sign. Incidentally, Chinese parents also wanted their kids to be bulky, and giving them hamburgers was a good way to bulk them up! They called it in Chinese [horizontally wide] and it was a good thing to be.
All through my teenage years, my father used to take me to orchestra at Cal State Dominguez Hills. It was a drive down Avalon Blvd in his 1964 Ford Fairlane Coupe. I still remember that car. It had round tail-lights that came to a conical point, and it was pale yellow. What I remember most is my father bouncing the car over the railroad tracks. I always looked forward to that! What's interesting is I don't much remember the orchestra, or the concerts, or even the parties at the conductor's house. I remember walking with my dad from the parking lot to the rehearsal hall and back and talking all sorts of high school gossip. Even though it was dark and the campus wasn't exactly safe, I figured as long as we were walking and talking loudly, we were safe. That's how fathers make you feel--safe.
Well, thanks to my sister who wanted the memories. I hope I didn't bore you, but it's the little things I remember and treasure most. Now that my own children are emptying the nest, I'm glad I drove them to music lessons and waited in the car for them, or sat on the sidelines with one while the other did a sport. Because it's the in-between times that you get to talk, to be together, or play games like "I spy with my little eyes," or float leaves down a creek to see how far they get. I wonder thirty years later what my children will remember about me. It might not be what I expect.
What do you remember about your parents? And what do you think your children will remember about you?
