The first time I met my dad, I was still bitter from Mom’s break-up. I demanded--in my snottiest, 5-year-old snarl--he put up his arm, so I could swirl up and over it like a gymnast. Dad's arm caved under my weight. "Mom," I said later, unimpressed, "He doesn't even do circus tricks!"
Mom's ex-boyfriend had done circus tricks. He bought me ice cream for breakfast, drove a fancy car, listened to all my amazing stories, played Candyland and Memory for hours. He really wanted to be a DAD more than a husband, which was part of their problem.
So Mom went ahead and fell in love with Charlie, Chaz, "Him," Charles D. McCord: the love of her life and the man who would be a wonderful father to me for the rest of mine.
My dad was tough. He didn’t buy me ice cream for breakfast. Instead, he monitored my phone calls: I had a 20 minute limit per friend per day and he would get on the other phone at 21 minutes to say,
"How long’ve you been on?"
"I was just getting off!"
"Okay. I'll wait." He'd stay on the line as I muttered my embarrassed goodbye to the poor friend on the other line.
But he also threw me endless pop flies so I’d never be afraid of a softball and had me listen to the Tigers’ games on the radio on our family trips to our cabin. Dad never gave me a curfew, but would say, "We expect you home half an hour from the end of this scheduled activity," and mean it. He didn't allow MTV or R-rated movies, but laughed and cried with me through episodes of "The Wonder Years." He had a list of chores I was expected to do without complaint, but also sung Willie Nelson duets with me to his cassette “Half Nelson”. I got all A's on every report card, but Dad would only look at the citizenship grades and ask why I got 2s instead of 1s (talking; always talking). Once, he parked his truck behind my boyfriend's car when we were talking after I got out of work early. "Dad," I screamed, "It's not his fault! Let him go!" He made me go home, while he lectured my boyfriend about the importance of HIS daughter coming "directly home from work."
And that's what I was: HIS daughter. I was never his step-daughter, never his wife’s kid. He was never my step-dad, never my mom’s husband. From the beginning, he was my dad, the positive male influence my young life needed.
As his daughter, I inherited his sense of humor, logic in an argument, and his need to make things right in the world. My dad taught me to canoe, to train dogs, to keep score during a baseball game, to cross country ski and snowshoe, to paint walls. When I was in junior high, he wrote me a letter about riding the bus (I wanted him to drive me so I wouldn't have to sit by "this yucky boy.") He said it would build my character. I still have the letter and he was right, it did make me stronger--and nicer.
There is so much of my dad in me. I am a strict, consistent, pain-in-the-butt mom to my kids. I stick to what I say, make them pick up their stuff, and look for citizenship grades. I “never let them do anything” (direct quote from my teenager), but I watch baseball with them, dance with them in the kitchen, take them to the cabin, and insist on conversations at the dinner table. I lecture my kids about not being bullies, considering the feelings of others, having a good work ethic in the world. I don’t buy ice cream for breakfast. I don’t drive a fancy car. And, no, I don’t do circus tricks. Seems to have worked out pretty well for my dad.
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