Road Trip

The summer after my senior year of college was spent driving from one town to the next looking for the elusive English teaching position. English majors were a dime a dozen in those days and I remember 200 applicants for one position in Minnetonka. I was excited because I'd landed an interview in Mankato so mom and dad filled up my car with gas, wished me luck and I was on my way.
Around Clearwater I started noticing some problems with my car. The temperature gauge was high and climbing. Of course it was late in the evening and there were no mechanics open to assist me. I had to be to my interview by 8 am so my options were limited. I called dad. He hopped in the car, drove the four hours to Clearwater and picked me up. In the meantime I hung out at a truck stop and read a book. When dad got there we headed down to Mankato and I made it there in time for the interview. Dad rented a hotel room slept for a couple of hours and then picked me up. We made the trip back to Clearwater, he fixed my car, and headed back home.
The funny thing about the whole trip was that I never worried for a second about making it to my job interview. I knew my dad would drop everything and come and get me. That's just what he did. After all that work you're probably wondering if I got the job. Nope. In fact, after I had spent 90 minutes writing an essay about my philosophy of education they told me that they already had a candidate but they wanted a back up "in case". My dad and I laughed about that on the way home.

Nightcrawlers

Today was my dad's favorite kind of day. Nope, not sunny and 80 but a great day for finding nightcrawlers. This morning when I opened the garage door to head out to Sunday school the girls were delighted to find nightcrawlers. I remember that after a big rain dad would head into town to look in the streets for nightcrawlers. He'd have his special light that fit on his hat and an ice cream bucket and if his luck was good he'd have bait for the next few fishing trips.

I hope there are plenty of crawlers in heaven, dad, and I hope the fishing is good.

Deer Horns

I was bathing Erik tonight and thought of the bath times we had as kids. My dad was usually in charge of bath time because mom was cleaning up from dinner or doing laundry. One of our favorite things was to get " deer horns". Dad would shampoo our hair and then shape our wet, soapy hair into two antlers...the bigger the better. I tried to make deer horns for Erik tonight but he just doesn't have enough hair. Maybe in a year or two.

Mouse Play

If you know my mom at all you know she is deathly afraid of mice. This was a bit of a problem living out in the country surrounded by fields. Each year in the fall we'd inevitably find some mice in the house and mom would threaten to move out until they were all gone.

My dad took advantage of this fear and had a little fun. One of his favorite pasttimes was to get dryer lint and electrical tape and fashion little pretend mice. These would pop up when you least expected it. In a drawer, a cupboard, or even under a couch cushion. In fact, the day after dad passed away I opened the towel drawer and found one of these creations.

Living with my dad was an adventure and you just never knew what he was going to come up with next.

The Equality Principle

Today I went to a conference from Dr. Jim Knight on instructional coaching. He talked about the principle of equality and how important this is when you coach teachers. I got to thinking about my dad and how he practiced the equality principle each day. It did not matter to him if you were a Sentenced to Serve worker, a part timer, or the mayor. He saw each person as the same in how valuable they were and treated everyone with compassion and dignity. He was also the first person to give someone a second chance. This was very apparant as people came and visited at the prayer service. One man said, " I know you don't know me but I worked with your dad and he made me feel important and valued." Another said, " your dad always looked out for us part-timers and made sure we were being treated fairly." I was so proud as I listened to these stories and thought about the impact dad had made.

Dad, I'll try to live the equality principle each day and see the humanity in everyone as you did.

Gopher Girl

Today's story is about one of my favorite memories as a child, gopher trapping. When I got old enough I was allowed to go with dad to check the gopher traps. We earned a quarter from the township for each gopher that we were able to trap. We thought this was big money!

This gopher trapping scheme was also instrumental in helping my sister Katy get rid of her pacifier. Myndy, Katy and I were riding with dad and checking traps. As we were on our way to the first trap he started to tell us about a baby gopher who needed a pacifier. He said she didn't have one and was really sad. He must have been convincing... by the time we got to the first hole Katy gave up her paci and threw it down the hole for the baby. She was so proud that she had helped that little gopher. Luckily we did not put it all together that we had just trapped the mama gopher.

Ice fishing disaster

Today's story involves my first trip ice fishing. I was only around three years old and my mom was very nervous about letting me go with dad but he promised he'd watch me very carefully. We also had Uncle Ernie along for additional supervision. Those of you who knew Uncle EE know how much help he probably was.

I was wearing my blue and white sweatpants and sweatshirt ( always stylish) and we brought along a lot of snacks...integral to a good ice fishing adventure. I think the day went pretty well until after lunch when I started getting a little restless. My dad told me I should sit down and keep fishing but I kept running around and soon was up to my armpits in icy cold Lake of the Woods water. I spent the rest of the day in my underwear while my clothes dried. Dad tried to keep it a secret but when I arrived home I said, "Guess what mom? I fell in the ice hole."