Late Fathers Day Post About My Dad

So I realize Fathers Day is gone and past, but I really meant to take the time to write up some of the thoughts I have regarding my own Dad. Again, this post is more for me to remember than for you to find interesting or intriguing (sp?).

My first set of memories revolves around cars. I grew up in the times where child seats, wearing seat belts, or any type of kid/car regulation was non-existent. Not that that is a good thing, thankfully I survived, but it definitely made for some fun times if you had a Dad who was cool. I owe it to my Dad for creating some awesome memories for me in our cars.

I dont remember how old I was, but I was pretty young I think. I clearly remember us in the family car and I must have been sitting in the front seat. If you are from Ypsilanti, you should know that going down I-94, I think it is the Huron Street exit, right past there, you start driving by Ford Lake. At that exact spot in the road, I was placed in my dads lap and given the steering wheel. I moved it back and forth and thought it was just the coolest thing in the world to be at the drivers seat with my Dad.

I also have the best memories of going to this one apple orchard near my Moms old house, not Wiards, but it was this little family orchard near a gravel pit. (Said orchard is also the location where at the age of 3 I accompanied my 13 year old oldest brother John in picking up apples off the ground for like 25 cents a crate or something ridiculous like that. I think John even gave me a portion of the proceeds. Anyways thats beside the point, but that was where I got my first job at 3 years old.)So as a kid, even though the orchard probably wasnt that big, to a little kid it seemed like its own protected world. You were surrounded by trees and the dirt roads between the rows of trees were like the city streets. Well, I have the memory of my Dads station wagon with one of those doors that folds down, kind of like a pickup truck, with the rear facing seat back there. Well, my Dad would let down that door and let us sit on the tailgate as he drove us into the orchard and out of the orchard. Seeing the ground go by beneath my feet, and sitting next to my brothers and sisters enjoying the ride, man it didnt get better than that. Now that I think about it, one of my cool older brothers would always be crazy and jump off the back as we were going through the orchard, and then try to catch up to the car to hop back on and my Dad would speed up so they couldnt catch us. At the time it was some good ole fashioned family fun.

My last car memory for today occurred on a Saturday as we were getting ready to head home from a scout campout. My Dad always went on campouts with us in Scouts. He would always volunteer to help out and drive or whatever. Well, that day he had to head back earlier than the rest of the group and I was going to leave early with him. We left the group somewhere to go load our car. As we were about to leave, my Dad asked if I wanted to steer us out of the campground. I sat on his lap in the seat, and was enjoying steering us down the dirt roads through the woods to get out of the campsite. Unbeknownst to us, the rest of my friends and leaders were all coming down the same road we were driving on walking back from wherever they had been. When my friends saw that I was driving I could totally see on their faces how jealous they were. I pretended like I was going to steer towards them and they laughed and we laughed and we just kept driving. I know that those kids were so jealous of me that I had a Dad who would let me do cool stuff like that. I will never forget it, it made me feel so special.

My next memory is based on a little thing in the Kennedy Family we referred to as "Pudding Parties". My parents are divorced so we would go on visitation with my Dad every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and once a month we would spend the weekend at his house. One day, my Dad took us to the cafeteria that resided on the second floor of Meijer Thrifty Acres. The cafeteria was awesome. My dad let us pick out what we wanted to eat as a treat and most if not all of us chose pudding. Hence began the tradition of "Pudding Parties". We would not always get pudding, but it was still a pudding party. That cafeteria eventually closed down and the pudding party location was gone forever, but the memory of the pudding party will live on in my heart forever. Thanks Dad.

I also have a memory of all of us kids at once would tackle and wrestle my Dad on his bed. It would be so crazy. We would all try to get him and he would just flip us off and roll us over. We would be a jumble of bodies, but it was so fun.

One of my favorite things to do with my Dad when I was little was to build model airplanes with him. He would buy me models to work on with him. I will never forget the first one we built together. I know that I globbed on the glue, and messed up the pieces or paint, but he would still let me participate. He was patient with me and would help me feel like I was doing a good job. I hope that I can do that kind of stuff with my kids too.

Needless to say, my Dad is the man! I love him so much. When I was little people would say that I looked just like my Dad and I was so proud of that. My Dad is left handed and none of my siblings are. I remember my Mom telling me that for a while they thought that I was going to be left handed too, but then I turned right. When she said that I had wished that I turned out to be left handed because my Dad was. He has created so many good memories in my life, all because he made us kids a priority and because he wasn’t selfish with his time. When we were little I don’t remember ever seeing my Dad sit down and watch a football game or baseball game rather than playing with us. I hope I can create the wonder and fun for my kid’s lives the way he did for me. I am grateful for all the sacrifices he made to make our lives as good as they were.
Thanks Pops!

The Carnie Circuit

Sorry its been so long since my last post. I am pretty bad at keeping up on stuff like this so I don't blame you if I lost you as a follower of my blog.

So this past weekend we went to a local town festival where we experienced some of the joys of the Carnie world. As you will see from Linz's post on our family blog, we did see some cute animals and enjoyed some nice weather outside. The rest of our experience got me thinking about the world of Carnies.

If you don't know what a Carnie is, well, basically it refers to a person who works at a Carnival. My first exposure to the word came from the Austin Powers movie where he says that he is afraid of only two things – nuclear war and "Carnies. Circus Folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands."

Luckily my parents didn't take us to low budget Carnivals as kids. If we went somewhere it was a place like Cedar Point where the low budget feel of Carnivals is drowned out by the awesome roller coasters. We have been to the Minnesota State Fair when we lived here before and even that place didn't give me the uncomfortable feeling I felt this past weekend. Actually, I realized one of my lifetime dreams when we went the the Minnesota State Fair. We were randomly walking around and we saw a sign that said one of the original "Lollipop Guild" munchkins from the Wizard of Oz was going to make a guest appearance. We hung around and actually saw him. I can't remember which one it was the one in blue on the end in this picture:

He was so little and old, like a walking raisin. I didnt meet him, but I saw him and that was enough for me.

Needless to say, I have never really had a bad experience at a Carnival of any type, but as we were walking around this past weekend, the reality of these peoples lives kind of hit home. What a life, travelling everywhere some little town is having an event, setting up shop knowing that two or three days later you would have to pack up and move on somewhere else. Basically begging or suckering people to come play your ring toss game, or the famous rigged "throw a beanbag baseball at the oddly heavy plastic milk bottles" games. I saw this lady like waiting for someone to come play her game totally smoking away. As a parent, that wouldnt be the game I take my kid to play, as she takes your money and puffs a cloud of smoke in your face. Anyways, I felt bad for these Carnie folk, at the same time I was sure they hopefully found some type of joy in their lives in what they were doing. Heck, they might be richer than I will ever be considering the prices for the games and the actual payout of prizes.

Now on to the actual reason for this post. While at the Carnival, Violet wanted to ride a carousel. We found the only one there. It was a rather scary looking contraption that when we saw it Linz said she didnt think she trusted putting Daphne on it, so we just let Violet ride. I let Violet choose her animal and she wound up getting on this monkey. At first I thought it was kind of cute that she chose a monkey since that is probably what I would have chosen too. And in the following pictures you will see how happy she was to be riding this monkey wearing blue jeans and a shirt. I thought this was all so cute until I looked the monkey in the face. Suffice it to say that since yesterday morning I have daymares and nightmares where that face haunts me. Linz would not allow me to post the pictures on our family blog in fear that it would drive all of her readers away. I am only posting it here as a form of therapy for myself. Please do not be shocked, and also please know that Violet has not shown any signs of being affected by this hideous beast. I think Linz and I are bearing the brunt of its effects. Needless to say, we will not be visiting any Carnivals any time soon. I am posting these pictures with the warning, LOOK AT YOUR OWN RISK.....













Cute right? Monkey wearing blue jeans.


WRONG!!!!!





Sweet Dreams!!