My Dad

When I mentioned here that he came from the “other side of the tracks,” I didn’t mean it as a slight. There are railroad tracks in this town, and Dad grew up when most people lived on the opposite side of them. The roads passing Dad’s neighborhood stretched toward picturesque farm fields and, farther on, the coastal mountain range.

But Dad’s family was poor, and therefore I suppose slighting was intended by a few who lived in fancier houses south and east of them. I’m sure some of Dad’s siblings and neighbors felt the weight of socio-economic differences more intensely than others.

I’ve always gotten the sense Dad looked forward in hope of better things while making the best of whatever came along growing up. He tells of listening for the train’s whistle as a kid – the tracks ran a block or two from his home – and the electric feeling he got. Out the front door and running, flat out, giving it all, he knew he could beat the engine.

He’d see it. Tons of steel barreling toward the spot he aimed for. On he ran. Closer it came. Lungs bursting, he zipped to the other side before it reached him.

I say, “Dad, what were you thinking?!”

Without his sense of adventure and readiness to catch the wind, though, he wouldn’t be my father.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad, from your little girl.