Fixing Things

The pull cord on my weedeater broke. It was true pain to replace the spring that retracts the cord. It reminded me of a time when my old man and I took the oven door off at Teddy's house. The thing came off real easy, but putting it back on was quite another matter. We aren't stupid, but we certainly felt like it as we screwed around trying to get this thing back on. That is how I felt with this cord spring on the weedeater. The thing came apart very easily, but getting it back together was pure hell. So I had to call my dad to get some sympathy. The call started something like this:

Me: Hey Dad, you remember that oven door we had such a hard time getting back on?

Dad: Ya, I remember.

Me: Well I'm having similar problems with this weed eater that I'm working on. It is driving me crazy, so I stopped to drink some beer and give you a call -

Dad: That's how you tell if a man's tough.

Me: Huh?

Dad: That's how you tell if a man's tough, if he trims the hair around his nuts with a weedeater. (Dad remembers every joke he has ever heard. He is a joke remembering/telling machine. Jokes are so engrained in his personality that he sometimes just blurts out punchlines. We'll be driving to Lowe's and he'll say, "cunning runt" or be telling a story and say, "the fantom rides." These are punchlines to jokes that you have to stop him and ask to hear the joke to you understand what he is talking about.)

Me: Oh.

Dad: You know how to tell if a woman is tough?

Me: Huh?

Dad: If her vibrator has a kick start.

Me: Oh. pause Back to the weed eater...

When my old man gets on a roll, he is a really funny guy. Sometimes I laugh with him, sometimes I openly laugh at him. We talked for another several minutes about his health and his upcoming trip to Montana.

I ended the call by saying, "Dad, I love you." I planned to say that when I made the call. I had to plan it, because I can't remember saying those words to my dad in my life. Never. When I was young my dad would say he loved me, but as I recall, it was in the context with the other kids. Like, "I (or we) love you boys." Never to me as an individual. I'm certainly not blaming my reluctance to sharing feelings on my dad. I know without a doubt that his dad never told him he loved him, although I'm sure he did. My grandfather, the son of immigrants grew up on the streets of New York in the depression. Expressing love was not something he ever learned.
Before hanging up Dad said he loved me as well.

I am proud that I am the original "dirty old man's" grandson, but there are a few family traditions my old man and I are working to change.