Captain Daddy

I love to read. Generally the authors I like to read the most have off beat characters. If the characters in the book happen to remind me of family or friends, so much the better. One author that seemed to have an unusually keen knack for this was Erma Bombeck. In one of her books, I think it was If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits? she describes how her husband assumed an almost military persona before embarking on a family trip.....bingo!

My father didn't have the calmest of seas as he chartered his way through his childhood. At the age of five, without any prior reason or warning, my grandmother packed him up and took off with him. Leaving Oklahoma for California, she told him his father had died. (He didn't reunite with his father until his early thirties.) His mother remarried a man named Luther and had two sons. My father was often expected to not only work a man's share in the fields, but mind his younger brothers as well. There were drastic consequences for a mere whiff of transgression. By the age of 11, he had ridden a bus, a train and hitch-hiked from California, through Texas and back to Oklahoma. By the end of the 7th grade, his step-father decided he had all of the education he would need. It was no surprise that as soon as he was old enough, he enlisted in the army. Assigned to a MASH unit, he worked his way up to master Sargent.

Coming home on leave one autumn, he married my mother, someone he had known since he was 12 years old. They started a family and finally those choppy seas from his earlier years seemed to calm. That of course was short lived, eventually you see, those children he had fathered all started walking, talking, going to school and driving. It was time to re-enlist his military training.

My father wasn't a big man in stature, only 5'10", but he was a giant in character. In his youth he had a full head of dark wavy hair and true walnut eyes to match. He'd had sleeping sickness as a child which left his jaw paralyzed. It gave him a lop sided grin. It also made chewing difficult--chewing everything but the fat. My dad could talk (go figure, I know) if he took a notion to do so. It always amazed me the things he knew. I don't know why I should be surprised--my dad read anything he could get his hands on. For the most part he was pretty laid back, but there were certain things that made him snap to. You knew to mind your p's and q's when Captain Daddy was on patrol.

Captain Daddy was the master of un-spoken communication. A snap of the newspaper told you when you were too loud, a glance over the coffee cup indicated you had overstepped your bounds and you needed to back up. Captain Daddy had definite ideas about how long your skirt should be--it had to touch the tips of your index fingers while they hung at your sides. Make-up, not allowed until you were 14 and then only mascara and sheer lip gloss. You could wear shadow at 16, but you were to be "Made up, girl, not made over!" Table manners were highly regulated as was the way you talked. No slang, no contractions, absolutely no swearing, and you had better enunciate clearly.

If you were one of the girls, before you graduated high school, you had to attend finishing school. We learned how to answer the phone, all about fancy silverware, how to get out of the car, what season you were, how to count the points of jewelry you were wearing--all kinds of useful stuff! You were expected to use it too, and if you had any ideas about going out on a date, you had better tell the boy the remedials before he came to pick you up. Don't honk the horn, introduce yourself, say hello to my mother, state our plans and by all means know what the headlines were in the newspaper in case there is a pop quiz!

Before we went anywhere as a family, we were assembled for inspection. Most often this was either in front of the fireplace or the garage door. After make-up and hems, aftershave and fingernails had been reviewed, Captain Daddy would review our mission--we are going to Grandma's house for Christmas Eve, there will be no arguing or rough housing on the way, once we are there you will take care of your jackets, you will eat what is put on your plate for dinner, make sure you greet all of your elders and say thank you for your gift--even if it is the same soap on a rope you got last year.

After my high school graduation, I asked my dad why he was so adamant about all of these things. He said--"If you want to stay here, in Nowhere's Middle, an marry a man that grows things in the dirt and have a whole bunch of kids slamming the back screen door, that will set fine with me. But if you have bigger dreams, I don't ever want it said that where you came from kept you from where you want to go to."

Thanks, Captain Daddy.