Dad is 61 Today...Really?

How the hell did that happen?

It was just yesterday we were driving down the highway, and he threatened my brother and I not to make him come back there.

It was just yesterday he got his first generation video recorder, oh yeah, circa 1983, with the VHS (at least he never got tricked into going Beta) tape recorder separate from the humongous camera, and proceeded to film our lives in real time. I shit you not, he has the video library to prove it.

It was just yesterday he, my brother, and I dressed up like Indians (the cowboys and.. kind , not the Temple of Doom kind) and went camping every month. With an organization called Indian Guides, he didn't dress us up and take us out into the woods dressed as Indians, he is a creative dude, but that might have crossed the line. Indian Guides never seemed strange when we were young, but looking back, I keep shaking my head, and get that little crease in my forehead when I try picture describing it to others. "So, a bunch of white suburbanites take their boy children to weekly meetings in the neighborhood elementary school cafeteria at night, dressed as Indians, and hold meetings with their tribe (leather vest with the tassels, feathered headgear, jeans, and checkered VANS sneakers (cuz all Indians wore Spicoli's black and white checkered slip ons, it is better for camouflage I guess)). I can't make this shit up, man. My Dad, my brother, and I were called, Running Bear, Little Deer, and Little Hawk respectively. We were part of the Seven Feather Nation, and our tribe was the Cheyenne. (I gotta go lose some money at a Indian Gaming casino, just to clear my own conscience.) Truth is I can write an entire book about Indian Guides, but that is not what this post is all about. The fact is that the reason the memory of that period is so clear to me is testament to how much I enjoyed spending time with my dad and brother. My brother and I were usually going at each other's throats growing up, but not during these activities. We wouldn't receive our 'wampum' (allowance), OK, I'll stop now.

It was just yesterday he would drag an 11 year old me out of bed at midnight to watch one of his cheesy sci-fi movies he loved so much. I still get the chills when I think about 'Killer Clowns from Outer Space' of 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". Maybe we just solved my hatred for clowns to this day.

It was just yesterday he was getting up extra early on every Sunday morning to help me fold newspapers I had to deliver to our neighbors on my route, because it was so much more difficult to deliver papers, that included all of the Sunday inserts, on my bike. We loaded the folded papers into the front seat of our Chrysler Reliant K car, (hey, I never claimed he had taste.) and proceeded to drive up and down streets in the hood, chucking yesterday's news, to all our neighbors.

I can't believe Dad is 61. I refuse to. Primarily, because that makes me 38! Really? Happy Birthday Pops, and believe me when I say you are healthier than a man half your age...well, .62295081967 your age.