Whatever You Want Honey

This post is courtesy of the Blog Exchange Program.

For years, my dad and I communicated almost exclusively through jokes.

Really bad, wildly inappropriate, often detestable jokes.

Every Sunday morning at about 7:30, the phone would ring and it would start. We’d exchange a few pleasantries and then let the jokes fly. Dad would save up all the most offensive, distasteful jokes he’d learned from farmers in the past week as he traveled around the county to the big dairy farms as a NY State Milk Tester – and I worked with divers. No offense to the divers out there, but the one’s I came in contact with were a deliciously crude, foul-mouthed lot. The source of my best material.

Following this call, I’d get ready for church and Dad would head off to the rounds of auctions and estate sales that he and my step-mother enjoy so much.

Every week. Like clockwork.

It was not always this way.

I think the longest Dad and I went without talking was 8 months – not because we were angry with one another, but because we just didn’t know how to communicate. I wasn’t like my older brothers – and by the time I was old enough to be of any real physical use on the farm, my parents divorced and sold the property. Thwarted, just as my turn came along.

Ah. The Divorce.

One week after my 12th birthday, my parents assembled the five of us at the dining room table for The Announcement. I should have suspected something was up; what other reason could there have been to drag my brothers home from college? It was all handled so matter-of-fact-ly, and there’d never been any ugly outbursts – it all seemed so unlikely…and so unlike you’d see it on TV or the movies. Just a quiet end to 23 years of marriage.

After they explained what was happening, when Dad was moving out, who was going where and when – all so clinically – I wandered away from the table and headed to my room. A knock at my door let me know that Mom was coming rub my back and reassure me how we were going to get through this together.

But no.

Dad came in, and I can’t imagine how awkward this must have been for him. As awkward as it was for me, perhaps. He didn’t have any words to help either of us. We just sat there, in silence. This was the first of our not speaking.

The next four years of mandatory weekend visits were torture for both of us, but we put on the brave face. He didn’t know what to make of this son of his who was more song-and-dance-man than hunter-gatherer. I didn’t know what to do with this old coot who didn’t know Sondheim from soufflé. Eventually, we’d just sit in silence, watching the TV or reading our way through the weekends. We both told ourselves we were trying, but we weren’t. Not really.

College gave us both the excuse of “too busy”. Convenient, really. And I was busy.

But not that busy.

I moved several states away after college and the calls dwindled. It wasn’t until I came home for my sister’s wedding – I now the old man of 26 – that it happened. Dad and I had the oddest moment when we stepped up to the bar at the reception and ordered exactly the same drink, in stereo. We looked at each other and didn’t say anything. I’d never before in my life realized how much I sounded like my Dad and I don’t think it’d ever occurred to him that I’d actually grown up to be a…well, an adult of some variety.

My brother, the mountain man/artist/wannabe hippie, just busted out laughing at the two of us. Within the hour, the three of us were out on the back steps of the reception hall, swapping ribald stories in graphic one-ups-man-ship. You never know where you’ll find common ground.

Soon after, the calls started from both side. And the jokes…so many dreadful, groan-worthy jokes. For a long time, this was enough and worked for us. Sunday became our easy point for contact, reliable and reassuring in its way. And we were trying. And succeeding.

Some years down the road, Dad and my step-mom made the courageous trip to New Orleans to visit me. Seeing me among my adopted family here in the South seemed to make it somehow better for him. He didn’t care for the city, but he understood why I stayed. And that was OK.

Our calls may not come like clockwork anymore, but that’s OK too. The conversations are longer and richer and less tasteless, for lack of a better expression. My step-mom marvels that she rarely has to leave the room anymore when we’re on the phone.

My Dad turned 77 last week, and our conversation was far too short for the occasion. There were some 20 odd members of our blended family (and after this many years, the line has blurred mercifully) demanding his time and attention. This Sunday, we will talk again. There may not be too many off-color jokes, but I’ll be sure to save up a pun or two in his honor.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad…did you hear the one about the two…?

About the Author:
Ken of AmbassadorKen.BlogSpot.com authored this post. He finds inspiration even in the minutia. He has an eye for the obvious that most tend to overlook as background noise but are the true reasons for life itself.

Write on Ken!

-D