I watched my husband, Keith, brush the hair away from my five-year-old daughter’s forehead last night as he read her Pirate ABCs. His voice growled as he did his best Johnny Depp impression. Miranda nestled next to his chest, looked up at him, smiled and snuggled closer.

I walked out of the room, tears welling in my eyes. My dad never read me a bedtime story. Not once. That wasn’t our bedtime ritual. Even though I was only six, I remember it clearly.

You see, Lyle Dennison didn’t read to his kids. He he was too busy being an Oakland cop. And when the job had been too much for him, he was busy hoisting a few Manhattans at the neighborhood tavern.

But we did have a bedtime ritual. He would come home, collapse in his big comfy armchair, and yell “George, take off my shoes.”

I would be in my room, in my pajamas, reading. Slowly, I would walk down the hall and enter the living room. “Hi Dad,” I would say quietly, trying to get a read on his mood.
If he was a happy drunk, then I could sit by his chair and watch McHale’s Navy. But if it had been a hard day, it was safer to be quiet, pull the shoes off and leave. Otherwise, there could be hitting, pushing, yelling.

Usually, it had been a hard day. “George, hurry up, I’m tired,” he would growl. I would bend down and untie the shoelaces as quickly as I could. I would pull them off. His feet usually stank. I stood up and walked quietly away as his head lolled back on the armchair, unconsciousness waiting around the corner.

I don’t remember where my mom was when this would happen. My older sister, Kathy, tried to stop it once and Dad just growled at her to leave me alone. And I don’t remember how long this ritual lasted -- I just remember how scared I was.

And last night, standing in my daughter’s room seeing the love and trust on her face as she snuggled next to her dad, I realized how far I had come from that dark ritual.

By Georgie Craig

Labels: fathers, Georgie Craig, husband, Johnny Depp, yelling

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I have a favorite picture. It’s lost in someone’s basement. Probably my Dad’s, possibly mine. I’d always thought I’d be more organized than my Dad. Nope.

It’s a picture of me as a two-year old in a field of bursting yellow dandelions in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I’m on my Dad’s shoulders – piggyback, which I now appreciate, as a mom of three, as quite a test of strength.

My body starts aching after the first 100 steps, with a little twenty-pounder on top. How did my Dad do it??

We’re hiking. Dad’s in his black and red L.L. Bean lumberjack, wool shirt. I’m in some hand-knit ‘70s vest -- a hand-me down from my big sister, perhaps? Or maybe a Christmas present from some crafty Great Auntie.

A colorful testament to the colorful times.

I think it’s a picture of us from behind because I don’t remember our faces. I remember my Dad’s shirt and my fuzzy, blonde pigtails poking out of the side of my head like little fountains of cuteness. And I remember the dandelions. Hundreds and millions of dandelions.

The sun is coming up over the hill in front of us, filtering through my pigtails, making them glow like little Tinkerbelles next to my head. It means it’s either morning time, when the birds are twittering about, eager to find that early worm. Or it’s an evening hike, just when the sun is heading down over the Aspen trees and rows of Evergreens, getting ready to tuck itself in for a good night’s sleep.

My twin girls are just now turning two-years old. And I was caught completely off-guard the other morning when, as I walked into the kitchen to get my good morning snuggle before an early meeting, both of them had their heads full of bouncing and wiggling pigtails, courtesy of my dexterous and brave husband.

A lump in my throat, an ache in my heart.

How could these flops of hair bring about such an emotional reaction? An innocence, I suppose. They bring back a memory of my life when it all was about riding on my Daddy’s shoulders before I knew that I’d need to support my own shoulders, keep them thrown back, and make it up that big hill on my own.

Step-by-step.

I must remember to call my Dad to thank him. And to show him a picture of his gorgeous little granddaughters and their pigtails. But, most importantly, I must remember to thank my own little girls for the gift that they have given me -- their pigtails.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout, Colorado, daddy, fathers, granddaughters, L.L. Bean, pigtails, Steamboat Springs

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