Angelic Rodgers
  • The Octave Thanet Project
  • About
  • Privacy
    • Angelic Rodgers >
      • Signed Copies of Homecoming >
        • Signed copies of Elegant Freefall

Father's Day

6/19/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture
I know it's Father's Day but Earl wouldn't have been the father he was if not for Pat being the mother she is.  So, I can't think of one without the other. 
As a kid, I loved riding in the car at night. I'd lie down in the long back bench seat of the Plymouth and stare out the window above at the stars in the broad Texas sky as we slid down the highway.  WBAP from Fort Worth was always the soundtrack.  George Jones or my boyfriend Buck Owens would sing to me as we traveled home.

It may be when I travel that I miss him the most.

Other than those car rides, I never got to truly travel with Dad.  He was always traveling, though.  Before I was born, he was in the Army, which took him to Vietnam, Thailand, Germany.  Who knows where he traveled. After the Army, he worked in the Sudan, Brazil, and later in Manny, Louisiana before the bottom fell out of the oil industry. He brought home Chanel No. 5 home to mom from France when he had a layover in Paris. She still has a bottle in her bathroom, the bathroom they shared for over thirty years.

Once on a work trip, I sat in a restaurant having dinner in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport At a neighboring table sat a little girl with her father.  She counted out Sweet & Low packets as her dad, probably in his late 20s listened to her and drank his gin and tonic.  She was drinking a Shirley Temple.

This made me think about how I never really traveled with Dad.  I know the reality of it--he being who he was then--would not have been the same as the scene I was watching at the neighboring table, but I wondered, still.

When I was that girl's age, Earl would have closer to the age I was as I sat in that airport than he would have been to her father's age.  He would have been in his late 30s, retired from the Army and unaware that there was poison inside of him that would wait another thirty years to fully blossom.

He was a rough and tumble guy, my Dad. Travel stories from him were always full of adventure, even when they were about something as mundane as flight delays. He used to tell this great story of coming home from the Sudan or somewhere, drunk and jet-lagged and ready to get home. He was flying Delta.  Back then the slogan was "Delta: We're ready to fly when you are."  Apparently there was a delay that night and after having dinner and what was surely a good number of drinks, he approached a gate agent and said "I'm ready to fly, why the F aren't you?"

So, yeah,  Dad was probably not the kind to travel solo with a six year old girl. But that's ok.  I'm really more sad that we never got to travel together as adults.   

On the plane home, I sat next to an older man, probably about the same age my father was when he died.  He had a sort of glimmer in his eye that reminded me of Dad. He was going to visit his grandkids.  I asked if his wife was still alive and he said very much so, but she doesn't travel. But he was happy knowing that when he went home, she'd be there.  Apparently, like my mother, she prefers to stay home and doesn't fly.  

We chatted for much of the flight with a reading break in the middle, both of us reading on our iPads.

I wondered as I read if Earl used to chat up seat mates on flights.  And as I learned about this man's wife who doesn't travel, his retirement from GM, I wondered if Earl told people in planes about all of us--his girls and his wife.

What did he tell them? What was his vision of us?

Whatever it was, I suspect it was glorious and kind.  He certainly kept putting himself on the line for us.  I hope in the end that we were worthy of it all.


3 Comments
Renee Rodgers
6/19/2016 09:00:15 am

great post; made me cry, but great nonetheless.

Reply
Debbie Maldonado
6/19/2016 08:07:18 pm

Also, there was that time when Mom was in the hospital. I'm not exactly sure why she was in the hospital or it may have been when Sis was born and Dad was taking care of me. I remember him brushing my hair and putting in ponytails. I remember thinking he didn't do things the way Mom did, but he was pretty gentle when brushing my hair.

Reply
Debbie Maldonado
6/19/2016 08:02:17 pm

I did get to travel with Dad. Mainly, it was to go to horse shows. Many times he was to be the announcer and I would show whatever horse he had me riding at the time. He was pretty much all business when traveling but he taught me how to read a map and let me help navigate (although I'm pretty sure he knew where he was going most of the time). And, he would drive straight through unless I told him I REALLY needed to stop. Seems like he could eat and drink more than me and hardly ever needed to stop. Of course, I was much smaller then.

I helped him build a lot of stuff, too. Rabbit cages, fences, chicken pens... I loved to watch him working with the forge. Daddy was pretty creative in his own right.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    September 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    February 2017
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    Categories

    All
    Agent Orange
    Apps
    Book Reviews
    Books
    Family
    #goals
    Indies
    Marketing
    NanoWriMo 2017
    NanoWriMo2020
    New Orleans
    Octave Thanet Project
    OER
    PhysicianFamily
    Podcasts
    Politics
    Research
    #resources
    The Huey Files
    The Other Half
    Tools
    Writing
    #writing
    Writing Software

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • The Octave Thanet Project
  • About
  • Privacy
    • Angelic Rodgers >
      • Signed Copies of Homecoming >
        • Signed copies of Elegant Freefall