Turning Into Dad, and That's Not So Bad

A happy man, even with his daughter trying to crush him.

The funky cowlick that makes a center part look like a hockey stick has always been there. The clomping rhythm of my feet going up the stairs came a little later. The desire to never have to leave my town, though, is pretty much the thing that cinched it.

At an age when most women worry about turning into their mother, I have turned into my father.

It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a strange thing to realize. For starters, my dad wasn’t what you would call a regular guy. While most dads might yell at their kids for not going to sleep at night, my dad had his own way of taking care of the problem. He’d sneak around the back of the house, go onto the deck, quietly open a screen, pop his head into the bedroom I shared with my two sisters, growl and make his dentures go in and out. That pretty much scared us into submission.

My dad was also someone who noticed the little things around him; it’s what made him a superb photographer, which was his profession. He’d make us stop what we were doing to look at a particularly beautiful sunset or listen to a chirp that made it clear a certain bird was back for the spring.

And it was the little things in which my dad took the greatest joy. Like the little town in which he was born and the little town where he and my mom settled and where I was raised, the same town I live in today. He knew everyone and they knew him, a facet of his personality but also the nature of his business of shooting weddings, families, babies and high school seniors.  He had his morning coffee crew at the local diner and his Lions Club bingo tent to man.

He never wanted to leave this place. After he served his time in Korea, he rarely crossed the state line of Wisconsin ever again. “I already saw the world,” he told me once, and he was just happy to be home. Still, I lived in Iowa for 21 years and maybe one visit would have been nice. But, I’d tell my friends, my dad’s head might explode if he crossed the Wisconsin border.

His reticence to leave home became a joke in the family. My mom wisely gave up after a while and just started going places without him. When my sister got married in Atlanta, he had no choice but to go. One of my siblings was there with a camera to snap a picture of my dad in the car the moment the family crossed the border from Wisconsin into Illinois.

Years ago, it was a joke. Now, I get it. What a wonderful thing to feel that where you are is the best place in the world. For years, my head could never get around that because it’s a big old world out there and I wanted to see it. But in a world where people are constantly on the go and always thinking the grass is greener somewhere else, my dad was utterly content with where he was. What a lucky man.

I’m starting to get that, and this is where I’m becoming my dad: I never want to leave this place. I’m having a hard time planning a summer vacation because I just kind of like hanging around here. I have a well-stamped passport and I wonder if it’s ever going to get stamped again. I’m content; I love where I live.

I was somewhat helped in this regard by having two consecutive summers of health issues that kept me home from work a lot. It’s during that time I discovered that my little town is a completely different place during the day than it is at night. Where the streets are relatively quiet after 6 p.m., they bustle during the day. Because I was home so much I began spending time at a local coffee shop. Now I have my own coffee crew and rarely get to read my newspaper there because I see so many people I know.

Where in the evenings the businesses are closed and Main Street is quiet, during the day I can walk down the street and wave at all the business owners through their shop windows – to Mary Jane, to Karla, to Peg, to Donna, to Henri, to Mo, to Rebecca, to Julie, to John.

Once I had to go back to work five days a week, I suddenly did not want to. I realized, like my dad had so many years ago, that this was the place that brought me comfort and I didn’t want to leave it.

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But you have to make a living, so I make the 25-mile trek each day, down Main Street in my car instead of on foot, through the five roundabouts that make up the eastern exit out of this town. When I work a regular day shift, it’s a trek where sneezes mark my departure and my arrival. I’m one of those people who sneezes at the sun, and to leave town facing east in the morning and to return facing west in the evening creates an interesting driving challenge in a town with five roundabouts.

I see the sneezes as the bookmarks to note when I leave and when I return, but they’re not really necessary. Because all I need to know to make me smile is that I am home, and I have my dad to thank for that.

A beautiful place. Who would ever want to leave?