Me and my dad at Veterans Stadium. You get the idea.
My dad really likes to talk about his “deprived” childhood and to repeatedly ask: “what am I, an orphan”? The difference between my dad and other “I walked to school barefoot in the dead of winter” dads is my dad really WAS deprived and really WAS an orphan. To make up for his deprived, orphanage to chicken farm childhood, and thanks to the University of Scranton via the gi bill, my dad made it his mission to pack as many leisure activities into his life and our lives as possible (he also – alarmingly and to the horror of his children – insisted on trying everything we did).
My dad’s uniform was checked shorts, deck shoes, camera and a cigar. Whether bbq-ing, throwing horseshoes, playing first base, or sitting on the lake or a beach, he was never without a stogie, which was naturally mortifying. He engaged in all the regulation style leisure activities: swimming, shuffle board, softball, bowling, ping pong, billiards, biking, gardening, skating, skiing, horseshoes, sledding, camping and tennis. He put a badminton net, a horseshoe set and a croquet set in the backyard, a pingpong table in the basement, and a Johnny Bench Batter-Up for me in the driveway. He was always the first one on the Slip n Slide or to jog through a sprinkler. He took us dangerous-sledding to “Dead Man’s Hill” (graveyard), to miniature golf and to the batting cages.
My dad taught us how to play cribbage and cards, handicap a horserace and accurately (the “Richie Ashburn Way ” or the highway), score a ball game, and how to not catch anything like a girl. My brother wasn’t sporty, so was subjected to the outlandish and disingenuous bribery scheme of running after long fly balls, being shouted at that: “if you catch it, you get anything at Korvettes”.
My dad really wanted my brother to play peewee hockey at the rink where my sister and I skated. When that didn’t happen, my dad took figure skating lessons (quel horror). He also insisted on learning to ski, which is a blog post all its own. He finally accepted my brother was never going to be the sporting type and threw himself into his sons nerdier pursuits including yes, ham radio. They both got ham radios licenses.
I was the sporty one and my dad and I went to hundreds Phillies, 76ers and Flyers games (the Eagles were out of our league), taking the horrible subway from Fern Rock tohe Vet or Spectrum. When I showed a young girls interest in horses, we went to Liberty Bell Racetrack in Northeast Philly, a terrible place that was rumoured to have been torched and is now a Wal-Mart.
When dad was left to entertain the 3 of us for the day, he would take us to one of several places; bowling; miniature golf; hobby shop or we’d go to on weird, window shopping expeditions, like to”Korvettes” or “Two Guys” as an activity, or a tropical fish store (we didn’t have an aquarium), or to look at motorhomes, which my mom would never have allowed. He’d take us to eat at Ye Olde Beef and Ale which was not a restaurant and once he decided a good outing would be a tour of the old Schmidts Brewery.Naturally he was a big fan of cook-outs and vacations and taking”movies” with a super-8 camera.
We’d go to this crappy, claptrap in the Poconos every summer with our cousins, which was a veritable Eden of leisure activities and shuffleboard reigned supreme. We would fish at the virtually fishless Big Bass Lake, catching inedible and primordial catfish which we ate anyway. My brother convinced my dad to buy him a “Pocket Fisherman”, a TV novelty that broke literally on its first cast. My dad complained for DECADES about how Erik was never interested in fishing (he was not), that he just wanted to fiddle around with the gadgets (he did).
He bought a tractor and let us drive it on the streets. But what got him the nickname of Super Dad by the neighborhood kids was when he bought us a freaking go-kart.
Every year since I can remember, my dad promised me that we would go to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
When I was 16 and already away at college, I bitterly accused him of never making good on that promise. “You plan it and we’ll do it”, he said. I trotted off to the local AAA, got my travel books and triptychs and plotted out our trip to Cooperstown.
