| I'm a southern boy born and bred. I've hunted deer, played football and baseball, fished for the big ones out at old Red Bluff, planted a garden, eaten squirrel and rabbit, chewed tobaccy, and knocked my self plumb silly with about 3 swallows of the best moonshine whiskey this side of China. For a good portion of my life I was your typical all-American male complete with a pick-up truck and Yosemite Sam mud flaps. Now you ask, what does this have to do with single parenthood. Nothing really but I wanted you to understand the road I traveled.
The real point here was born in 1986 and in 1992, all of a sudden, it was just the two of us. Suddenly the redneck, deer-killin', country boy was a full-time single dad to the cutest little angel of a gal you have ever seen. At six years old she put her hand on my head as we ate the last piece of venison from the freezer and said, "Dad, we're gonna be fine". At six years old she helped me dig a hole in the back yard and have a make believe funeral for the dozen or so plugs of tobacco I had left in a symbolic gesture of putting that habit to rest. At six years old she looked at me like I was some kind of God in her eyes and turned my backbone to Jell-O by simply saying, "I love you Daddy". At six years old she turned her forty-year old dad into a real man. I don't mind telling you that when this came about I was as scared as a fox at a hound convention. The only thing that settled my nerves was remembering how much I loved that child. I knew there were things she was going to need from me that I had no idea how to provide. I also knew that she was going to get whatever she needed no matter what I had to do. The only exception to that was she needed a mother. I had no desire to have another wife so my only choice was to become her mother as well as her dad. I sold my deer rifle and set about the business of gettin' in touch with my feminine side. Whew! I never thought I could say that out loud. At any rate, so began the growing process. I was already a pretty good cook with most of what you would call your manly meals. Steaks on the grill, spaghetti, barbeque, and those kinds of dishes were no problem. Through the "growing process" and about a hundred cook books later, not to mention dozens and dozens of late night consultations with my distant older sister, I had cooking down pat. I can slap down a southern country meal of fried chicken, rice and gravy, black-eyed peas, and biscuits that are what we call "slap yo mammy good". But I also learned the art of making it look good as well and having a much broader cuisine to include things like Eggs Benedict (I make one killer hollandaise sauce), Pecan-Crusted Chicken in Honey-Mustard Sauce, German Chocolate Cake, well I guess you get the idea. Needless to say, the child has not had to go without eating some pretty good food. Keeping house was another challenge. I thought it always pretty much cleaned itself. It seemed to me that was one of the reasons you had to pay so much for a place to live. Of course it didn't take but about a week of it not cleaning itself to realize just how dumb that assumption was. As it turns out, it's not so hard if you just do a little every day. The only problem I was having was that little bit every day seemed to apply to everything I had to do. It amounted to about 30 hours and somehow I seemed to remember there were only 24 to play with and some of those were supposed to be spent resting. Oh Well!! I figured I could rest when she was grown. I was amazed at all the things I had to learn. The hair rolling episode was a complete disaster and ended with a trip the next day to the hair dresser who had to cut the knots and curlers out of the poor child's head. Afterwards she just told me she loved me and I was never allowed to touch her hair again. The fingernail painting episode was also not one of my finer moments and we both almost overdosed on the prevalent smell of the polish remover which we had to use in way to many places. That one ended pretty well, however, as I fell asleep in my chair and awoke the next morning with bright red toenails and not a drop of remover in the house. She told me later it was payback for what I did to her hair. Do keep in mind at this point she was only about eight. We lived in the country and we did have a dog as most country folks do. My daughter was constantly after me to have more animals and somehow I kind of let it get out of hand. The funniest part of all was in letting her name the animals as they came. The list seems almost endless now and I can't imagine how I let it go so far. The dogs name was Brandy but she soon changed it to Jackass. The reason for that was theme related. I bought a horse and she named her Rhino. My sister gave us two miniature goats and she named them Cat and Kitty. We found 2 cats someone had put out as kittens and she named them Mouse and Dog. A domestic rabbit showed up in our front yard one day and he became Kangaroo. Then at the end of the school year she brought home the class goldfish whose name was Sharky. Now do you remember that thing about me not having enough hours in the day. This was not a money-producing animal farm. I still had to go to work every day but I seemed to get more rest there than I did at home. Things actually rocked along pretty well over the years with minor exceptions. She did occasionally ask the dreaded sex questions. Since I didn't have a woman in my life to hand those off to, I just tried being honest but not too forthcoming, at least not more forthcoming than I thought she could handle at whatever age she was at the time. It seemed to work pretty well but that in itself is what I attribute to being completely white headed by the time I was 45. The red toenails might have also had a little bit to do with it. The two all-consuming goats might have played a small part as well. At 52, all I can say is, "At least it didn't fall out". She matured very well and at the tender age of 16, she was ready to drive. I had regressed a little and had in the meantime bought me a toy. I had what I called "my ugly truck". It was an old 1976 Explorer/Ranger with a little of it's green paint left and a 351 engine bored out to a 400. In other words, you could drive down the road and watch the gas needle fall as you went. You could also watch people stare and wonder what it was as you drove by . It wasn't our main mode of transport and was used mostly to haul food for the all-consuming goats. I knew it had to go in order to get her something to drive. This feeling was accentuated when she asked me if she could drive it one day when we were just going down the road to a neighbors. Keep in mind it did not have power brakes nor did it have power steering. When we got to our neighbors house, he no longer had a fence across the front of his house either. He was pretty nice about it though. We worked out a deal where he kept the truck and fixed his own fence and gave her a nice little Buick Regal that was much easier for her to drive. I think it was a fair deal but I sure hated to see that ugly truck go. Along with driving came more freedom for her, of course, and boys. I thank the Lord she was pretty level headed and had pretty good taste. I only had to chase one off. He came to visit in his little pick-up truck one day and as he started to pull away, I noticed a bumper sticker on his truck. It read, "If I had known it was going to turn out like this I would have picked my own damn cotton" and it was emblazoned with a rebel flag. Now as I pointed out earlier, I am a southern country boy and I really have no problem with the rebel flag. The racist sentiment, however, was not something I had ever exposed my daughter to and not something I wanted her associated with. Of course as a protective dad I made a complete fool out of myself and discussed it with him just long enough to determine those really were his sentiments and then chased him away. I could have let her do it because when she realized how he felt, she didn't want anything to do with him anyway. I have to admit though, it felt pretty good to chase his raggedy little butt off...ha ha ha. Now my daughter has finished high school, with honors I might add, has a good job, and plans to start college in a few months. She and I are at a point where we simply enjoy each others company and anguish over life not giving us quite enough time to spend together these days. She quite often invites me out to eat or play with either just her or with her and her friends or even boy friends. I love what we have now and the closeness we share. I don't look forward to her moving on and out but I can tell you this. There could not be a father on the face of this earth that is more proud of one of his children. She is so much more than I ever dared hope for and so much more than her father. She will go far in life as she has the drive and the intelligence to do whatever she wants to do. Meanwhile, I trudge ahead with my day-to-day, content with all I had to do and with the knowledge that she was well worth the trying times. What really stands out in my mind now is just how much I want to buy a truck, shoot a deer, catch a fish, drink a beer, and watch a football game in my underwear. Home E-mail Me Sign my guestbook |
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