When I began working and was able to do something about
it, I did. My parents split up when I was eighteen, and for my dad’s first
birthday without my mom, my sister and I took him to Outback Steakhouse to
celebrate. We almost never went to sit-down dinner places when we were young
because my parents simply couldn’t afford it. Going to Outback was a rare
treat, something we had done as a family only once before for my mom’s birthday
years ago. The whole time during my dad’s birthday dinner he kept asking if we
were sure we could afford to pay for it, and he kept skimping on what he would
order for himself because he didn’t want us to have to pay. We encouraged him
to get the steak he wanted and to add the mushrooms if he wanted them, that it
was okay to get a Coke too. Once he relaxed we had a great time, and it became
a tradition to take him out to dinner for his birthday.
When he turned 50, we wanted to make it a big occasion.
We asked him where he wanted to go to dinner and he chose Red Lobster. Then my
sister and I went to work, calling everyone in the family who could make it and
even calling a few of his friends from the past that he hadn’t seen for years,
including “uncle Ron,” one of my dad’s former co-worker he had lost touch with.
It was a great night. Ever after my extended family was on the guest list for
my dad’s birthday.
My dad is a really wonderful person, someone I admire a
lot. He is so smart but he’s a bit of an agoraphobic person. He is only social
and goes out if someone goads him into it but he’s a lot of fun when he agrees.
I try my best to be the catalyst for him having a good time and I think his
birthday is now something that not only he looks forward to but that my family
looks forward to as well.
RADIO: Cinnamon Bear “The
Parade”, Jump Jump and the Ice Queen “Trapped in the Turret”, JonathanThomas and his Christmas on the Moon “Captured by Squeebublians”
MOVIE: Growing up, I always
thought of It's a Wonderful Life as my mom’s favorite movie, and one that I
didn’t really care for. She’d watch it in the afternoons while she sewed
buttons back on shirts or hemmed torn jeans into shorts. It was long and in
black and white and it certainly didn’t appeal to kids. The scene in the
beginning when the pharmacist slaps young George until his ear bleeds used to
scare me.
It wasn’t until years later when I became interested in
black and white movies that I watched it again and fell in love with it.
(Funnily enough, my mom’s love of this movie was a deterrent for me to show
interest in old movies. I didn’t want to be teased and “I told ya so”ed by her,
so I tried to hide my interest at first until I was sure I liked them.)
My dad told me later that when he and my mom first
started dating, they started talking about their favorite movies. He couldn’t
remember the name of his, but he told her it began with the stars and an angel
talking to God in heaven, and the angel being sent down to earth to help a man
through a hard time. She said, “Well that sounds really stupid.” Years after
that, they sat down to watch It’s a Wonderful Life on TV and my dad told her, “This
is that movie I was telling you about.” She said, “Oh, I love this movie!”
I adore Frank Capra. His movies embody hope, which is an
essential part of life. He doesn’t skimp on harsh realities in his films, which
is what makes the hopeful moments all the more powerful. This movie is
especially wonderful because it shows that you have to take bad times along
with the good ones and that you have to keep working for better things but if
you take the time to notice all the good things in your life, you will forget
the bad ones. And it shows that faith in God can get you through even the worst
situations. I really love that this movie emphasizes how the everyman (played
by the quintessential everyman—Jimmy Stewart) can make a difference in the
world, even if it seems like it is only a small contribution.
SONG: “Christmas
Blues” by the Dukes of Dixieland
GIFT
MEMORY: My grandma is a collector, which is probably where I got
my impulse from. For years she collected pigs because of a joke one of her kids
made about her being a little piggy. One Christmas, soon after the movie Babe
came out, she got a stuffed talking Babe with mice attached who would say
phrases from the movie, our favorite being “What a pig!” Then she got rid of
her pig collection and started collecting porcelain dolls. She had a huge
display of them in the spare bedroom, dozens of white box shelves along the
main wall with the center one working as a reading light. When my cousins and I
stayed the night there, we’d marvel at the massive doll collection, but we were
never allowed to touch it. Then, when I was a teenager, she gave the dolls away
to us. She laid them all out on her bed and we got to choose them one at a time
until they were all taken. Then she started collecting Longaberger baskets. We
have many videos of her receiving items for her collections over the years.
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