To My Valentine

I came home from skiing this afternoon (okay, maybe the more honest thing to say would be "I limped home after a few mountains kicked my butt today,") to discover that Cupid had left an early Valentine's Day surprise on my porch from one of the great loves of my life - my dad! This is the man who taught me many important lessons in life, a selection of which are listed below:

1) "Look it up!" My dad would never tell us the meaning of a word. Oh, no - we had to go heft the large dictionary with the slippery cover off the desk shelf, thumb through the thousands of pages until we found the entry we sought, and then go report to him what the word in question meant. While I found it irritating that he would never just tell me, I am grateful today for my expansive loquacity that in overwhelmingly large part is due to him. I also cherish my own copy of the Webster's Dictionary he gave to me on my 18th birthday, which, fortunately, does not have an irksome paper jacket.

2) "Don't ever start a fight. But if you're ever in a fight, make sure you end it!" My dad taught me and my sister to be tough and never take dirt from anybody. We were to be respectful, decent, law-abiding citizens at all times, but if someone threw a punch/kick/pinch/squeeze/whatever, we were to pummel some respect into them pronto. I've never had to use a fist to settle a spat, but I sure have walked taller and surer knowing that if it came down to it, Dad would bail me out of jail for kicking the snot out of a disrespectful guy.

3) "Never, ever, ever pretend to be dumb to get a guy to like you." My dad taught us girls that one of our most valuable traits and talents was our intellect. No one worth our time would expect us to be any less than brilliant, capable, and correct. Megan and I would shake our heads over the idea that any girl would let a boy think she wasn't as smart as him (if not smarter) in order to catch his eye. What sort of losers did girls want to attract, anyway? I guess Dad taught us well, because we would so much rather trounce a guy in intellectual pursuits than bat our eyes and say, "Gosh, I don't know!" Kind of like how Anne Shirley beat Gilbert hands down in that spelling bee in "Anne of Green Gables." Now that was the way to do it!

4) "If you're going to make a mistake, be creative - make a new one." The value of this advice speaks for itself. It is far better to learn from someone else's mistakes than to plow ahead and make the same dumb choices that have caused misery since the world began. While we knew our dad would forgive us our gaffes and love us no matter what, his advice has helped me remember to be original rather than do something stupid just because "everyone else is doing it."

5) "Hands behind your back!" Nowadays, it is impossible to go into a store, a library, or any other public place without seeing a bunch of kids running wild. They tear stuff off the shelves, ride bikes through Walmart, scream and throw tantrums, and wreck merchandise that their parents have no intention of paying for. Were we allowed such liberties? Heck, no! We were taught to be polite, careful, respectful, and decent, which meant that although we may not have had such hedonistic fun as the other kids, we were invited out to lots of nice functions, parties, gatherings, etc. because other people could trust us to act like ladies in their homes and businesses.

6) "Never interrupt an adult when they are talking." Sometimes it annoyed us that Dad would make us wait until he was finished talking to another adult before we could tug on his sleeve and ask him something like, "Can we go outside?" "Can we go watch a movie with so-and-so?" "Can we have the candy that's out on the table?" or whatever. To interrupt adults in a conversation without waiting to be acknowledged was verboten. I'll bet that even if there was a fire ravaging the building in which we are were standing right at that moment, my dad would still have made us wait a minute or two while he finished talking before he would have permitted us to address him and say, "Excuse me, Dad, but I believe we are all about to be obliterated in flames." Even so, we learned manners and social graces and became the kind of kids other people wanted to be around, instead of the kind of kids who got kicked out of the Pizza Caboose and attached bowling alley because we behaved like wild monkeys.*

So thank you, Dad, not only for the wonderful surprise, but being the kind of dad who loves his kids and wants them to be the best they can be. I'm grateful for your love and guidance, your support and encouragement, and I'm proud to be your daughter! Happy Valentine's Day!

* Editor's note: This actually happened. Growing up, a little friend of ours - who was an only child and the darling of her parents' eyes - was allowed to do whatever she wanted with no consequences ever, at least as far as we could see. One year she whipped up the other kids at her birthday party into such a frenzy (while Megan and I watched in awe, curiosity, and horror) that the whole group of us was asked to leave the Pizza Caboose and bowling alley and never come back. To be tossed unceremoniously out of a kids-oriented venue because of bad behavior is just plain shameful.

Me and my dad on my wedding day: