When I was eight-years-old, my father put a 22 caliber rifle in my hands and told me to keep the barrel pointing to the ground.
As he walked in front of me that day, the gun discharged. The bullet embedded in the dirt just inches from his feet. I didn’t hold a gun again until I was fifteen.
Although sport hunting was never something I condoned, my father hunted game for food. Growing up, we ate rabbit, squirrel, pheasant and deer, but the last time I “hunted” was when I was fifteen.
On a frigid November morning in south Georgia shortly after I turned fifteen, my father put me in a tree stand twenty feet off the ground. All morning, I watched doe, a large buck, and a litany of critters scurry beneath me, taking pictures with my Canon F-1 that I’d hidden in my coat. I decided then that my empathic soul preferred observing animals, not shooting them.
Back at the hunting camp that day, dad watched me approach from the woods. “Any luck?”
I leaned my rifle against the cabin and folded my arms. “I didn’t see a thing,” I said.
Hunting and the outdoors were the extent of our formal bonding, and before I turned sixteen, it was over. While we remained close and connected in other ways, my father didn’t attend my soccer games, wrestling matches, or track events. After all, he had three boys to contend with.
When my first textbook was published for McGraw Hill, he was absent from my book signing party. I tried again with my second book and inscribed a dedication to him. He never read the book.
I coined his behavior as selective engagement. It’s the way he was, but he’s my dad. He has always been there for all three of us. He guided me through college and helped me buy a car when I graduated.
After traveling for a month, I called him when I returned to Atlanta.
“I’m back. I’ll drive up. We can have dinner and I’ll stay. We can hang out on Sunday.”
My dad had Bluetooth hearing aids that connect into his phone, so talking to him was often challenging. His voice sounded as though he were speaking through aluminum foil.
“Say again? Where are you at?” he said.
“Dad. I’m back from Columbia. I’m here in Atlanta. Home.” I almost shout.
“Okay. See you later.”
As usual, he hung up before we discussed times.
When I arrived at his mountain home that afternoon, he was asleep in his chair. “Hi Dad,” I said.
He turned his head, startled. I stepped to his side to hug him as he stood.
“Long time no see,” I said.
“I’ll say. Where ya been?”
We embraced, and I recognized that in the month I’d been gone, he was less in bone and flesh.
“I’m beat. I washed all the windows on the back of the house,” he said proudly. He pointed to the masterfully clean windows.
“It’s a lot, dad. Pay a high school kid. He’d do it for $20 bucks.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “It’s keeps me busy.” He shuffled forward and scoffed. “Nothing wrong with hard work.”
Of course, I knew this. It was how he raised three boys, and we all enjoyed physical labor to this day. Yet his preoccupation had other reasons. He lost his wife suddenly in September and remains submerged in grief (I wrote about this here).
We decided on the Thai restaurant down the mountain we often visited. “Drive through town. It’s pretty with the Christmas lights,” he tells me.
The town square of Dahlonega was like the perfect Hallmark postcard — they’d filmed Hallmark movies here, complete with fake foam snow and fake plastic trees.
The square bustled. Lights ignited every storefront and a horse-drawn carriage circled the streets as Christmas music blared through the facade. Traffic backed up at each stop sign as revelers crossed streets carrying hot chocolate and babies.
“Well, damn, I didn’t know it’d be this busy,” said dad as we sat and waited in the car lines. But he says this whenever we visit the square.
“It’s fine. What’s the rush?” I said. “It’s only 5:30.” I knew he was hungry.
As we drove down the mountain roads, I put Christmas music on. Away from the square, the roads darkened and twisted as we cruised along the river.
When we get to the major intersection to 400, dad says, “I hate this intersection. Eli had her stroke right here. She suddenly said she had a headache, so I took her to the hospital, right there.” He gestured to the new medical facility right off the interstate.
“I know, Dad,” I said. “You did the best you could.” I lost count of how many times he’s recounted that night.
His eyes teared, and like many do when they cry uncontrollably, he attempted to hide it by sealing his lips. “I just can’t believe a stroke took her so quickly.”
At the restaurant, we say hello to the Thai family that owns the place and waited until they cleared a booth for us. “We should order the coconut soup,” dad said.
I ordered two bowls.
“Did we ask for coconut soup?” dad asked a beat later.
“Yes. I ordered two.”
“Okay. I thought so.”
The soup was subtly sweet and creamy, with delicious mushroom and tender chicken.
After, I ordered us both our favorite entrée, chicken pad Thai.
We sat in silence. I showed him pictures of my trip to Medellin, Columbia, and told him about my four-day hike to the Lost City. He feigned interest and grinned, something he’d done his entire life. It was just the way he was.
“Did we order dinner?” he said.
“Yes, dad. I ordered us both the pad Thai.”
“I thought so.” He looked around the restaurant. “This is such a good place. Always clean. The food is always good.”
Small talk was big in my family and it drove me nuts. Food is good. Weather is good. The wine is good. Over and over. Then, I’m full. I ate too much. Gosh, that was good.
Back at home, we sat in the living room surrounded by deer on the walls as dad prepared his heating pad for his back, a nightly ritual. We spent many holidays in this room and my son took his first steps here.
The Christmas tree blinked in the corner, decorated with the same trimmings I'd see every year, and two stockings hang over the fireplace, just like in other years.
“I miss her,” he said, looking at the stockings.
“I miss her too,” I said. It was true. She inserted herself into conversations about politics and the state of the world, and I miss our conversations. It was too silent in the house without her.
“Should I put some music on?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“What kind?”
Play what you want.”
“Christmas?”
“Sure.”
He grunts and stands and moves to his newly resurrected pile of CDs, objects I haven’t seen in decades.
“Anne Murray or Elvis?”
“Elvis,” I say.
He plays the Elvis Christmas record and sits back in his chair.
“Is Anne Murray still alive?” I ask.
Dad thumbs his phone. “Yep, she should be dead. She’s old.” He looks up. “Did you know she’s Canadian? I didn’t know.”
After the first few tracks of Elvis, I am reminded of how good that record is, how it showcased his talents as a musician and a vocalist. It had everything from blues to gospel to rock, and it was so much more than a Christmas record. I’d written an article about it for the All Media Guide years ago.
“You been to Graceland?” he asks.
“No,” I say.
“I’ve been. You can see his jet, go inside. Not at the mansion, but in town.”
It reminds how much I don’t know about my dad. He had made that trip on his motorcycle with a group of biker friends. I was glad he sold it years ago.
Now the blues-based rock and roll piece, Santa Claus Is Back in Town, shouted from the CD. I knew it well. Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, it was one of my favorites.
“I’d forgotten how good this Christmas record is,” I say, repeating my thoughts.
Dad perks up. “It’s a classic. Sold millions of copies.”
I nod.
“Did Elvis have a sister?” he asks suddenly.
“Nope, no sister. He had a brother that died.”
Like a light switch, dad switches topics, ruminating about the past, something I noticed him doing a lot, and something that is common when grieving a loved one.
“I gave your brother my Dad’s brace pins.”
“What? Brace pins?”
“Yeah, pins for his legs he wore back in the forties. He used to pull his leg up and over the other with them.”
I don’t recall dad ever discussing this, but I assume it was for a primitive surgery that his father later recovered from. “I don’t recall his legs having pins.”
“It was way back. He wore them for a time. Anyway, I gave them to your brother.”
Good. I didn’t want them. Leg pins? Of all the abstract thoughts.
“I found this letter from Judy (his sister) that someone in our family had the name Pinter. Never knew,” he says.
Earlier, he spoke to his sister, and I heard them on speaker while in another room. “Tim’s here,” dad said, “He just got back from South America.”
“South America? What’s he doing there?” my Aunt Judy said in her raspy voice.
‘Oh, I don’t know. He goes there to see friends, I guess.”
Of course, he knew why I went — for a conference — and I’d told him that. It wasn’t his age. He did the same thing decades ago. Selective listening. Selective engagement.
Presely’s Blue Christmas blared. It was one of the most distinctive tracks on the record, with Presley demonstrating his edgy, vocal range. It was a track that the critics said defined the record.
Dad was silent. Then, “No one sang White Christmas like Bing,” he quipped. His eyes wet again.
“This is Elvis,” I said.
“I know. I’m just saying.”
On Sunday morning, dad asks me what time I want to eat. Schedule. Everything was a schedule. On my overnight visits since my stepmother’s passing, I’d told him he does not need to wait on me like I’m a guest.
Still, he persisted. I tell him I’ll be ready after my exercises in fifteen minutes, and that I’d be on the front porch, even though it was a chilly forty degrees outside.
I lost track of the time, although I knew he had whipped up scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in probably ten minutes because it was his routine.
When I was done with my exercises, I came into the kitchen. Dad sat at the table, a stoic pout on his face.
“Where did you go? I’ve been calling for you,” he said, clearly irritated.
“I told you the front porch,” I said.
“Well, I was ready. I’ll make the eggs now.” He pushed his chair with a shove as he stood. He clanged dishes and threw plates to the table.
I sat at the table and waited for him to calm, just like when I was a boy.
“I feel like I’m running a bed-and-breakfast,” he said, setting the bowl of scrambled eggs on the table with a bang.
“Maybe you are. I thought I booked a bed-and-breakfast. I slept, now I want breakfast.”
This loosens him a bit. “You’re throwing my schedule off. You said fifteen minutes, and it’s been thirty.”
“Dad, I told you I’m here to keep you company. You don’t have to treat me like a guest.”
We eat in silence and watch a squirrel investigate the planters on the back porch. The miscreant buries his head into the planter, then investigates another empty watering pitcher while a Carolina Wren nearly hops on his tail.
I knew dad still kept a BB gun on the back porch and plucked squirrels out of trees when he felt they ravished his feeders. His father did the same thing.
I recall my grandfather shooting black and red and grey squirrels because they enjoyed his bird bath.
“He’s out there every day,” my dad says as though it were a pet he’d never harm.
He passes me the plate of bacon. “I’m glad you’re back, wherever you went,” he says. “I don’t know where you go.”
Later, I look down from the loft and see my father sitting in his chair. Elvis sings the Kim Gannon hit, I’ll Be Home for Christmas.
My father stares out the window as the Christmas tree blinks and the two stockings hang over the fireplace.
I’m glad I’m home.
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