I'm A Little Late With These

I was cleaning out some old picture boxes and I came across a note titled "Dad Memories". I had meant to add them to this blog a LONG time ago. I guess it's better late than never. Some of them are most likely repeats. Sorry, I didn't take the time to look. I hope they bring a smile to your face, like they did for me. 1. OUR HOUSE I had many memories written down of him working on mine and Jer's first house. That house was actually a combination of work from so many different people. We had grandpa Kraker replace our PVC pipe railings with actual wood and fix our ridiculously uneven stairs. Grandma Kraker put in many hours painting walls, and mom and grandma Kleinheksel put in many cleaning hours. Bry put in bathroom cabinets. I think almost all of you were part of our big painting project since Jer didn't like having a pinkish house! But dad, by far, spent the most time on that house. More than Jer or I. Dad gutted the bathroom, laid linoleum in the kitchen, carpeted, drywalled, supervised the painting (you know what I'm talking about) and made sure no paintbrush handles had any paint on them. When I had Jordyn, he helped us add a room on. When I had Jace, he connected our 2 dormers in the roof and moved us upstairs. He helped re-shingle the roof. No matter what project we had going, he was always there. I remember a few specific things. He had laid the linoleum in our kitchen and bathroom. When he finished, only I was there and he desperately wanted our refrigerator moved back into place. I told him Jer would be home soon, but when he wants something done, there is no waiting. He proceeded to move it himself. As he pushed it along our newly laid floor (which he had admired repeatedly as "looking darn nice"), he put a nice long scrape in it. I felt sick inside....it was brand new floor and a big ol' scrape. Of course, I complained and asked why he couldn't have just waited to move the fridge. His response, "Do you want me to make a scrape worth complaining about?" I knew to never mention it to him again. He never did compliment that floor as looking "darn nice" again though. Don't worry....there were plenty of other "darn nice" things in our house for him to comment on. I also remember him constanly complaining about our house not being square. He had lots of ideas of things we should do to improve the house...but none were ever in our price range. He hated our garage floor. To be fair, it was 1/2 cement and 1/2 dirt and very annoying. I think Jer heard this phrase 1,000 times. "It's too bad you don't know a good cement guy that could fix this floor." 2. OUR LAWN We only had a push mower and Jer worked a lot, so mowing fell on me. I tended to let it go a little too long. One day, the mower kept turning off on me....because the grass was too long. I didn't realize that was the reason at the time, so I called dad to ask him what was wrong with it. He just said the grass is probably too long and that was it. He didn't mention coming over and he was at work at the time. However, no more than an hour later, he shows up unannounced with a lawn mower on a trailer and proceeds to mow our lawn. You'd think I'd be surprised, but I wasn't. This was just typical for him. 3. ANDREW IN CHURCH Dad used to pinch our leg if we were being too loud in church. And it worked to keep us quiet....until Andrew came along. I remember dad leaning over and giving Andrew a good pinch on the leg, and then Andrew loudly declaring, "OUCH, that hurt!" We all know how much dad loved calling attention to himself. I think of this whenever I go to discipline my kids in church. 4. Repossessing My Car This happened when I worked at West Shore Counseling. I don't remember the reason that he had to come there. I probably forgot something and he was dropping it off. Anyway, I wasn't at my desk when he walked in and the girl who was at my desk had no idea who he was. He asked her to find me and then proceeded to tell her that he was there to repossess my car. I'll never forget the look on her face when she came to let me know that someone was taking my car. 5. A Couple Small Things When he called the dishwasher our cupboard. When he called our stairs the shelves. Singing Great big globs of greasy grimy gopher guts Doing I'm a Little TeaPot motions with us as kids, and also climbing up his legs and flipping us over When he always asked me if I "had a monopoly on the bathroom" Tubing at Dumont and whipping Bryan and Mike Becksvoort thru the reeds.