Back by semi-popular demand this is a reprint and because I think it’s really funny. Also I’m reprinting this one because my brother, who says some of the most &%$#*@ up stuff in the world, is in the hospital. Goodnews though, yesterday he started calling the nurses “darlin'” so I know he’ll be ok.
*%$#* my dad and brother said.
Yeah, William Shatner has a bad show and he’s a pain in the *$% who says messed up &!)*, but I think we all have fathers with ridiculous ideas.
My dad, I Granger McDaniel, was a genius, a visionary, a war hero, but he said some *^@% up stuff.
I remember when I was a little girl, sitting at the table with my mom, dad and brothers,I started picking at my food, pushing the peas under the bread, because I was full and didn’t want to eat anymore. My mother told me I had to eat the rest of my dinner and Dad interrupted her , “Don’t make the girls clean their plates, the fat ones are hard to get married off”. Serisoulsy…he said that out loud.
When I was four, I sat on Dad’s lap, played with his massive mustache and told him an epic story about bears and trolls and the fairies who lived in my underwear drawer. He laughed, shook his head and said, “Little girls, as soon as they can open their eyes they can flirt, as soon as they can open their mouths they can lie”. This was during the sixties when sexism was pretty white bread.
I Granger said some other absurd and brilliant things too, but maybe the two most important comments were a lot easier to follow. My two favorites were, “On any given day, anything can happen”. Think about it. That one is as right as rain. Miricles do happen, unbeatable teams loose, sometimes losers and long shots win. Anything is possible on any given day.
And finally, he would sit on the edge of my bed every night and remind me, “When your imagination accepts it as reality, it will inevitably become the truth”. For crazy people and little girls that’s a powerful mantra. It makes you brave no matter how enormous the enemy; it allows you to dream and believe the best can and will happen. That phrase allowed me to keep faith and hope alive, no matter how disastrous the situation. Obviously, those are re-phrased biblical ideas. My father wanted me to believe, to have faith and to see that everything is possible.
I hang on to my father’s words, all of them, the good and the bad, and too this day, I never ever clean my plate.