When I was
little, my dad worked 2 jobs, 7 days per week.
Still, it seemed he was around to spend time with my siblings and me. I remember playing catch in the back yard or
side yard. There was no house east of
ours for several years. Therefore, we
used that open lot to play baseball and football. Dad was the pitcher for baseball. He was the “full time quarterback” in
football. I remember he took the time to
teach us the basics of each sport. When
my brother started playing basketball, he had a pole and basket and backboard installed.
One thing
I was considering today was my dad’s use of the English language. There are various phrases that he used. Here are a couple: there was a time when money was short and they
barely had “two nickels to rub together,“ When my sister took Spanish in high school, he
started saying, “Pour 4 more” (instead of por favor in Spanish). The one that really stood out today was ‘Killer
holt.”
My dad
loved to wrestle with his kids when they were small. When we were very young, he’d wrestle all 3
of us at the same time. Every so often,
he’d get one of us in a hold that was hard for us to escape. Then he’d say he had us in a “killer holt.”
If someone
was tired or wanted to quit, then he’d say we couldn’t “take the roar of the
big guns.” Actually, that phrase is used
in any circumstance where someone wants to quit or just doesn’t feel like doing
something.
I think my
favorite phrase of his actually turned out not to be a Windellism. My dad is very handy and has always been a
mechanic and he later became a certified electrician. From time to time, I would help dad with
things he worked on. He would ask me for
a particular tool and I would hand it to him.
I remember early on handing him a Phillips screwdriver when he asked for
one. For years, I thought that dad just made
that up. It wasn’t until I took a shop
class in high school that I learned dad didn’t make that up.
I love my
dad and am so proud to be his son.
No comments:
Post a Comment