Channeling the spirit of Dad, while ordering a truck.I haven’t yet given this baby a name. But I’m working on it.
I channeled Dad in order to make a final decision about purchasing the new truck I’ve been eyeing. Dad knew his trucks. Also, Dad always had a red or blue hanky dangling from his back pocket, so I wore a hanky-esque Face Mask o’ the Day to the car dealership yesterday. I doubled-down with the black in my Bow Tie o’ the Day and the yellow in my shirt—the two colors signifying the bees Dad expertly cared for in his life-long work.
I picked up Suzanne from her office and took her on a test-drive in my potential auto acquisition. Suzanne’s tummy gets hyper-queasy when riding in bouncy vehicles like my old jalopy truck, so I wanted to make sure she could stomach the ride in this new vehicle. If she couldn’t relax and enjoy the truck’s ride, I would not even entertain the idea of acquiring this truck candidate. At some point during the test-drive—as I drove, and as Suzanne played with all the gadgets and controls in the cab—Suzanne seemed to be remarkably pleased with the level of smoothe-icity of the truck’s ride. Suzanne’s perfectly settled stomach was saying, “Yes!” to the truck. Consequently, I made my bigly decision to buy the 2022 Ford Maverick—and in my kind of flashy color, called Velocity Blue. When we finally returned the demo truck to the dealership, I was grinning through my face mask as I signed my “Helen Hancock” on the necessary paperwork. Oh, happy, wallet-emptying day! 💸💸
The bad news is this: My brand new travel toy is a special order, and it will not be built and delivered to me for 2 or 3—or maybe 4 or more—months. The good news about the bad news is this: If I don’t explode to smithereens with anticipation before my truck gets here, I will have grown my patience to superpower-strength. That kind of patience comes in handy on this planet full of imperfect human beings. Patience, I fervently believe, is the next best quality to kindness.
[This is a re-post from 2018. I miss Dad. I miss kissing the top of his head.]
Bow Tie o’ the Day displays a host of animal tracks. And Shirt o’ the Day shows my own style o’ track-makers. We’re both looking ahead to the upcoming Fall critter seasons.
I hail from a hunting-obsessed home. In our house, the first day of the deer hunt was a bigger deal than Christmas morning, and I am not exaggerating. It’s an undisputed fact.
I knew how to reload perfectly weighted bullets at my dad’s bullet press before I had even been baptized. I fished. I killed pheasants, rabbits, and allegedly a deer. But I haven’t been a hunter since I was 16. I have nothing against ethical hunting. It just isn’t in me to do it. The thrill is gone, as they say.
But every Fall brings back amazing memories of trailing behind Dad– mighty hunter extraordinaire– on opening day of the deer hunt. When I see hunters getting themselves ready for their various Fall hunts, I can’t help but think about my Dad’s knowledge of– and enthusiasm for– hunting. I see folks buying orange and/or camo clothing this time of year. I know they’re re-loading bullets or buying ammo. They are target shooting to sight-in their scopes. In fact, I can already hear the “practice” gunshots in the hills above our house. Of course, I can’t see or hear all the hunting preparations going on around me, but it’s enough to just know it’s going on. Just knowing the hunts are happening makes me feel Dad’s presence near me.
When I was a kid, a friend once asked me if Dad was as mean as he looked. I started laughing, and then I started snort-laughing. Dad was a big guy. He had a huge presence. But he was a soft-hearted jokester. And despite his stature, he was a gentle man. And a gentleman.
As an adult, I finally figured out why someone could think Dad was mean. I was once accused of looking mean myself, so I pondered the topic. I stared in the mirror and tried on some different faces until I got back to my regular face, and there it was. I could finally see it. In fact, it was in every face I pulled, to some extent. But it was most prominent in my regular face. My face was Dad’s face, and I saw that we have the same serious-looking forehead lines and the same look-right-through-you eyes. Both characteristics are there in almost every face I can muster. (They are present even in my baby photos. And in his as well.) I see the clenched, focused lines even in my silly faces. When I surveyed a bunch of photos of Dad, even when he smiled, the forehead lines and knowing eyes were there. Those serious, focused forehead lines, together with our x-ray eyes, can be mistaken for meanness at times, I suppose. I don’t see “mean” in our faces. I see “serious” and “focus” and “I know who you are” and some “don’t mess with the people I love” in our faces.
Dad and I probably missed our career callings. If we look so intimidating, we probably should have been bouncers in a bar. Or Beyonce’s bodyguards. Or UFC fighters. Or Mafia enforcers. 🍺 🥊 🔫 We coulda been somebody!
My father would have been 91 yesterday. If you ever had a chance to chat with him, you likely consider yourself lucky. He was a bear of hugs, pranks, jokes, and stories. He was kind, and he had the flirt gene. He was smitten with Mom almost from the minute he met her, but he also managed to have a lifetime affair with his endless parade of bees. I had so many mythic experiences with him, but here’s one I’ve never written about before. I don’t think I’ve ever told Suzanne about it.
In the late 90’s when I was teaching in Baltimore and living in Takoma Park, Maryland, Dad flew out to visit me. I wanted him to see some of the Washington, D.C. and Civil War sights he had always read about. We visited Harper’s Ferry and Gettysburg, and we hit all the major D.C. memorials: Lincoln, Jefferson, Vietnam, etc. One memorial was relatively new: the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. It had opened only a few months before Dad’s visit, and even I had not yet seen it yet. The FDR Memorial is what I would describe as people-sized, as opposed to the towering Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. At the FDR, you are encouraged to stand eye-to-eye with the people-sized sculptures in its four outdoor “rooms.” You are encouraged to read the braille and touch relief sculptures on walls.
Anyhoo…As we were checking out the FDR Memorial for the first time, I kept my eye on Dad to make sure he was being sufficiently entertained. At some point, I sauntered off to read a historical marker and when I turned around again, he was gone. I could not see him anywhere. I was briefly frantic, then remembered he was a grown man and could take care of himself in the bigly city.
To find him, I stood still and scanned the other sightseers in the same way Dad had taught me to look for deer: You look for the thing by NOT looking for the thing. If you look for everything else, the thing you’re really looking for will stand out. (It’s a handy trick, and it works with relationships too. Just sayin’.) I stood and listened. From just ahead and to the side of me, I heard what I can only describe as a loud whisper—the sound of an astonished little boy trying to not to call attention to himself. It was almost a whispered cry. I heard, “Fala!” (pronounced like “fall-uh”) I turned to see who had uttered that word in such a strange way. Lo and behold—it was my dad, but it wasn’t Dad. He was stopped in his tracks, staring off at a cluster of sculptures, but he didn’t resemble himself. His face looked like the pictures I had seen of him when he was a kid. The expression on his face made him look about 10. “Fala,” he quietly squealed. Was he having a stroke? I said, “Dad? Are you okay?” He didn’t look away from the sculpture scene, and once again, he said, “Fala!”
As I stood with him, he began to look more like his older self. We started to walk to the sculpture that had so surprised him. Now it began to make sense to me. I hadn’t known this bit of trivia before, but I would never forget it now: Fala was the name of FDR’s dog, and here it was in a sculpture, triggering some long-ago childhood recognition in Dad. FDR was the U. S. President of Dad’s childhood and teens. Dad had heard about/seen Fala in newspapers, magazines, fireside chats, and newsreels during FDR’s presidency, and he had remembered the name of FDR’s dog after decades had passed by. Dad then told me all about Fala. So that’s how, on that day in Washington, D.C., I got to see and hear my dad turn into a little boy for a few seconds. It was so dang cool!
Ronald E. Wright. The man. The legend. The beekeeper.
The FDR Memorial in Washington DC. (Photo by: Loop Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)Statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s pet dog, Fala at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Washington,D.C. Statue by Neil Estern
I hadn’t planned to write a post this morning because I didn’t think I would have time. You see, I had a virtual therapy appointment scheduled with my “crazy head” doctor, so I planned nothing for an early TIE O’ THE DAY. I donned a nuts-and-bolts-and-screws Bow Tie o’ the Day to symbolically scream to my doc that I have many screws loose, for which I must be treated. But when it got close to my scheduled appointment time, I got a text from my doctor asking if we could switch my appointment to 3:00 PM this afternoon.
Now, you know what time 3:00 PM on weekdays really is to me, right? It’s Judge Judy o’ clock! My world stops at Judy o’ clock. Skitter knows not to need anything at that time of day. I won’t answer the door or the phone. From 3-4 PM, I exist only in theory—not in the flesh. Judge Judy is my daily respite from mundane household tasks, the pessimism of the world, and the conspiracy theories of those who believe in something only if it’s a conspiracy theory.
So, where was I at Judy o’ clock today? In a Zoom therapy session with my “crazy head” doctor. I didn’t say “yes” to switching the appointment time because I’m in any kind of dire bipolar pothole and must be seen ASAP. I agreed to switch times for one simple fact: My parents taught me to help make things easier on folks, even in small ways. If switching the time of my appointment helps my doctor’s day work better—and it doesn’t do me any damage—I have an obligation to do it, whether I’m gleeful about it or not. And, believe me, I was not gleeful about it. But I can adapt. I can make concessions. I can get along. Judge Judy would be so proud of me.
The LDS Primary songs of my youth continue to make it impossible for me to wallow in tedious labor. “Saturday” is a song that has gone through my head every Saturday for more than fifty years now. I can’t help it. It’s just there, being the soundtrack of one entire day of every week. Some people work all week long just to get to the excitement of a wild Saturday night on the town, but that’s not how it works for me. Because of the aforementioned song, “Saturday,” from the official Primary songbook, being permanently stuck in my head, Saturday is tasks, chores, and to-do lists. But it’s oh-so fun because there’s a song to sing about it.
Like any good kid song, it is simple, and so it easily accommodates new lines about the real-life Saturday tasks I find myself engaged in. One of my best “true” lines came about because my dad—not too long before he passed away—had been on his back in the driveway, fixing something underneath his forklift. Later that Saturday afternoon, he was puzzled because he couldn’t find his lower dentures. Mom was poking around in every nook and cranny of their house to find them. I asked Dad where he had been working. I got the rake and headed for the forklift. Dad was yelling to me out the front window that he didn’t have his teeth at the forklift, so I didn’t need to look there; meanwhile, Mom came outside to give me a run-down of all the places where she hadn’t found his lowers; and just at that moment Suzanne called from Ogden, needing something. My dogs circled my feet, wanting me to throw the ball for them. My head was full of all these voices. I answered the phone and said to Suzanne, “Whatever it is, handle it. I can’t talk to you right now because I’m busy raking the gravel for Dad’s dentures. Click.” Thus, the following line was born, and I forever added it to “Saturday:” “We rake the gravel, and look for Dad’s teeth,/so we can be ready for Sunday.”
I did, in fact, find Dad’s lowers in the gravel under the forklift. My instincts were correct. He had put them in the chest pocket of his overalls while he worked, and they had slid out of the pocket as he tinkered. Suzanne later told me she thought I was drunk on the phone, because it didn’t make any sense to her why I would be raking gravel to find Dad’s teeth. Like any really good story, it didn’t make any sense at all. Of course it didn’t make sense: It was true!
My dad occasionally got the urge to make a bigly breakfast for me and Mom—his breakfast “stack,” to be precise. I’d hear him in the kitchen shredding potatoes while I was getting ready for school, and I knew I’d soon be eating a yummy, tower o’ food. The frying would quickly commence. Dad’s stack was simple, but perfect: a little olive oil, hash browns, a fried egg, a thin ham steak or bacon, cheese, more hash browns, and green onions—all stacked up high, in just that order. The stacks grew to precarious heights on our plates. It was the Leaning Tower o’ Breakfast. Dad was so very proud of his creation, which he had seen a chef make once in a nice restaurant on one of his bee trips. It’s just another thing I miss about my dad sometimes. My bacon-and-eggs shirt made me think of it today.
Fashion hint: You cannot go wrong with bacon and eggs. Just like they are appropriate for any meal, at any time of day, I believe you must have at least one bacon-and-eggs-themed piece of clothing or accessory. You can wear it anywhere, and people who see you in it will feel magically calmed and nostalgic. Merely seeing bacon-and-eggs fabric can be hypnotizing—like watching puppies or babies. Bacon-and-eggs anything causes pleasant, homey, and tasty memories for just about everyone.🥓🥚
My dad had this same haircut for all the years I knew him, and he always had a red or blue hanky in the back pocket of his striped bib overalls. He did not, however, make a point of wearing groovy bow ties. His usual idea of neckwear was wearing a wood coyote call around his neck. I miss the old guy.
[Another Mom and Dad Valentine re-post. I think I’m coming out of my bipolar fog. Cross your fingers.]
Tie o’ the Day shares its exuberant field of hearts. It is my fave-rave Valentine’s necktie. If you haven’t finalized your Valentine’s Day plans, I suggest you git ‘er done. You’re running out of time.
If you are attached to someone, let them know they are precious and irreplaceable. Make it absolutely certain they know how you feel about them. If you are single, let yourself know you are precious and irreplaceable—because you are. You are enough, exactly because you’re you. Mr. Rogers says so, too.
And then remind yourself you should treat your beloved and yourself this way every day, not just on Valentine’s Day. It’s the least you can do for someone who is so necessary to the grateful beating of your vast, glad heart.
Mom found a way to let Dad know he was her one-and-only even when he was out of town working the bees for a few days. She always tucked a lovey-dovey or funny card in his suitcase for him to find when he got to his motel room for the night. And I mean she stuck a card in there EVERY TIME he was off having a sleeping party with his bees.
On one bee trip to California, after Dad got checked in to his motel, he found a humongous ratty, dirty bra that a previous motel guest had left under the bed. He stuck it in his suitcase with his dirty clothes, hoping to shock Mom with it when she opened the suitcase to retrieve his clothes to wash. Sure enough, when Dad returned home, Mom got his soiled clothes out of the suitcase and headed to the washer. Dad sat in the living room, patiently waiting to get yelled at for having a California girlfriend whose bra had found its way into his suitcase. But he heard nothing. No screaming, no yelling. He heard no response at all from Mom for the longest time. Finally, Mom announced to Dad that she’s not worried one bit about the dame whose stray bra he brought home with him—because the bra is so dirty and skanky that she knows there is no way he would sleep with someone that gross. His prank. Her clever response. It turned out to be a great joke, on both their parts.
Dad got a bonus laugh about his Bigly Bra Hijinks when he told his coffee-drinking buddies at Top’s Cafe the next morning. His pals were shocked he had dared put a bra in his suitcase for Mom to find. They said their wives would have massacred them if they’d done that. Dad was clearly still standing.
Mom thought the whole thing was so funny that she’s been telling the story to anyone who’ll listen since it happened, way back in the 70’s.
Each robot on Tie o’ the Day has a heart inside its plastic, metal, wired self. Apparently, even robots have the capacity to love when they’re on a tie. Aside from loving hearts, Tie has nothing whatsoever to do with these pix of Mom and Dad. I just think it looks snappy.
These photos were taken when Mom and Dad were being Bonnie and Clyde, playing cops and robbers. For over 60 years, they were partners-in-crime. Dad is currently a fugitive, although Mom reports she feels his presence more and more as time moves on. She would like to take him into custody again soon, but she’s not quite ready to follow him all the way to his current hide-out.
[My wonky brain is still under the bipolar weather, so here’s yet another Valentine-y re-post about my parents. They were smitten with each other, that’s for sure.]
Bow Tie o’ the Day has its Valentine’s Day targets ready for Cupid’s arrows. Be on the look-out for a near-naked, winged baby armed with a bow and arrows.
When I first saw the photo with visible faces, I wondered who the heck Dad was hugging. It didn’t look like Mom to me, so I got my magnifying glass out. I discovered that it really was Mom. The shadows across her face were just weird. Whew! I was worried for a millisecond.
Anyhoo… Something you might not know about Mom is that she is disgusted that people wear un-ironed clothing—particularly to church. She and her best friend, Peggy Crane, spouted off about the general lack of ironing on the planet a bazillion times while I drove them across the county on their daily drinking rides.
Mom and Peggy even threatened to put an ad in THE CHRONICLE, offering to teach people how to iron. FOR FREE! But they decided that wouldn’t do any good since, according to them, no one knows what an iron is. (Oh, my! What a wrinkly world we live in.)
One morning of their Senior year at DHS, Dad didn’t show up at school. Mom had no idea where he was or if he was sick. (Remember: no cell phones in 1948.) Later that afternoon, Dad showed up in a class they had together. Mom quizzed him on his earlier whereabouts and he told her he had been doing an extra job for another beekeeper, to earn some extra cash. And then he handed her the few dollars he had earned that morning. She asked what the money was for, and he said, “Well, if we’re going to get married, we’re going to need an iron.”
Based on all the stories Mom and Dad told me over the years about their courtship, that anecdote is the closest thing to a marriage proposal I ever heard about.
So Mom bought an iron, and 73 years later she still has it. It still works, the last time I checked.
I’m sure I’m reading far too much into this, but I think the sweet “iron proposal” is responsible for Mom’s enduring attachment to the importance of ironing. That would explain Mom’s pet peeve about the lack of ironing going on in the wrinkly world today. I don’t know why ironing mattered so much to Peggy though—unless Grant proposed to her the same way.
