A Character
I have been thinking about my dad a lot lately. He just retired as a CAT Scan technician from Susquehanna Health after 38 long years; longer than I’ve been alive. When I first heard that he was retiring, part of me thought, You’re not old enough for that. And then I realized, Oh my god, he’s old enough for that.
My mom calls him a character. Sometimes she says it lovingly, sometimes jokingly-- when she is angry she calls him something else, but the sentiment is still the same. I can’t disagree, the man is nothing if not colorful. One of my earliest memories is my dad coming into our old apartment from a snowstorm, he seemed larger than life with the snow and cold air swirling around him.
He came from humble beginnings with apparently little to no parental supervision based on some of the stories he has shared with my sister and I. He still has a scar above his eyebrow from a friendly game of catch with the neighbor girl when he was a kid. Instead of using a ball, they used a brick (first mistake) and instead of catching the brick with his hands, he caught it with his face (ouch). There are many similar stories in this vein.
Ironically, my dad is actually pretty good at sports– basketball, football, track, ping-pong, did I mention he is also a horrible winner? I bet you've never seen a grown-man talk smack to a 10 year old after a game of mini-golf, but yeah, that happened. I can’t complain too much though, as he passed on his love of sports and competitive nature to me. He encouraged me to play soccer, basketball, and tennis and attended almost all of my games and matches with a play-by-play critique afterwards. One year, he was actually my assistant soccer coach and was much beloved by my teammates for his easy-going nature. One of the girls found a four leaf clover during practice (we learned the art of losing gracefully that year) which she gave to my father for safekeeping. Before every game that season, we would gather around him as he pulled out the plastic insert in his wallet with the four leaf clover pressed inside and we would rub it for luck.
His one “Hey, I’m pretty awesome at sports” exception has been golf. He’s mediocre golfer at best, but he’s taken it in stride over the years. More than that even, he’s become a philosopher and poet about the matter. We used to wake up early and walk the back 18 of White Deer golf course to collect lost golf-balls. I’m not sure my dad has paid for a golf ball in ten years. If you think it’s easy, it’s not. Only a bad golfer truly knows the best spots to find lost golf balls. Standing at the edge of the pond while my dad fished out golf-ball after golf-ball with his Terminator-esque golf ball retriever, he held up one and reflected,
“Terri, every one of these is a broken heart”, and dropped it in his nearly full bucket, before moving on to grove of trees that he has “sliced” into more than once.
Growing up, my dad pulled double duty being my own personal chauffeur, something I did not appreciate at the time. I would get into the car with him to go the grocery store or soccer practice or school and, I knew two things would happen: One, we would listen to “We didn’t start the fire” by Billy Joel as he pumped his fist in the air and sang along and two, we would have “a talk”. He would begin by asking me how things were going and then segway into a practical assessment of my strengths and weaknesses and finish with a strong warning against common pitfalls of teenangerdom. It went something like this:
“Terri, you can do anything you want. You’re smart, you’re cute, you’re athletic…. You’re a knucklehead but you have a good heart. You can do anything you want– as long as you don’t get pregnant!”
We will still take long rides together on occasion, but they are not the same. Partly because I’m an adult and partly because he’s losing his hearing and insists on driving with the windows down. When we’re in a car together, there’s a lot of “What?!?” and “Huh!?” and eye rolling. It’s much easier to just turn up the first Pitch Perfect CD and sing along. Yeah, he knows all of the words.
He’s hard to get a hold of now though as he’s been spending more and more time on “The land” which has little to no cell phone reception, which he considers a perk. A couple of years ago, my mom found 15 acres that was up for sale in Sullivan county. They purchased it under the premise that my dad needed someplace to hunt. Ironically, after two years, he has yet to bring home the bologna so to speak, and during hunting season, we call it “The Deerless Land”. He is optimistic and keeps busy by assembling and putting up multiple tree stands every year. Whenever I call, it seems like he and my mom have just put up another one. I haven’t been up to “The land” in a while but I can only hope that they have been adding elaborate rope bridges to connect the stands and create a tree-fort city now that he’s retired, which, quite frankly, would be a childhood dream fulfilled.
So what will my dad do with his retirement?
If you ask him what he’s going to do with all of his free time, he’ll tell you that he’s going to be an excellent house husband. He’s going to take care of the cats, clean the house, whip up meals, and putter around in his garden. He talks a good game, but I know will also be taking a nap around 10am every day with the permanent installment of Maine Coons and the new batch of kittens that we’re temporarily fostering.
But more than that, he’s going to take long rides to spot deer and wear his Penn State Watch on game days. He’s going to continue insisting that Coors Light is better than Miller Lite to the stupification of all, and grow his sneaker collection to girl-worthy level of shoe collecting.
In short, he’s going to keep being a character. Because this stuff, doesn’t write itself.
A Day at Cape Lookout Lighthouse
We were going to climb to the very top. 207 steps in total. 207 steps of which, I can only imagine, were going to be hot, airless, and claustrophobic. We were in the middle of a heatwave after all and I felt like someone had wrapped a wet towel around my face just standing on shore and looking at Cape Lookout Lighthouse from across the water: a small black and white checkered beacon, mirage-like, shimmering in the heat. Read more...
We were going to climb to the very top. 207 steps in total. 207 steps of which, I can only imagine, were going to be hot, airless, and claustrophobic. We were in the middle of a heatwave after all and I felt like someone had wrapped a wet towel around my face just standing on shore and looking at Cape Lookout Lighthouse from across the water: a small black and white checkered beacon, mirage-like, shimmering in the heat.
The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and national seashore can only be accessed by ferry or a private boat. Oh, to live a life that includes a private boat! Alas, we were taking the ferry from Harkers Island at 9am, in the hopes that it would be less crowded and it wouldn’t be quite as hot. We were correct only about the former.
We climbed aboard the Island Express Ferry Service, a 16 passenger flat bottom skiff, and along with a handful of other passengers, piled our beach supplies in the middle of the boat, forming an island of coolers, towels, umbrellas, and tote bags. The ferry driver, in a thick Southern accent, told us that we would be cruising past the tip of Shackleford Banks and might see some wild horses that made the island their home.
With that we were off. Whisking across the shallow water, I was instantly relieved by the wind and the occasional hard splashes of water that would come up over the sides of the ferry. My camera was still cool to the touch from being in the air conditioning in the house, and as I looked through the viewfinder, my world became hazy and indistinct as the lens fogged in the sudden humidity and sunlight.
Nearing Shackleford Banks, we could see a small group of wild horses gathered on shore. Stopping briefly for photos, we pressed on reaching the lighthouse in under twenty minutes. Climbing onto a small, but well maintained wooden pier on the Sound side of the island, we take a moment to redistribute and hoist our beach supplies onto our backs. Aside from the other passengers on the ferry, the beach is empty and quiet.
First thing’s first: Climb the lighthouse, set up on the beach, enjoy a picnic lunch around noon, and catch the ferry back mid-afternoon; otherwise known as a perfect day. We plod down the pier that connects to a boardwalk that leads to the lighthouse and the ocean side of the island.
The Cicadas are loud and insistent in the pine trees and fat pine cones litter the sand next the boardwalk. Though there is a breeze, I can’t wait to get to the top of the lighthouse and feel how strong the wind will be, how it will tear at my hair and clothes, how freeing it will feel after climbing up the dark, close, hot interior.
I stop and take a picture with my phone on the pier, letting my friends go on ahead. Probably the same picture that every tourist takes, but what the hell. It’s Sunday, I have tomorrow off, and I’m spending the day on an island beach. I smile a little, tuck my phone back in my bag, and hurry to catch up. We got a lighthouse to climb!
Which is when I see them, my friends, clustered around a sign and an empty ticket window, shaking their heads:
Ticket Window Hours
May 12 to September 19
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Oh, you got to be kidding!
