Seen With Joy

I see him in you sometimes.

He lives in yours eyes,

behind your brow,

and in the bridge of your nose where it crinkles when you grin.

He comes with joy.

To Destin, For Dad

My Dad is sick.

That’s never happened.

Just ask him, he’ll tell you.

Well, except for that one time. A seed got trapped in a crook in his colon. I met them in the emergency room…Dad swallowing a hospital bed while Mom looked on…from a distance…clutching her purse, under an expression that begged the question, “What now?”.

As long as I can remember, Dad has prided himself in the fact that he’s never had a headache. In some versions, a headache becomes the “common cold”. No matter. To hear him tell it, he’s had neither.

He’s confrontational and cantankerous and a few other “c” words that, when taken together, translate into “just plain hard to get along with”, and now he’s sick.

When he called, he blamed a hot dog…a foot-long Coney; admittedly, not the kind of thing an eighty-one-year-old man ought to eat. It had to be food-poisoning, he reasoned.

But he didn’t get better. He stayed sick. And common sense will tell you, a hot dog doesn’t have that kind of staying power. Not even a foot-long Coney. Food poisoning comes, tries to kill you and, if unsuccessful, leaves. Three day nausea is something else…something serious…some kind of sickness.

He tells me he’s better.

“But you’re still coming down, aren’t you? I’m still sick! I’m weak!” This, from the man who never had a headache…or the “common cold”…depending on the version.

And, I did come.

And, I brought a sister.

And, we did laundry, and dishes, and we made the bed.

And when Dad said, “You know what sounds good?”, I got my keys.

I visited fast food restaurants I never knew existed and ordered with specificity, because “they never put enough sausage” on the sausage and gravy biscuit.

On Saturday, it occurred to me I’d been “at the beach” for almost an entire day and never seen it…not really. I mean, I’d caught a glimpse between hurricane-proofed monoliths upon our return from the Potato Chips/Malted Milk Balls/Vanilla Ice Cream run, but that was it. I hadn’t really heard it. I hadn’t watched it, and I definitely hadn’t smelled it.

But, I fixed that.

After dinner, I got my chair…the one that still spills a little bit of Myrtle Beach every time I take it out…and I headed for the sand.

On the stairs, a couple stopped me.

“Excuse me! Are you going to have a hurricane here?”

I thought several things at once.

I thought , “They think I’m a local.”(This was kinda cool.)

I thought, “They’re just a young couple on their first night of vacation.”

I thought, “Bless their hearts.”

I shared wise weather anecdotes I’d collected during the preceding 24 hours, before moving to place my chair in a spot that would allow me the best use of Instagram. I know…that sounds silly…but I haven’t quite got the hang of it. I’d love to be able to edit more…

After taking several severely out-of-focus photos, I screwed my chair into place and sunk into it.

To my left, a meaty woman seemed unaware that most of her bottom had escaped her suit.

To my right, two boys flew kites.

The worried couple waded.

White caps rolled in bringing memories…of my mother in a two-piece…red with tiny flowers. And she… so brown…so confident.

And, my sisters, dripping castles.

And, my children, with my grandson.

Jennifer and Elijah, dripping castles just like we did.

And my father…and floats…plastic floats in pastel colors that rolled with the waves…rolled and rolled until…if you closed your eyes, sleep could come…

Daddy

Daddy was a large man whose crusty work-boots tracked red mud onto mother’s carpets.

He wore glasses…big ones…with thick black frames. And white t-shirts…

He played football in high school, but tennis courts paved his way to college.

When I was very young, he bowled.

By the time I graduated high school he had traded balls with holes for holes-in-one.

My mother called him “Johnny”, my Aunt calls him “Brother”, and my sisters and I call him “Daddy”. I was forty years old before I heard anyone else call him anything other than “Mister Howell”. Years later it still sounds strange, and just a little disrespectful, to hear anyone besides my mother call him “Johnny”.

Daddy liked to eat. As kids, he introduced us to souse meat and lox-n-bagels, but I drew the line at pickled pig’s feet. Time spent in Korea after Hiroshima expanded his pallet. If he was really, really good, Mom would scramble last night’s fried fish into his eggs.

These days he prefers his fish raw, but little else has changed. Daddy still loves to eat. He finds a way to fit three meals in between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm every day, arriving back at his condominium-by-the-sea before most vacationers have even considered making reservations.

Daddy said things…like, “Don’t ever forget who you are! You’re a Howell!” and “No one is better than you are!”. The manner in which he spoke discouraged questions while imparting pride.

He also said, “Your thighs are big-around as my waist!”, and “You need to leave that boy alone. He’s a queer!”, and “Blacks just naturally run faster than whites. It comes from being chased through the jungle by cheetahs.”

A few years ago, he read every book Carlos Castaneda ever wrote.

Last weekend he took great delight in expounding on his latest theory on consciousness. “Our brains are like radio receivers…”

As a kid, it wasn’t Christmas until Daddy came home. Every Christmas Eve, sometime after 6 and before 9, he stumbled across the threshold, over-sized shopping bags in tow. Mother’s mouth set into a sharp line, as her hands moved ever faster over the food she was preparing for tomorrow’s dinner.

“Put these things under the tree!”, he slurred. Professionally wrapped packages hiding expensive perfume, and too-red, too-small, lacy lingerie were tossed, haphazardly, under the tree. Daddy was home! We could open presents!

It’s still not Christmas until Daddy arrives…only Mom isn’t in the kitchen…and it’s the Sunday before Christmas…and my sister dresses her Dachshunds in elf costumes…and sometimes we watch football.

Sunday is Father’s Day.

Just as we have for the last five Father’s Days, we’ll meet at The Varsity. Daddy will order two all-the-way-dogs, rings, and a coke. At least three of us will vie for the honor of paying his bill. Odds are, my sister will do it. We’ll find four or five unoccupied tables and we’ll push them together. We’ll create our space, just as several other families have done before us. We’ll eat, we’ll talk, we’ll laugh. I’ll take pictures despite my sisters’ protestations. Daddy will open presents, and we’ll go home.

I’ll leave, hoping we can do it again, next year.

81

My Dad will be 81 today. He made his yearly trek up from the gulf coast to Atlanta yesterday, and you can write his departure date on your calendar in ink. He’ll leave the day after Father’s Day. His work here will be done. It’s a pretty sweet deal, really; a few hours driving nets him 8 days of pampering, multiple trips to his favorite restaurants, two parties in his honor, and many, many kisses.

He’s never been easy to buy for, mainly because he’s always had the means to buy for himself. My youngest sister buys him clothes. They’re always expensive. They’re always sporty, and they’re always the right size. This is because she has a hand in buying all his clothes. Since it’s his birthday, these clothes will be wrapped in tissue paper inside a box. If he likes them, he’ll say they’re “sharp”. Sometimes they’re even “really sharp”. And, if he likes them a lot, he’ll call someone’s attention to them as in, “Stacye! Look at this! Isn’t this sharp?”

My sister Laura gives him English Leather after shave. She always has. Ever since we were very young, and our parents took us to Rich’s downtown, to the floor where the ladies wearing lots of make-up and really high heels asked us how much money we had, and helped us pick out something to give Mom and Dad at Christmas. I don’t know where she gets it now. I can’t remember the last time I saw that familiar cedar rectangle on display inside a store. Maybe she gets it on the internet. You can buy anything on the internet…

My sister, Holly, and I are, depending on your particular brand of pop-psychology, the Free Spirits, the Rebels, the Scapegoats, and/or Rabble-Rousers in this family. You never know what we might present come gift time. Holly has gone the clothing route; a bold move, in my opinion, given her competition. For a couple of years, she gifted him with coffee. Dad prefers Starbucks, House Blend, please…ground, not bean.

Being the artsy-fartsy one of the bunch, I crafted calendars for Dad. Much to the chagrin of almost everyone present, I named myself “Family Photog”, and set about chronicling our events. Only the best of the bunch graced Dad’s wall. Best, of course, meant lots of things. It might mean cutest, or most comical, or heartwarming, or pretty, and sometimes it just meant the only shot I got in which my sister’s eyes weren’t closed, or my nephew’s mouth wasn’t open. I never knew how much he appreciated my efforts until I didn’t make them any more. He called me, during a time free of family emergency, just to express his disappointment. Of course, he had his calendar in a matter of days.

And he’ll get his calendar this year too…only it’ll be on Father’s Day, not on his birthday…just to change things up. I’m using old black-and-whites of my mother. I’m sure he’ll love it. In the meantime, I went to the Farmer’s Market and bought all the things he likes.

I bought “Sundried Tomatoes Pesto”. I’m sure the label was printed by the same woman manning the booth. She urged me, in her gorgeous Italian accent, to try the vegetable medley. I demurred, explaining the purchase was for my father. “He’ll be 81 tomorrow.” She smiled through her disappointment.

I bought a pint-sized almond pound cake from a teenager, who will never know it was the beautiful crevasse atop the loaf that sold me.

I bought smoky chipotle salsa from a woman more interested in her cellphone than selling salsa. There was either a child or man on the other end of that phone. I know. I’ve been there. I bought anyway. Still, she was disappointed I didn’t try the empanada.

The woman selling spiced pecans was a newbie. She hawked her wares from a cookie sheet while her son quoted prices in whispers. I bought a small, over-priced baggie-ful. Dad loves pecans.

The pièce de résistance appeared, where it always does; on the last row, in the last booth. “Heavenly Pastries” is owned by Tanya Jackson who almost certainly works for someone else most of the time. When she’s not, though, she creates perfection in the form of miniature glazed bundt cakes drizzled in chocolate. I bought the Red Velvet. She included a gingham gift bag with my purchase that I’ve decided to use as wrapping in place of the basket I’d pictured filling earlier.

My stopping excited her. She stood immediately. My choosing the cake excited her even more.

“It’s for my father.”

Her smile grew.

“He’s going to be 81 tomorrow. He doesn’t come to Farmer’s Markets so I’m buying all the things I think he’ll like.”.

She counted my change into my out-stretched hand.

“Tell him I said “Happy Birthday, okay?”

>Tomato Gorgonzola Soup

I was bit by the gardening bug early. Well, not bit exactly. No, it was more like someone wedged a pair of twenty pound post-hole diggers into my sweaty prepubescent hands while marking off the circumference of five circles where holes should be dug at least two feet down.

Yeah, it was exactly like that.

My dad marked the holes with the toe of his work boots which my mother referred to as “clodhoppers” when she threatened to make me wear them because I was “so rough on shoes”. They were suede on top with a heavy, rubber sole and always carried a thick crust of orange-colored, red clay on the toe. The clay didn’t come off, even as he drug the toe around and around, marking one hole after another, in a straight line, until he had five.

“Tomatoes have deep root systems. Don’t stop until you’ve dug at least two feet!”, he reminded me, while wiping sweat from his generous forehead with the handkerchief he always carried in his pants pocket.

Somewhere around the third hole, I started to picture my sisters and their perfect hair. And, they were smiling. But, of course they were. They were inside, in the air conditioning, where it was nice and cool. They were probably sitting in the den, watching television. It was time for American Bandstand. Posthole diggers slammed into the earth, harder and harder, until I couldn’t see how far down I had dug. I wondered if I’d left a trail of dirt like the clay on top of my father’s boots as I wiped tears from my eyes and saw I’d have to dig a little more.

Today, I am an avid gardener. Among other things, I grow tomatoes. I grow monster tomatoes that burst from their cages to tangle in a mass of hairy green branches that threatens to take over one whole side of my garden. And, I do it without the assistance of posthole diggers. Turns out tomatoes aren’t so finicky, after all.

Several times each summer I pick a tomato early, just as it begins to turn, while it’s still yellow nearest the stem. A guy at work saves boxes for me that are just big enough to hold one, carefully bubble-wrapped tomato. I apply a red and white “Fragile” sticker to the sides of the box not covered by the UPS label. Sometimes my father calls when he gets the package.

“I had a tomato sandwich for supper tonight, and I’ve got enough left over to have another one tomorrow!”

The excitement in his voice when he does call makes up for the times when he doesn’t.

I don’t eat raw tomatoes. And, I’ve tried. When we were kids, summer meant large slices on one side of our plates. Mimicking my mother I dusted mine, generously, with salt and pepper…and it became something disgusting covered with salt and pepper. My father relentlessly expressed his amazement that I didn’t like “his” tomatoes, especially when he’d grown them himself! I listened as my thumb worked the patch of hardened skin the posthole diggers left behind.

I do like cooked tomatoes. I can’t imagine french fries without ketchup, spaghetti without meat sauce, or life without brunswick stew. In fact, my favorite cooked tomatoes are in soup. Years of indoctrination leave me unable to eat a grilled cheese sandwich without a side of tomato soup.

Unless it’s Tomato Gorgonzola Soup. Tomato Gorgonzola Soup needs no accompaniment. Well, perhaps a salad of mixed greens topped with homemade blue-cheese vinaigrette. Mmmmmm….

Tomato Gorgonzola Soup

3 lbs. tomatoes, halved (Romas are good, heirlooms are better.)

3 tbl. olive oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 lg. onion chopped (Vidalias or Texas Sweet are best)

1 red bell pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tbl. good sherry

3 tbl. flour

½ c. gorgonzola cheese (Low-fat is okay)

½ c. cream cheese (You may use low-fat, but I think it loses something in the translation…)

½ c. half & half

5 c. organic chicken broth

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. black pepper

1 can sliced new potatoes

3 tbl. fresh basil, minced

3 tbl. butter (Have you ever read a margarine label?)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss tomato halves with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Place on baking sheet, skin side down. Bake 1 hour.

Meanwhile, sauté onion, garlic, and bell pepper in butter until tender. Add flour and cook for two minutes. Add sherry and stir, being careful to scrape pan. Add cheeses and half & half and stir until cheese melts. Add all remaining ingredients except basil and simmer ½ hour. Stir in basil..

Transfer mixture to blender and blend until creamy.

Pour into bowls to serve.