Dad's Day: Grandpa Bob

The early years: Dad at the Gulkana River.
Probably in the 1980's. 

DAD'S DAY ALASKA MEMORIES
GRANDPA & THE GRANDMA RITA BIRD

By Linda

We were planting vegetables yesterday for Dad's day. 

We were outside, and this robin was way up in the top of the spruce trees,

singing away.

Actually -- and this is a little known fact -- many robins are born and raised

in Alaska. So they are "Alaskans." At the end of the summer they go down to

other parts of America. But this is where they come from. 

There are many birds like that -- birds that people think are from where they 

live, but which actually are born in Alaska.

THE GRANDMA RITA BIRD

At any rate, Dad used to love the Alaska robins and how they lived in the tops of the trees and sang away up there. There was also another bird -- don't know what it was -- but its whistle sounded to him like "Grandma Rita! Grandma Rita!"  He used to sing along with it: "Grandma Rita!"  We called it the Grandma Rita Bird.

Thinking of Father's Day, Jeremy was saying that it was really as if Dad was his 

father, too. He remembers the first time he saw Dad and me. We had just moved to Milton Street, and it was the 4th of July. Jeremy arrived on a plane one  evening, and Dad and I went to the airport to pick him up.

Milton Street -- on a rare snowy day.

I remember Jeremy walking across the airport toward Dad and me. And Jeremy remembers it too.  Dad was looking at Jeremy coming toward us, with his arms kind of swinging down, like a gorilla pawing its way across the ground, with the fingers facing backwards. Like he was swimming. And Dad said, "That's how Arnold Palmer walks. His hands don't face his body, but face backwards like that. I didn't know anybody else could walk like that."  Then Dad and I started laughing. I still remember it. And Jeremy still remembers it -- us standing there, laughing. And when he arrived, we told him all about it, and how he clawed his way toward us… And that is how Jeremy and Dad first became such great friends. 

RUDYARD KIPLING

Jeremy was saying that one thing he liked about Dad was they both appreciated things like making fires, being outdoors, and doing all the things we do in Alaska. He was an enthusiastic Alaskan. When Dad was here, he'd whistle and sing, and chat, and recite poetry, and expound on everything. It reminded me of when I was little. My first memory of Dad reading something to me was 

when I was really small -- probably two or three. He read me Rudyard Kipling. I can remember him very slowly, reciting the section about "the great,  grey-green, greasy Limpopo River.' It was a story about  a small elephant in a battle with a crocodile. And Dad loved saying "greasy" didn't he?

Dad would assume comprehension (perhaps) far before it showed up. And he was always correcting my grammar, or explaining word meanings, or whatever.

I never thought this was intrusive or bossy, actually. I just thought, "This is what Dads do." And I still think that. I never worried about jumping in and correcting my own kids -- their use of "it's" and "its" and  so on. Public school can only go so far, can't it? 

DAD IN ALASKA

We had Dad here, speaking French to Michel Flouret and the French people, every summer for years, in August. These friends of ours would come through with over 15 tourists in tow, and they'd all speak French. And Dad would make them soup and bread, like we were a lodge.

We were talking about how Dad treated our house like it was an extension of Boy Scout Camp, or some kind of alternative teaching school for the kids -- and how he would read to them constantly, or they'd hang out and talk, or do things -- all the time, day after day. 

I was thinking -- how much time did Dad actually spend, in our house, cooking and gardening, and picking berries, and taking care of the kids, and teaching them -- and I think it amounted to  over 2 solid years of total contact and activities. Camping, fishing, canoeing, biking, cooking, baking,

reading, singing… Just carrying on.

So, out of the years the kids were in school, Dad was with them for at least 1/6 of that time! In the house. In the bed, wearing his knit stocking cap all night. Making breakfast. Day and night. Non stop. That's pretty neat. Not just "a visit" but total immersion…

Also -- there were all those years of talking with Dad on the phone 2, 3, 4, 6 times a day…

So that was my Dad's Day memories. I know  -- well, we didn't live in Maryland. But, in a crazy way, a lot of the time, Dad wasn't actually "in" Maryland either!

Pretty cool what technology can do. And -- the amount of help he gave us with our work was absolutely invaluable, both in personal contact and in genuine assistance. This wasn't a phony "job" or "distraction." He was actually a full-time employee of our company. Though -- gratefully -- not a paid employee!