Happy Birthday


This year Dad’s birthday fell on the day after Thanksgiving. This meant that all of the family—Mom, Dad, me, my brother, and his family—would be home for it. The day dawned cold, overcast, and drizzly. Dad was, as always, the first one up. By the time I arose some time well after six (late for me) he had gone into town to visit with the coffee shop crowd.

After getting my bath I braved the drizzle for a short stroll up the road to the cemetery on top of the hill. Mom and Dad’s dog, a huge, grey-muzzled black Labrador named Tiny, limped along with me. Tiny always follows me whenever I’m home on a visit.

I got back to the house just after Dad did. Everybody else was still in bed. They no doubt would be for a while yet (In fairness to them, they really needed to be catching up on their sleep after all of their Thanksgiving preparations and travel). Dad, observing that he and I “marched to the beat of a different drummer,” suggested that we go into town and get breakfast, since the others would be having a late one.

We drove to Doug’s Grocery and got bottles of juice and some of their warm biscuits and sausage. As we waited for these I looked over the rows of photos posted around the store. Doug’s is a game check station during hunting season. They had lots of fresh views of local hunters, male and female, young and old, posing proudly with their prizes. Among all the dozens of deer there were a few fowl, a large alligator (I’d like to know the story behind that), and a batch of huge catfish. It was almost enough to make your mouth water.

We took our breakfast to the high school/middle school complex on the edge of town. These replacements to the old buildings where I went to school were built some years back and are still undergoing occasional additions and modifications. Currently the district is working on a new auditorium. It stood there with its walls mostly completed but its doors and windows not yet hung.

Dad, who laid bricks for a living until a few years ago, takes an interest in any new construction that happens in the area. We crossed the sticky red clay around the site and walked inside. The main auditorium area yawned like a dimly-lit cavern, full of scaffolding and construction lifts and huge stacks of sheet rock. They had a long way to go to get the walls and ceiling covered. We roamed around the building for a bit, looking at all the offices and other rooms in back. Dad ran his expert eye around the brick and block work and pronounced it of good quality, apart from a few blemishes that the average person would never even have noticed. A fresh shower fell beyond the gaping window holes. The clay felt that much stickier by the time we came out.

From the school we drove out to the workshop of one of Dad’s friends, a mechanic (described aptly not long ago by an out-of-towner who had met him as a wild-haired old man who rode a trike and was absolutely full of bull—every mechanic in town recognized the description without needing a name) whose shop Dad had helped to build. He was tinkering with a late-model Chevy Silverado. Also in the shop were a Jeep Cherokee and the dust-caked remains of an old-model Volkswagen bug. There were lots of tools and junk around as well, and the musty, greasy smell that permeates a typical mechanic’s shop. We visited for a bit and then took our leave.

Next we ran by the local hardware store and bought a couple of tarps. The spotty rain showed no sign of letup. We returned home and covered most of Dad’s scooters and my motorcycle with the tarps. As Dad tied one of them Mom and Dad’s half-grown cat, Midnight, appeared and began playing with the end of the line Dad was using to tie down the tarp. Dad began dancing the end of the line in the air. Midnight loved that and started leaping after it. We all had a couple of minutes of fun out of it.

Ordinarily the bikes would stay under the open-sided garage to one side of the driveway. But Dad needed much of the space for a project. We usually have some kind of family project going on at or around Thanksgiving. Used to we would join assorted relatives to rake my grandmother’s large yard and split firewood for her. In recent years the projects have been around Mom and Dad’s house.

Today’s project was the building of a doghouse for Tiny. We used an old packing crate for a frame and began measuring and cutting plywood sides. My brother joined us for a bit and pitched in until he and his wife took off for Hot Springs for some shopping. Mom also went shopping for a while. The nieces stayed inside playing, drawing, and reading.

Dad more or less made up the design as we went along. Tiny wandered around watching our work. During a spell between showers he limped out into the driveway and quenched his thirst with about half of a mud puddle. After this the rain began to come harder, replenishing the puddle and then some. Dad and I stayed up under the shed, measuring and sawing and assembling beneath the pattering metal roof. Dad’s back was bothering him a great deal and forced him to sit down and rest regularly.

After a while Tiny lay down in a corner of the shed and dozed off. Dad took this opportunity to measure the dog so we would know how big to cut the door. In between showers Midnight roamed the yard, pouncing on leaves and power cords and anything else he could find to stalk.

I wasn’t a particularly good carpenter’s assistant. It didn’t help that we were fastening the pieces of the new doghouse together with screws, and I had little experience operating a power driver. At one point Dad told me to “get in the doghouse” to help put the gusset plates on the tiny roofing trusses. With nothing left to do but put on the roof decking and cut out the doorway, we knocked off for lunch.

After lunch I stayed inside with the girls for a while as Dad went out to resume work on the house. When I stepped outside Dad told me to take a look at the house. Tiny had already gone inside to lie down. This put to rest any fears we had had that he might not realize that he was supposed to use it. After Tiny came out to see us Dad sent me into the doghouse to stuff gaps with newspaper and spread a covering of hay on the floor for insulation. I noticed while I did this that my upper body stayed a good bit warmer than my protruding legs. The house definitely gave worthwhile weather protection. When I was done Tiny moved back in.

That evening after supper Mom assembled everybody to present Dad’s birthday cake and cards. The younger granddaughters had made their own cards. One showed “Papaw” riding a blue motor scooter inspired by the one we had given the girls rides on the day before. There weren’t a lot of presents. Dad’s hard to shop for. The present I had ordered for him (a “Planet Earth” DVD set—Dad likes nature shows; they furnish some of his sermon illustrations on Sundays) had not arrived in time. I let him know that there was something on the way.

Dad put on a video of “An Affair to Remember.” He had not seen it in a long time, but remembered the main plot point well. We had a good time watching it. After that we put on the original version of “The Italian Job.” Dad, who has long been fascinated by its astonishing car chase (I’ve never forgotten seeing it as a child on TV myself), spent years looking for it before I succeeded in getting him a copy of it a couple of Christmases back. Everybody in the house loved it.

And then it was time to go up to bed. Such was Dad’s 65th birthday. Despite his bad back, I think he enjoyed it.

I love that movie "An Affair to Remember", if it's the one with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Has to be seen in letterbox format, though!