Birthdays rock. I mean, they really do. My dad had a birthday yesterday and he’s gotten a week-long party for it. Why, you may ask? Well… he’s 65. And he hasn’t had a fancy birthday party ever and he really wanted his family to go to Disneyland for his birthday. So… we bought the tickets… took the train… and came to Disneyland.
Yesterday, for the full birthday, we spent the entire time at the park. And that was awesome. Plus, we were easy to spot with the bright green shirts. Woot! Woot!
Traveling with a group can be a bit much on occasion. Bathroom breaks are many. Food issues DEFINITELY arrive (and the Bunns get grumpy when they want food. Let’s face it though – everyone gets grumpy when they want food.). And old and young people don’t always have the same level of energy as they did when they were teenagers or twenty-somethings (and no one on our trip fits those categories – YIKES!).
Bunn, party of seven #bbj65bday
Thus far, our trip has been a hoot and a half. We may be a bit tired from the constant fun, but you know, that’s just part of being at Disneyland.
It’s Father’s Day. If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably noticed the numerous Father’s Day posts and old pictures of dads. I put one up. It’s the one you’ll see at the end of this post. I’m not the daughter that likes to pretend that my daddy is perfect; he’s not. I am however, very grateful to have the old gray-haired man as my papa, mainly because, well, without him I wouldn’t be here. And he also brings me some good laughs.
Yesterday, my mom and I took my Pops out to get a pedicure. If you’ve ever helped trim sheep hooves, you may be able to appreciate what this pedicure did for my father. He needed one. Badly.
Father’s Day Pedicure 2014 A new tradition?
When we left the Garden Nails salon, my dad couldn’t stop looking down at his feet. “They don’t even look the same,” he mused. Throughout the evening, he talked about his “new feet” at least five times. He even talked about the cheese-grater they took to the bottom of his feet at breakfast this morning (classy, I know). He’s incredibly proud of his new feet.
In case you’re not really getting my dad’s excitement, image taking a three-year old to the shoe store and buying her a pair of sparkly shoes she really wanted and how she would stare at them and talk about them to everyone she saw over the next two days. That’s what my dad has been like about his feet. I appreciate his enthusiasm.
My old man is a hoot. He’s a bit quirky (you see why I’m so cool now, yes?) and he’s a bit stubborn (part of our German heritage), but I really enjoy this old duffer.
Have you ever seen While You Were Sleeping? It’s one of my mom and sister’s favorite movies. My family is a bit of a “movie family” meaning that instead of sitting around and playing board games when we were little, we spent more time watching movies together, not talking. Anyway, in While You Were Sleeping, the family is sitting around the table and the crazy family members start talking about random stuff. The lines my family parrots over and over include: “These mashed potatoes are so creamy.” “Merry mashed.” “Caesar Romero was tall.” And more. Well – another line is “John Wayne is tall.” Now why, you ask, am I sharing a bunch of silly lines from a holiday table scene of a 90s movie?
The truth is that since I came home for the holidays to visit my parents on Wednesday, my dad has been watching John Wayne movies non-stop. No joke. He’s watched Blue Steel, Randy Rides Alone, Hell Town, Sagebrush Trail, The Man from Utah, and The Lawless Frontier, to name a few. Apparently, at one point he told my mom that the John Wayne movies qualified as romantic comedies because John Wayne and his lady rode off into the sunset. She laughed. John Wayne movies are not romantic. In fact, as I told him earlier today, I find nothing romantic or sexy about a guy who wears a belt of bullets around his waist. This probably means that skater dudes with studded belts probably aren’t for me as well.
John Wayne – not my dream boat – though… to be honest… he looked pretty good in his early years.
The moral of this story, of course, is that whenever I plan to visit my parents, it’s important to have a plan B for activities and/or people to see in case my dad is on a Western movie kick. This weekend, I had grad school papers to write. But over Christmas… I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of forced John Wayne marathons. And for the record, even if the guy was tall… that doesn’t mean the movies are good, ya’ll.
Yesterday, my parents went to a retirement celebration for one of my dad’s old bosses, The Adjutant General Fred Rees. It was an important event that they didn’t want to miss. It’s been over ten years since my dad retired from his long military career and he’s sort of been off the net for a while (in fact several people thought he was dead. He’s not, by the way). When they got back home this morning, the two of them talked to me about the people they talked to and the things they remember from their time working as a military family with all of their old friends and colleagues. I learned that General Rees ate at our house years ago and that he knows people across the globe. Governor John Kitzhaber did a video presentation for the event and rumor has it that General Rees suggested that he trim his facial hair before the event. Always the boss, General Rees guaranteed that his soldiers kept a strict, tailored appearance. He kept his soldiers clean cut, much like any military boss would. (My cousin Thomas just told me yesterday that in Afghanistan, his Marine Corps buddies grew mustaches as soon as they got overseas, though they had to tailor them to be “Hilter-esque,” ¼ inch from the nose and ¼ inch from the top of the lip.)
When my dad was in the military, he had the right mustache. He always had a mustache and the one time he shaved it off, to look more like the officer General Rees wanted my dad to be, I cried. My dad never shaved the mustache again.
Since my dad retired from the Army National Guard in the year 2000, he’s been farming, both at his place and his parents’ place. He was around when my grandma had her stroke in 2003 and he helped take care of her until her death two years later. He has since continued to be a daily helper to my grandfather and the old farmstead, especially every winter when my granddad takes off to Hawaii and leaves the cows and goats to my dad’s sole care. Had my dad stayed in the military for this whole time, he would have missed this. He probably wouldn’t have been at the house the morning we got the call that my grandma had had her stroke. He could have been traveling or on his way to work. But he was home because he was at the beginning of his journey as a caregiver.
I was a junior in high school when my dad retired from the military. It was a fun though insane time. He was actually the one who took pictures of my junior prom date and I; my mom was at work that Saturday. He went to every basketball game I played that year. By the time my senior year rolled around, he wrote notes to my English teacher, Mrs. Deibel, apologizing for my tardiness and ensuring her that he would work to get me up earlier. Had he still been working for the military, I’m sure my tardiness would have been unacceptable, but I think he was just fascinated by this strange, loud, blond creature who laughed and joked and shook up the rules he’d worked years to lay down for his household. He became an observer and also went through a transition of his own, growing a full beard and losing the directions to the barbershop until my mom made the first comment about his shaggy Einstein hair. But when a guy stops doing the work he’s done for about thirty years, what’s he going to do?
General Rees was a West Point scholar. He served as The Adjutant General (TAG) of Oregon for seventeen years during three different stints. He went to the big leagues in Washington D.C. And he was the Salutatorian from his high school graduating class (which wasn’t as impressive coming from a class of seven graduating seniors). General Rees is a native Oregonian, a farm boy from Helix, Oregon. My mom said that when he was working for the guard in his early years, he farmed and practice law. He did all the boring crap my dad has been doing in his retirement when he was a young, assertive citizen soldier. It was weird to hear that; my dad had something else in common with General Rees?
My old volleyball coach calls my dad “the general.” My dad never became a General; his highest rank was Colonel. But when my oldest sister was in high school, her volleyball coach, Ms. Schultz, gave her players a contract to sign. The contract said that the players would basically adhere to various rules that would ensure then to remain happy, healthy, and dedicated to the team for the entire season. I remember there being stuff about what they ate on that list – that’s probably the one that caught my sister’s eye – she was never a fatty but if you ever told her not to eat something, she would be one to eat it in front of you and smile just to spite you. When Shanna showed my dad the contract, he went to the school to talk to Schultz. He was gruff. He probably wore his military uniform. And Schultz caved. You don’t mess with “the general,” she learned.
Kids in my class at school were afraid of my dad. When I got Student of the Month awards from Dayton Grade School, my dad and mom would come to the Student of the Month breakfast where I got to eat a cinnamon roll and drink a carton of 2% milk. My dad would always come in his uniform because he would have to drive to work straight from the school. The boys in my class were scared of him and would always ask me if he had a gun with him when he walked through the school. For the record, he didn’t. In fact, I’ve never seen my dad hold a gun. (I wasn’t one of those cool Oregon daughters who liked to hunt with her dad. Instead, I’d go shopping with my mom.)
Fathers are supposed to scare the bad kids away. They’re also supposed to keep their kids in line, something General Rees’ daughter shared at the retirement dinner. He apparently had the same finger point and high standards at home that he had at the military department, as he should have. When I was a kid, my dad was the same way. You didn’t talk back to him. You didn’t question why he did things the way he did. What the Colonel said was law, no questions.
Things have changed since we all moved back around the parents. I blame the grandkids. My dad turned soft – not completely, of course – but enough to change his plans for a day completely when my brother brings his hungry kids over unexpectedly and asks him to make the girls waffles and hang out with them when they work on farm projects. Back in the day, ETA, ETD, and TBD were law. Now, those goofy-faced chicas (who he claims are bubbly and smiley and I claim are manipulative) show up and he goes all Fruit Gusher on us – no joke.
My dad says General Rees is planning to go back to Helix to farm. I’d imagine he’ll travel a bit too and grow a bit of facial hair for a month or so before cutting it when he sees his military folk. Who knows – maybe he’ll become be like my dad and be the babysitter, storyteller, Fruit Gusher we all love and adore.
Before I leave, I want to share this one beautiful song with you from one of my favorite Christmas movies, White Christmas. It’s seems fitting as the chorus reads, “What do you do with a general, when he stops being a general?”
“Disparage” – (verb) regard or represent as being of little worth
My dad likes to play a victim. “Mother!” he shouts to MY mom. “Rece is disparaging me.” He usually says this after I laugh at him for stumbling on the rug or misusing a word. I laugh because it’s funny. My father, the colonel, the guy who used to yell at me for not holding the lamp straight when he was bottle-feeding a lamb in the barn, the guy who corrected every grammatical error I made from age two until age 22 made a mistake. This is always a delightful experience. There’s something karmic about my dad’s fall from perfection that helps me enjoy my life just a little bit more. But when complains about me “disparaging” him, I want to laugh and write tales of his imperfections in my journal. The thing my dad doesn’t and has never really thought about is the fact that for years he allowed my older brother Benji to disparage me without any consequences. Ben would torture me, poke me, call me names, tease me mercilessly, and ignore me so often that I hated him. He was the worst of my four siblings. What was worse than him actually making me feel like crap was the manipulation. Ben didn’t actually like me, but every once in a while, when he needed to borrow $4 or wanted a bite of my chocolate bar, he suddenly became my best friend. He noticed my talents and wanted to let me know how great I was. While I was floating on my bubble for being awesome, Ben would get my money or chocolate and leave. Not until I showed him his tab (he still owes me $16 by the way) did I realize that he never really appreciated my talents, but only wanted me for the money and chocolate. Both of my parents knew about Ben and I not getting along. My mom’s response was to let it roll off my back. Not once did she tell Ben to quit picking on me. I suppose she believed that bullying is a natural part of one’s adolescence and that perhaps if I went through it at home, high school wouldn’t be so rough. (This doesn’t work, by the way. High school is meant to suck.) So these days, when my dad complains about me “disparaging” him, I have to laugh. I love my dad. I compliment his cooking (when it’s good – I don’t lie about it when it’s bad. And he still complains about the night I fixed toast for dinner so the truth-telling is mutual.). And I give him hugs when he has a bad day. If I ever say a joke that I can tell hit him the wrong way, I apologize and give him a hug. I never let him believe that I don’t value him, because I do value him.
I think I know what the problem is. My dad doesn’t really get what the word disparage means. I should have gotten him a dictionary for his birthday. It would have been more helpful than the canned cabbage, candies, and note that said that I gave him consumables and recyclables so as to avoid hoarding any useless junk. That way, he could know that I don’t disparage him, but merely help him reevaluate the way he does things, like walking and talking.
My parents are not cultured as I thought they were. My dad was just lacing up his Danner boots for his workday of feeding and caring for my brother’s animals, wincing each boot loop.
“You know what you need?” I suggested. “You’ve got to head to the pool and then spend time in the sauna with all of the old, fat guys.”
“What?!” he was shocked.
“You know,” I said. “All the fat guys hang out at the pool sauna to get rid of the bad toxins in their bodies. You should go join them and you’ll feel better.”
I’m not sure if he thought I was calling him fat or if he thought hanging out with fat guys in a sauna was a gross idea but he called out to share with my mom.
“What?” I asked. “You’ve never hung out with fat guys in a sauna?”
“No!” they both responded.
“Huh,” I started. “When I lived in Nampa, I’d go swimming every morning at about six and then I’d hang out in the sauna for a few minutes with all of the old, fat guys.”
“Hanging out with old men in a sauna is just gross,” my dad said. “They wear nothing but a towel.”
“No. These guys at least wore Speedos and not just the brand, but the sort of junk-covering material that makes us cringe when we see it on old men.”
My dad hurried to lace up his boots and head out the door. His muscles were suddenly much less sore.
I love the cultural barriers between my parents and I. They made duck pizza and dated in college in Nampa; I saunaed* with old, fat men in Speedos. To each his own.
* Note: Saunaed is not a real word, but you get what I’m talking about, right?
Spend time with someone from a different generation. This is one of the actions with the We Are What We Do Movement in the U.K. I do this on a daily basis. I hang out with my father, someone who is thirty-four years my senior. The other day, I was listening to music while typing on my computer when he asked, “Can you listen to music on your computer while you’re working on it?” I laughed and responded that yes, I could. It is the year 2012. I have a MacBook Pro. Of course I can listen to music while I type. My dad has been retired for over ten years. He only uses his computer to order equipment for his cows and to check his facebook every three months. He used it more often when I was in Ukraine. That’s how my parents Skyped with me. If he knows how to Skype, wouldn’t you think he’d know about simultaneous word processing and iTunes?
My dad isn’t even the most archaic individual in Yamhill County. My grandfather is worse. He has a computer in his office that he hasn’t touched since my grandma died in 2005. He has a cell phone, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t use picture mail. If you really think about it, should he? I joke about my dad and granddad being stuck in an ancient generation, but then I wonder, does it really matter? Does my dad need to have the newest phone or does he need to understand hashtags on Twitter? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t, and that’s perfectly ok. Some people like to stick to tradition. They like to plow their fields with horses and mules. Green is in right now and I wonder will there one day be a movement to go backwards with technology? Will people begin to agree that it’s better to leave their cell phones at home rather than taking them to the restaurant? Will abstaining from social media become a fad that everyone is doing rather than a failed lent attempt within 13 days when someone finds out she’s pregnant and just has to share? I find it hard to imagine heading backwards with technology. I’m a regular twenty-something with my MacBook and iPhone. I am in touch with social media and keep up with the lives of people I haven’t seen in years. My dad is different. He goes to a reunion without knowing how people’s lives have changed. He can’t see his cousin and ask how that trip to Hawaii was because the pictures looked great. He doesn’t become real friends with an old acquaintance because the two of them just happen to be savvy with social media. He’s old school. His communication is face-to-face and sometimes I think he’s got something there. You can date online and foster your friendships online, but isn’t there a point when all of us have to meet face-to-face?
I mean, they really do. My dad had a birthday yesterday and he’s gotten a week-long party for it. Why, you may ask? Well… he’s 65. And he hasn’t had a fancy birthday party ever and he really wanted his family to go to Disneyland for his birthday. So… we bought the tickets… took the train… and came to Disneyland. 
Peanut Butter Girl 