My dad’s birthday is today. He would’ve been 76 years old. I sometimes wonder what he’d look like now had leukemia not come for him when he was 59. His brother, my uncle Rodney, has a birthday today too. They were born exactly seven years apart. When my dad died a month before my wedding, I asked Rodney to be my best man.
This morning I was trying to think of a memory about my dad I’ve never shared before on my blog. I may have written about this one at some point and have forgotten about it. Either way, it was when I was a teenager. He’d returned from fishing at my grandpa’s pond. While he was fishing, a bug had flown into his ear.
When he got home, he came straight to my room and said, “Get your cigarettes and meet me outside.”
Pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about — me, a smoker? What? — he said, “I’m not an idiot. I know you smoke. Now put it to use.”
He left my room. I went into my closet and grabbed my pack of Marlboro menthols hidden between my sketchbooks on the top shelf and walked down and outside to our back porch. He was sitting on the top step rubbing his ear.
“Don’t just stand there. Light one up and blow smoke in my ear. I’ve got a bug trapped in there and it’s driving me nuts.”
I tapped out a cigarette from the pack, lit it up, questioned whether I should inhale or act like I didn’t know how to do that, and he said, “Hurry up.”
I took a few puffs, then sat down on the stoop and started blowing smoke in his ear. I inhaled a few times because at this point it was like, “No need to let that go to waste.” Eventually, the bug crawled its way out his ear canal and escaped.
“Thank you,” my dad said. “Now put that nasty thing out. It stinks.”
He walked inside. I took a few more puffs secretly, then stamped out the cigarette and flicked it over the fence.
A few hours later I met up with one of my friends and told him my dad knew I smoked. My friend, also a smoker, asked if I was in trouble. I said no, and that my dad asked me to smoke in front of him.
“I’m pretty sure your dad knows you smoke too,” I said to my friend.
“No way,” he said.
In hindsight it’s a funny memory for me. Not sure why I thought my parents didn’t know I smoked cigarettes at the time. Once you quit smoking, and realize again how strong cigarette smoke is, there’s no hiding the smell from your clothes, your hair, your breath.
At the time, I wanted to tell my dad, for the record, however, that wasn’t my cigarette you all had found in the living room years before. It was your daughter Jennifer’s. I didn’t even smoke then. Ha. But I didn’t rat her out despite them pointing the blame at me. But hey, at least my mom knows the truth now if she’s reading this.
P.S. Jennifer’s the one who taught me how to smoke in the first place. We walked a mile from the house into a field up near Dexter’s and she gave me some French brand cigarette. After I coughed my guts up, she handed me some Victoria’s Secret hand lotion and said, “Rub this on your hands so it covers up the smell from Mama and Daddy.”
Sorry, Jennifer. I think it’s okay the truth came out now 32 years after the fact.
In addition to the blue links above in this piece, here are some other stories I’ve shared on my blog about my dad over the years:
- I love you so much I’m eating sardines
- I’ll let you drive the golf cart: a near death experience
- Cage match: my dad vs Vince Lombardi, Thomas Edison, and Mark Twain
- How not to fry an egg