“Flashback Friday” is a new series of posts I am going to start here on the blog. I got the idea a couple weeks ago as I worked on typing the memoirs of my adopted grandfather Nick. Nick comments about how he has a hard time remembering specifics about some of the stories (for example, someone’s age at a certain time, where they were born, and so on). This isn’t really surprising considering that Nick turned 97 last month – 97 years will give you a lot to remember! And for most of his life, they didn’t have the things like computers or the Internet or digital photography that make it so easy for us to capture our lives today. So it’s not surprising that he has things he has forgotten. But one thing I have realized as I read and type his stories, is how easy it is for us all to forget – even someone like me, who is only a quarter of Nick’s age. We live such fast paced lives, we don’t stop nearly often enough to take it all in well enough to form memories that even last a few years. It’s amazing how much I don’t remember already, sometimes I feel like I have completely blanked out three quarters of my life. Who knows what I’ll remember when I’m 30 (just the thought of it makes me shudder with fear), let alone 60 or 70?
And that led me to the idea of Flashback Friday for the blog. I have a feeling that as long as the world exists, the Internet is not going anywhere. I feel safe in storing my memories electronically in my blog (and backed up on my computer). So, just as radio stations play Flashback Friday lunch hours, I am going to have Flashback Friday here, featuring some sort of memory I have that I want to remember down the road. I can’t promise they will be 100% accurate memories, so I apologize to family members in advance for details that I remember incorrectly. As stated, I have forgotten a lot in my twenty-some years, and of course when you talk about childhood memories, kids see everything happen a lot differently than adults do. I won’t post every Friday (as you may have noticed, I am a sporadic blogger), but perhaps my lovely family will get on board (hint, hint) and send me some of their own memories to share on a Flashback Friday when I am too busy to blog.
In honor of Father’s Day this weekend, the inaugural Flashback Friday is about my own dad.
I love this picture. But I will not be writing about it, because guess what? I don’t remember it. What I will tell you about today is one of my earliest memories of my dad that I actually do remember.
My dad used to drop my sister and I off at daycare every morning when we were in pre-school and kindergarten. We had this routine that we did before he left daycare, which we called “the jump”. Basically, my dad would hold our hands in his, help us jump in the air and do a somersault mid-air before coming back down to the ground. I don’t remember how this routine got started, but I remember it was a lot of fun. I also remember that all the other kids at daycare thought it was fun too, saying, “I want to jump!”, and every morning kids would line up to take turns doing the jump with my dad.
And that is how I always remember my dad, as the fun and popular dad. My friends always thought my dad was cool. When I got to high school and had friends and co-workers who had my dad as a teacher, they would all say how awesome he was and how he was their favorite teacher. (On an unrelated note, they all also thought he was ten years younger than he actually was – congratulations on the youthful good looks, Dad!) Sometimes when I invited friends over to our house for the first time, they would always comment on how they weren’t sure what to expect in coming over to the teacher’s house, but that my dad was actually surprisingly fun and easy-going for a teacher. It’s a huge part of the reason that he is a such a great track and cross country coach – kids who might not normally do sports give it a try because they like my dad.
So, happy Father’s Day weekend to the coolest, most awesome dad on the planet. I love you!
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