A small Father's Day memory

In the summer of 1985, my Dad came up from West Virginia to help me turn the attic of the house I just bought into a bedroom and playroom for my daughter. A new peaked roof had been put onto this little bungalow and the floor of the attic was a lumpy mess of the old melted roofing tar and asphalt scraps which I had to scrape off. The roof wasn't insulated, just the beams, boards and the asphalt shingles.

Over two excruciatingly hot weeks that summer, Dad showed me how to put the insulation between the beams, then put up the dry wall, then tape and plaster the seams. It was hard work and a short ceiling, so we couldn't ever stand upright and by then my Dad was in his 60's.

Because I am human, and a sibling, I got slyly competitive and asked, "Dad, do you think I am better to work with than my brothers? I fully expected him to say I was because I was following orders and working quietly and carefully. He said, "You're better in one way, you don't know what you're doing and you know it. Your brothers always think they know what they're doing and they don't."

It was a disappointing complement but so typical of Dad, and it was a great sacrifice of him to spend that summer in that baking attic.

Happy Father's Day

wrightj45@yahoo.com