Thanks For Being The Best Dad

HOUSE DAD

I remember when my Dad bought our house in Maryland as kids. The four of us; My Mom, Dad, and brother—who my Dad referred to as “the family unit” shopped for houses. We went from house to house, the Victorian one, the Colonial one, the new build one, the 1920’s New England one; Maryland is very East Coast traditional. My Dad had a good job as a Corporate Executive, so he was just happy he could afford a nice house for us. We didn’t like any of them, and thought we’d never leave that hotel as we searched, but he never gave up. “Never give up,” he always told us.

But then we walked into the cool California style mid-century modern house on a hill with the stone walls and the big indoor/outdoor patio with tall windows, high, wood beamed ceilings, and the outside Japanese landscape design with Yew bushes that looked like giant Bonsai plants, we instantly knew. “What do you think?” he asked us. We all fell in love with it instantly, and he bought it that day.

That house was perfect for us. It was a considered, thought out “architectural” house built by an MIT architect from Boston who designed “Utopian” homes for the “creative class,” as well as professors at MIT and Harvard. I liked that my Dad was a non-conformist thinker, even though he was a corporate businessman. Neighbors called it “The Frank Lloyd Wright House” or “The Brady Bunch House.” My parents let us hang out downstairs with our neighborhood friends as we got older, so we wouldn’t drink & drive and end up having to call him from the Police station. All of my friends liked him, thought he was a “character” and thought he was the cool Dad. He was.

The house was built in 1957 and for years we wondered why there was a photography dark room downstairs; a room with no windows, a sink, and built-in shelves. Someone must have really been into photography, we concluded. We put a refrigerator down there and converted it into a bar, adding to the delinquency of minors.

After a trip to the local court house records office to see who the first owner was; we bought it from the second, we realized that the house was originally built for a Dentist, who must have used it to develop his X-rays.

One day my Dad and I went to Sears and bought a ping pong table for the “rec room” downstairs. My brother got so good he ended up playing on the high school ping pong team, which they actually had. Years later when I was in my 30’s, I had a date with a guy who I beat at ping pong. I called up my Dad and told him the guy brooded for the rest of the date, and my Dad called him a “loser.”

He told me I needed a “real man,"which he defined as someone with “emotional maturity.” This is why I am still single. Oh, and thanks for always calling guys who insulted me or dumped me “losers.” It helped.

MOVIE THEATER DAD

My Dad was also an entrepreneur, who graduated from The Kellogg Business school at Northwestern University. He did a business school “case study,” then had a building built to house an auto parts store, which was very successful for a few years, but he sold it before the first Auto Zone moved in down the block that could have put him out of business.

He also owned a movie theater for 38 years. He loved the movies, especially comedies. When my first movie gets made, I’m having a premiere at our old theater, the one that is still operating that he sold before the pandemic. It would be an amazing, full-circle moment. Everybody will get free popcorn, Coke, Milk Duds, Raisinets, Twizzlers, Dots, Skittles, and Junior Mints. You’re all invited. And I’m going to get behind the counter like I did in high school and ask “You want butter with that?”

One time he told me to go into the theater auditorium while I was supposed to be working, to watch the Rodney Dangerfield scene in Back To School, where Dangerfield’s character hands out free “Big and Tall Store” pens to all the students like a big shot, realizes he gave them all out, now doesn’t have one, and yells at some kid “Gimme me back that pen!”

Another time my Dad hosted a wedding at the theater. The couple who met there wanted to have it there, so he said fine, and he and my Mom made tons of popcorn to throw at the couple for their big exit out the doors.

I was living in NYC by then, and I remember my Dad calling me up to tell me the story: “The bride and groom walked out of the theater and jumped into a pick-up truck!” he reported. “With Just Married on it.” “I love that,” I said. “No” he said, “the best part was that the bride drove!” I told my Dad he throws the best weddings in town.

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After my Dad died and we posted the announcement on Facebook, the bride appeared and posted that she was the one who got married at the theater, and she still remembers how nice my Dad was to her and how he and my Mom made their day special. (My Mom decorated the place with white flowers.) She said they are still together and miss seeing him at the theater.

He even wrote a funny testimonial for them that he performed right after their vows, that he delivered at the front of the theater seats, like he was the paid M.C., or was doing a tribute speech at a family wedding. All the guests got a big popcorn tub filled with theater candy on the way out.