On April 29, 2012, Dad reposed.  After several strokes, the last one being massive, and in between the last two, pneumonia, Dad didn’t recover, but became unresponsive and on a ventilator to breathe.  The doctor had told Mom and my sister, Mary, that he couldn’t breathe without it.  Via phone conversations, Mary and I came to the painful decision that we needed to let him go and leave it in God’s hands, so to speak. We made this decision before Mom did, which was understandable.  But eventually she agreed.  The ventilator was removed around four in the afternoon on April 29, 2012, and Dad left this life seven hours later.  I was back at parents’ house with my sons when he departed.  I got the call from Mom a few minutes before Mary and my husband, Troy, got to parents’ house after leaving Mom at the hospital.  Seven hours later…Seven…I’d thought about this when I told my sister he’d reposed and thought “Seven, the number for completion,” Biblically speaking in our Orthodox Christian faith.  It’s odd sometimes what you think of in such sorrowful and painful moments in your life.

So, in memory of Dad for the 29th, I’m sharing something funny and dear to my mom, sister, and I:  Many Sayings of My Dad.  He was a 30-year Air Force Colonel lawyer and judge, and was/is a loving, encouraging, and gentle father with a great dry sense of humor.  So, here are the list of my dad’s common sayings:

“Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?”

“Back when the earth’s crust was cooling…” – talking about the age in which he grew up.

“Back when the dinosaurs were still roaming the earth….” talking about the age in which he grew up.

While playing poker, Dad would say many things while dealing to us:  (dealing to first person) “Three 4s,” (dealing next person) “Pair of queens,” (dealing to the next person which they don’t get anything) “Paregoric.”

Again, dealing cards during poker to us:  “Possible straight,” (next person) “Possible flush,” (next person with nothing) “Possible nothing.”

When it’s somebody else’s turn to deal or it’s their turn in one of our board games.  “It’s all urine, pee pee!” 

When something was really gross or disgusting:  “It’s enough to make a buzzard puke.”

Watching some sport like baseball or football and the players are running to catch the ball:  “I got it!  I got it!  You take it!”

When someone would sleep in late:  “Ah, the dead has arisen!”

When dad would be leaving to go to work usually (and my husband has adopted this):  “I’m off in a cloud of sheep dung!”

I would tease dad when I was a young teenager and not speak correctly by saying something like “I ain’t got none,” for which he’d reply:  “That’s a double negative, so really you do have something.” 

Teasing mom when speaking the Greek words “ti kanis, kala?” ( τι κανεις καλα,  which means, “how are you? well?”), he’d say it like this:  “Tea canister, collapse?”

When Dad wasn’t feeling well way back when he worked in the Air Force, some of his coworkers were urging him about some work that needed to be done and that he needed to be there.  He said, telling this to a friend I believe it was:  “I’ll have the hearse pick me up on the way there.” 

“Everyone has the right to be stupid, but he abuses the privilege.”

“Take all you want, but eat all you take!”

“It’s a phenomenon of nature” – when Mary asked him “why” and he didn’t know

When someone would be leaving the table, or needing to say “excuse me” or “pardon me” for something, Dad’s reply would be “Granted.”

Back in the mid 1990’s when Mom, Dad, and I came down to LA to visit my sister and stayed at her house, both my sister and I had bad coughs from colds/allergies/sinusitis stuff.  After listening to our barking coughs for a while, he said, “Sounds like a TB ward in here.” 

“Ah, I see, said the blind man.”

His favorite words for telling me or both my sister and I when arguing in the back seat of the car to be quiet were “Cork it.”

“He is as full of crap as a Christmas goose.”

Dad would always help me with my homework, even all the way through high school.  I was kind of a struggling student–three quarters lazy, one quarter comprehensive problems.  So, I was whining over some report I was working on that he was helping me with because he had told me something I would need to do in addition to what resources I’d collected.  When I whined, he said, “Ah, yes.  We couldn’t go and look up that information and work on bibliography cards…That would be too much like… *Gasp* … WORK!” 

Mom said Dad was a walking encyclopedia, and on rare occasions, we’d ask him a word, and he’d say, “I know all, except that one.” 

He’d also throw this word at us every now and again and ask us to spell it or ask what it meant or something like that: “Anti-disetablishmentarinism.” 

“Take a long walk off a short pier!” 

“All in good time.”

On the road stopped at a light that is green for more than a few seconds.  He’d say to the person in front of him: “It’s as green as it gets!” 

“What is on your alleged mind?” 

“Once again, I am the screwee.”  

Mary said:  Me, loading up everything I can carry at once so I don’t have to make 2 trips…Dad: “Aaahhh….The lazy man’s load.” 

“To err is human, to forgive is divine.  Neither, however, is SAC policy.” – Contributed by Dad’s good friend, Doug Chandler

“Dad, I want to go to my friend’s house”…Dad’s response:  “Denied!” which was rare.

“Suck in that gut!  You’re in the marine corps now!”

“but Daaaddd, I really want to go to so and so’s house!” Dad: “Yes, and people in hell want ice water.” 

Dad’s endearing nicknames for me from earliest age to adulthood:  “My little flower,” “Dorothy of Porothy,” and “The Dotmeister.”

 

Love you, Dad.  You’re always near me.  I feel your presence often.  Until we meet again. ❤

 

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