2.05 Extra Prayers

Dad, Cathy, Larry, 1954 San Jose State

1954 • San Francisco ~ I loved visiting my dad. We played Old Maid and gin rummy. He sang Three Little Fishies or German songs he remembered from his childhood, told me corny riddles, recited limericks, and magically pulled quarters from behind my ear. I even liked playing Five Little Piggies, though I was a little old for baby stuff. He made me giggle. He gave me butterfly kisses by fluttering his eyelashes on my cheeks. And he did this thing with his lip: just as I turned my head to look away, he’d touch his lower lip to the tip of his nose, which is impossible unless you have an under-slung jaw and a Clemens’ nose like my dad. Or he’d click his bottom dentures out of his lower jaw and catch them with his tongue the split second before they flew away. Laughing, with both hands clapping, I’d beg him to do it again because I barely caught it out of the corner of my eye the first time.

When Dad came to pick me up at Mom’s, we’d visit Larry and have picnics on the college campus, my father lying on the grass next to me and letting me wear his hat, telling me stories, tickling me and making me laugh.

Cathy and Dad, April 1954, San Jose

When I came down with a cold, he rubbed my chest with Vicks and put some up my nose, which I hated because it burned clear to my brain. Bringing me a hot bowl of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, a warm bottle of Squirt, and two pieces of Aspergum, he sat next to me on the bed, tucked me in and stroked my hair.

Dad (young boy)

“The only time my mother sang to me or stroked my forehead,” he told me, “was when I was sick.”

I could tell it still hurt his feelings because he had tears in his eyes. It hurt my feelings for him, too. As he kissed my brow and patted my shoulder, he whispered good night, and turned out the light. In the dark I said two extra prayers for him, and pondered why his mother didn’t love him either.

After Mass on Sundays we walked hand-in-hand through the big glass Arboretum and the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. We roamed Fishermen’s Wharf and had shrimp Louie with a hunk of sourdough. We slowly strolled by store windows filled with souvenir tee shirts, Japanese tea sets, and lacquered Chinese boxes. We went to Fleishhacker Zoo and watched the monkeys on Monkey Island and fed the seals three smelly pieces of mackerel from a little white wax paper bag that cost a quarter. We ate pink popcorn and hot dogs with mustard and got vanilla ice cream cups with a quarter-moon of raspberry sherbet. I saved my wooden ice cream paddle; I liked to chew on it.

We rode the carousel, sprinting for our seats as the lights flashed, bells chimed, and music blared. I preferred the ostriches, their backs weren’t so high off the ground. When I grew more confident I rode the horse. I was too small for the ring grab, with its high iron rings the size of half dollars just beyond my reach. If you snagged a brass one, you got a free ride, but your horse had to be at the top of its ride to be able to reach it. Dad rode on one with me, stretching me sideways, and hooking his finger over mine. We stretched out as far as we could and snatched it together as our horse flew by. Even though you were supposed to turn them back in, I kept one as a souvenir. I still have it.

We also went to the movies, getting to see Snow White and Bambi. I unfailingly cried; I doubt that I ever recovered when Bambi’s mother died, and Dumbo nearly destroyed me.

to be continued…

© 2018. Catherine Sevenau.
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