Riding With My Daddy

Riding with my Daddy or should I be more specific and say having my Daddy ride with me, is quite an experience.   Today has been a day where I am tele-working to my Kennesaw job and being a friend to daddy.  He is quite the man and his talents are many.   The first act of the day was that his coffee pot had stopped working.  He bought this wonder at the Dollar Store, should I say more, but it is programmable and this is not a vintage coffee pot.  You probably have one of this kind or so familiar with it you will laugh at our antics.  I like the standard individual Bunn and he had one of these for years but something happened, and I can’t for the life of me remember but he threw the whole thing away.  It was a little Crumly fit that caused this and now he gets to play with this jewel.  It has a clock but he likes to keep it unplugged.  He said he was not able to make coffee this morning as it just wouldn’t work.  Well this Crumly just had to take a look at it, so I plug the cord and pressed the button two times, first is to program and 2^nd just makes the green light come on and I left it for a couple minutes as I stood watching and it started spitting and I lifted the lid and steam was coming forth and I cried out, “Daddy, come look at this.  Is this what it is supposed to do?”  Here he comes and says to me “Well, it must be working now.”  All of a sudden I see him filling a container with water and, I ask what he is doing and he says that he is going to make coffee.  I panic because to my knowledge there has been no coffee grounds put in the pot and I urgently ask as I am pulling out the holder of the filter and grounds and it is damp, “Are these fresh?”  He says, “Yes, I put them in this morning.”  So he is now making his coffee.  He is a very early riser and I have been exhausted with all the various activities of the past month and a half.

Did I say driving with Daddy?  Off I go onto other activities with my Daddy.  Do you have memories of the things you have done with your Daddy or are you like my sister and I currently, just stay active in making of memories?  So the story goes and he likes to eat lunch around 11:30 and I know there is some vegetable soup which mother made in the fridge.  I suggest that he might like to have vegetable soup and cornbread for lunch.  Now Daddy is quite a cook and he believes that sounds good.  He asks if there is any or does he need to go to the freezer and get some from there.  He gets the soup out and it is already in one of those blue and white corning ware dishes which were popular in the 70’s.  He tells me that he has put it on the stove and turned it on low and then asks if the one with the red lid has cornmeal.  Heavens to Betsy, I just don’t know.  So I tell him, I have to look at it to determine what it is and upon checking, it appears to be cornmeal and he acknowledges that it is indeed cornmeal and begins spooning same into the aluminum bowl which he already had at hand.  He gets to 6 and asks if that is what he normally uses and I again don’t have a clue.  I tell him that it looks about right that I just dump in the amount of cornmeal I want and he puts another spoonful in.  I just laugh and say we just don’t want to run the skillet over.  I also ask if he has enough eggs because I know he has about 4 dozen eggs available for use.  He says he thinks he will be able to spare one for the cornbread.  I walk away and let him finish.  He asks how long as he is setting the timer and I suggest about 20 minutes so we can check on it.  That cornbread was the pretties golden brown and has rising so nicely.  I am sure he has completed putting in some buttermilk, the egg and some water to thin it a little while he preheated the medium size iron skillet that they have been baking cornbread in for who knows how many years.  Well I am sure as long as I can remember and I am still the eldest daughter.

Crossville First United Methodist Church

We finally get to the point of my work day ending and we are now riding down the dirt road.  I have to giggle because I heard a lady say just the other day that the road commissioner in Dekalb County said that there were no more dirt roads in the county.  HA!  Guess he just has not toured around all the county because dirt this road remains and even worse, I see what the complaint about the road crews has been.  They did clear the ditch and piled up the scrapings from the road along side to the point that I am not sure two cars could pass each other.  We make it to be pavement and off we go.  As we travel down the road, I am told this is where Ms. So and so lives and this property and the shrubs are where the Austin Nursery is.  He tells me that there are truckloads of nursery items shipped out of here every day.  Then further down the road he announces, this  belongs to the Roden boys and I ask, “Wasn’t Mr. Roden related to you?”  To which he has acknowledged to the positive and goes to tell that Mr. Roden was one of the men who dug the basement of the First Methodist Church in Crossville.     He used a mule an a scoop to dig the dirt and remove it from that area for the church.  It gets funnier when Daddy tells that he was one of the ones who in the evening would go to the church and jump on the piles of dirt that had been removed and that he knew Mr. Roden was ever so angry when in the morning he found that much of the dirt he had removed had been redeposited in the hole by some local boys.  I am sure he did not volunteer that he was one of those rascals.  As adults, we are quite serious with the work that we are doing and don’t have time for the play of kids.  Doesn’t it make you wonder if we would be much happier if we let some of the things go and have fun with the kids.  Life goes by so fast and as the kids grow parents are busy trying to keep body and soul together.  Young parents today are working to make sure the kids have all the things that perhaps they did not have as kids but the best thing any parent can give their children is their time.  Rolling around on the grass or swimming in the pool.  Sister and I were laughing last night with Daddy about him swimming with us and doing a frog kick.  He always would go to the diving board and with a run to the end and as he would dive he put his feet together and his knees were turned out looking like a frog and he would kick his feet out, thus the frog kick.  How precious are those memories now as we still have the opportunity to spend time with Daddy.  This week after father’s day and time with Daddy is yet another facet of country living.