My Father's Daughter

I am my father in female form.

It's a statement my mother has said many, many times, usually stringed along with an explanation of why I drive her so damn crazy, but also why she loves me so, so much.

From the outside-of-the-box ideas to the thought out introspection, my dad and I are quite a lot alike.

I am probably a little bit more gregarious in nature, though when he was 34, I was four years old, so I didn't take a lot of notes about whether Dad was the life of the party back then.

Knowing my dad, he probably was.

The connection goes back one generation further, to my grandmother. With some exceptions, I look like a taller, more slender version of my grandmother. And my father looks like his grandfather, my great grandfather. It must be something with the Allen line of our family tree.

But I digress.

Dad and I both share traits of thoughtful passion, congenial disposition and offbeat creativity.

A salesman and later marketer by trade, my dad spent long weeks on the road in exchange for the means to provide our family with a nice living complete with summer vacations, a swim club membership and comfortable home.

All that hard work made weekends precious, and I loved any opportunity I could get to spend time with dad. Sometimes we'd just run errands together, dropping off his dry cleaning and taking trips to the bank. Along the way we'd sing together when the radio played Electric Avenue and Funkytown.

To this day, I can't hear the song Funkytown without thinking of my dad.

These weekend errand jaunts - my mom loved them because it was an opportunity for us to get out of her hair. I loved them because they usually involved stops at our favorite low key dining spots - Decent Deli and Blue Ash Chili.

At the deli, I'd get a bowl of matzo ball soup, a potato pancake and a Doctor Brown's soda. We'd nosh on the kosher pickles in the tub on the table and talk about what I did in school and other important points of conversation.

Dad has always been my great protector, one of my strongest advocates and big challengers. He pushes me to be more, be better, work harder, even when I don't want to.

A former high school and college quarterback, these days Dad is happy to sit on the sidelines as one of the loudest, most dedicated cheerleaders in his children's lives.

And I am so, so grateful for that.


Kate's Random Musings by Kate the Great is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.