Father’s Day – it’s complicated

(If we’re friends on FB, you might remember seeing this about 3 years ago — not that I expect you to remember everything I’ve ever posted… 😉 )

Dad, Patty, Grandma Jenkins, and Grandma Ranscht
Dad holding Patty, beside Grandma Jenkins, and Grandma Ranscht. I believe my mom’s oldest sister, Sis, took the photo.

Outings to the Zoo, the museums, the merry-go-round and the train, the beach, the bank, the ferry. Listening to Dad read Alice in Wonderland waiting in the car outside the grocery store while Mom shopped. Semi-annual trips to Disneyland; car trips from California to Wisconsin, by-passing the Grand Canyon because it was out of the way. Family dinners every night. Speed math rounds. Kites. Edmund’s Scientific projects. Heathkit build-it-yourself electronics. Oscilloscopes. Photography — shooting, developing, printing. Working on the car. Watching while Dad fixed whatever we kids needed fixed. Making bullets, going to the range. Watching.

Loving Christmas.

Big Band music. Lectures on economics, politics, mistakes. Instruction. Help and advice only idiots would reject. Strong. Stubborn. Brilliant and independent, authoritarian and irreverent, determined and responsible. He was the most grownup man I’ve ever known and the biggest influence in and on my life, but I had to love him against his will.

I don’t have any pictures of Dad and me together. This one is from Christmas of 1950, before I was born. Dad holding Patty, beside Grandma Jenkins, and Grandma Ranscht.

Author: Sue Ranscht

Having survived valve repair surgery and an experimental cardiac bypass at age 5, three years before it was an accepted medical procedure, Susan grew into the size of her overworked and enlarged heart. Maybe she thought she had enough to give it away -- twice. Both times, she had to retrieve the shattered pieces and puzzle them back together. She thanks her Dad for the only advice of his she ever followed to the letter: "Never get married. Learn to take care of yourself." So of course she is a writer. Susan has co-written a YA SciFi novel, and has three more novels in various stages of evolution. She's had several short stories published in other people's anthologies, some of which were contest-related. Let her tell you a story...

16 thoughts on “Father’s Day – it’s complicated”

  5. It seems like a very honest reflection. Your affection and admiration for your dad and your ability to see all the different, complicated parts that made him up comes across well.

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