Written by Michael Claxton
Did I tell you about the time my father rolled my bedroom? While I was asleep in it? I guess I was about 8 or 9 years old. I woke up one morning to get ready for school and found myself surrounded by a sea of white. Strands of Charmin were dangling from the light fixtures, wrapped around the bedposts, taped to the walls and piled upon the floor.
I could not get out of bed without breaking this two-ply cage my father had created. To this day I have no idea how I slept through his redecorating, and on top of that, he TP’d my sister’s room the same night. Beth and I thought it was hilarious. Mom made him bag up the toilet paper and use it.
I wish every child could have a father who has a streak of mischief. For two years in a row now, I have almost tricked my nephew into throwing away his Christmas present. Each year he’s asked for a video game that costs about $50. In 2009, I hid it in a false- bottomed box that contained a pair of socks on top. He opened the present, said, “Seriously?” and tossed the box aside. Last year I created a gift bag with a false side. His game was behind the hidden panel, and I put a heavy package of his favorite candy in the rest of the sack so that he wouldn’t notice the extra weight. Punked again.
Ingenious, you say? Well, I can’t really take the credit since I learned from the master of “not what it seems” gift giving, my dad. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to dig through the Glad trash bags on Christmas morning because Dad said, “You didn’t find all the money.”
This is the man who drives a block out of the way to park where there’s a puddle on the passenger’s side. This is the man who once made me freak out before a school awards show. As the owner of a printing company,he often volunteered to print programs for our high school plays and other functions. Every year we had an academic award night, and he printed the materials for that as well. The program always listed all of the students who were receiving awards, so one year my father printed 10 extra copies that had my name in red. Then he handed me one as a “sample.” My face turned the same shade as the ink he had used, since I thought all the programs were that way.
I can’t even remember all the funny things he’s said over the years. As he has been battling Alzheimer’s, I’ve been amazed that his sense of humor has remained intact, even as other communication efforts have not. He’sconstantly joshing me about the fact that I’m not as thin as I once was. Last year he was commenting on this when the phone rang. Without missing a beat, Dad said, “Can you waddle over and get that?”
He’s even funny when he doesn’t mean to be. Last month my sister-in-law took him for a long drive one afternoon. After he had been in the car for a while, he looked around and saw no one else there but the two of them. So he asked, “Does my wife know about us?” Even after a heart attack and devastating stroke two weeks ago, he had us laughing. One morning he woke up in the hospital and looked at me. I had been up most of the night, and he said, “Is that the way you’re gonna look from now on?”
The late comedian Red Skelton used to close his show by saying what a joy it was to try to make people laugh. He would say, “If perhaps some day you’re not feeling well, and you remember some silly little thing that I’ve said or done, and it brings a smile to your face and a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled.”
Since I tell my students to document their sources, this is my Works Cited: If you’ve had a smile at any of my columns during the last five years, Dad deserves a lot of the credit. A whimsical sense of humor is one of his many gifts to his children, and I’m happy just to pass along some of the fun. Thank you to the Bison staff and to the Harding community for your kind thoughts for my dad. He faces difficult days ahead, but I’m sure he’ll meet them with a lot of prayer and a dose of wit.
