Column: Tales from Exit 22

I want to debunk the world’s most prevalent myth.

I want to do this on behalf of Father’s Day.

Despite what most people believe, fathers do not like taking naps.

The truth is that a sofa represents the strongest gravitational pull on earth. If a small child were pulled into a sofa, he or she would be drawn down behind the cushions where missing TV remotes and lost car keys live, never to be seen again. That is why fathers stretch out on sofas. It is like falling on a live grenade. We do that because we love, not because we need a nap. Besides, the sofa is like a fast horse. If it hasn’t been ridden for a few days, it gets skittish.

It cost $35 to deliver the baby me. It was $25 for the hospital and 10 bucks for the doctor. My father claimed that he hadn’t paid the bill. He threatened that if I misbehaved, he would tell the doctor and hospital where I was and they would repossess me.

I thought about that as I visited the graves of my mother and father. The graveyard afforded a quiet dignity. The headstones thinned at the edge of the rural cemetery. I could almost hear the skirl of bagpipes. I recalled being in the company of my parents as we visited the final resting places of my grandparents in Iowa and placed lilacs on their graves. On Memorial Day, we paid homage to those family members who died in battle in World War II and Vietnam.

My father was an industrious fellow. Always working. He attempted to play catch with me occasionally, but after throwing the baseball only once, his arm would go out on him. He kept trying. I am thankful for those many single tosses. Dad took me fishing for bullheads on days so cold my backside froze. The memories of those days warm my heart today. Dad taught me how to whistle. He whistled on key. I enforce no such boundaries on my whistling.

The wind prompted dust to investigate the engraved letters on the stones revealing the burial site of my parents. My parents were accustomed to wind. I kneeled to pull a weed from the grass covering my father’s grave. As a farmer, he battled weeds unrelentingly. By pulling one weed, I fought that war for him. My thoughts moved to an old neighbor, Joe Holland, who told me that the best way to get rid of thistles was to sprinkle whiskey on them and let the Baptists eat them. My mother, who was raised a Baptist, tried not to laugh at that. I thought of Dad as frugal, but he was of that generation of farmers who thought “buying on time” meant getting to the store before it closed.

I remembered a song that Dad sang as we milked cows. It was a Red Foley piece that went, “When I was a lad and Old Shep was a pup. O’er hills and meadows we’d stray. Just a boy and his dog, we were both full of fun. We grew up together that way. I remember the time at the old swimmin’ hole. When I would’ve drowned beyond doubt. Shep was right there, to the rescue he came. He jumped in and helped pulled me out. So the years fed along and at last he grew old. His eyesight was fast growin’ dim.

Then one day the doctor looked at me and said, ‘I can’t do no more for him, Jim.’ With a hand that was trembling I picked up my gun. I aimed it at Shep’s faithful head. I just couldn’t do it, I wanted to run. And I wished that they’d shoot me instead. I went to his side and I sat on the ground. He laid his head on my knee. I stroked the best pal that a man ever found. I cried so I scarcely could see. Old Sheppie he knew he was going to go. For he reached out and licked at my hand. He looked up at me, just as much as to say, “We’re parting, but you understand.”

Now Old Shep is gone where the good doggies go. And no more with Old Shep will I roam. But if dogs have a heaven, there’s one thing I know. Old Shep has a wonderful home.’”

That song made me cry when I was a boy. As a man kneeling to pull a weed from my father’s grave, I cried again.

Tell your father that you love him.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.