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By Guest Columnist Toby Nix
ZEBULON - Father’s Day is coming up, or just passed, depending on when you read this.
I want to try to write a few life-changing words that might serve to make every father or son who reads this shed a tear, or think of a fond memory of their relationship with one another.
I dropped my son off at a friend’s house the other day. He was going down to the beach with some buddies to celebrate successfully getting through the easiest part of life.
He was riding with them, so there was no need for his truck to spend the weekend at their house when I could use of some of his gas for a change.
As he walked around the corner of the house, and out of sight, I had a flashback to the day I dropped him off for his first day of school. I drew that straw because his mama didn’t have it in her heart to walk away from him should he cry.
Moms are good for about everything on earth that’s good and holy. But sometimes a bug has to be killed, a jar has to be opened, or a kid has to be dropped off crying. And that’s where daddies shine.
It’s not that I was any better prepared to walk away from him crying, I think it’s that future daddies hear “if you don’t stop crying, i’ll give you something to cry about” a lot more growing up than future moms do.
But that first day of school flashed back to me. I remember dropping him and his belongings off, and quickly turning around and walking away. As I walked, I repeatedly told myself “don’t look back… don’t look back.”
I’m not sure who I was trying to protect by not looking back that day. I could take a guess now that I’m a little older, if not a little wiser.
Fast forward from that first day of school to one day later, or so it felt, and now I’m dropping him off for a beach trip with buddies and I can’t take my eyes off him as he walks away. I actually thought about trying to get a picture of him, but I thought about it too late to get my phone out and camera open.
It made me sad, how quick it all happens. But since I didn’t want anyone to give me anything to cry about, I kept my best straight face and settled on the fact that I would get a good column out of this story.
Everything was going as planned for that story until I got home from work the other night.
My wife told me she had gone shopping with my parents. They like to hit up thrift stores, goodwills and salvation army type shops.
She told me, between her laughter, that my father had stood in the middle of the Salvation Army and sang “some old song with another old man” (her words, Pop, not mine).
My father randomly sang a song, acapella and unsolicited, with a complete stranger in the middle of the day, in the middle of a store.
She said everyone was quiet as they sang. I’m assuming it was either shock or everyone was trying to get their phones out to record the impromptu duet for snapchat. She did say everyone clapped as soon as they were done though.
To anyone who’s never met my father, you may not believe that story. To anyone who has met him, you’ll have no trouble at all believing it.
Happy Father’s Day Pop. And please understand why I never go shopping with you.
Toby Nix is a local writer, guitarist and deputy sheriff. He is the author of two books, “Columns I Wrote” and the newly released “A Book I Wrote.” He can be reached at tobynix@yahoo.com.