Last weekend, my oldest daughter was visiting us. My wife was telling her about the things she had coming up this week. My wife mentioned that she would be taking her father to see a Dr Bada on Tuesday. My daughter said she wondered if that was Donald’s father. My daughter had gone to high school with a kid named Donald Bada and Donald’s father was a doctor. My wife replied “how many Dr. Badas can there be?”
I replied “99. On the wall.”
99 Badas of…
My wife and I always read to our kids. There are a handful of books that I remember reading to them that stand out. When I read to them from an illustrated children’s Bible, my oldest daughter would always ask for the story of the wedding in Cana and my son enjoyed the story of David and Goliath. They also enjoyed the Dr. Seuss books. One book that I occasionally read was called Corduroy Goes to the Doctor.
I am the father of three kids. They are all adults now. As is probably the case with most parents, our parenting style and skills evolved with more kids added to the family. We tried to be as much by the book as possible with our first child. By the third child, we loosened up so much, she was probably raising herself. When my kids were little, one day my son, the middle child, asked why his little sister was so wild. I told him it was because he and his big sister were not raising her right.
I enjoy watching movies. I have passed this love of films on to my children. I have what is probably best described as eclectic taste in movies and I think my children have this as well. My wife called me at work one day when my oldest daughter was about 4 years old. While we were on the phone, my daughter asked to talk to me. She said, “Daddy, do you know what I want to do tonight? I want to watch The Hideous Sun Demon.” I’m sure we watched it that night.
One day when my kids were much younger, my youngest daughter, Mary was arguing with her brother, James, in our kitchen. I don’t remember how old she was but if she was school age, she hadn’t been in school very long. She got mad enough to tell him, “James, you’re an asshole!” My wife was in the kitchen with them and asked Mary, “What did you say?” Mary replied, “I called him an asshole!” My wife told her, “you aren’t supposed to say that.” Her response was “Oh!” Like she had never considered calling him anything else. There has been much finger-pointing and speculation about where she heard this language.
My oldest daughter and son were upstairs playing. They were very young. I overheard my daughter in a loud whisper saying to her brother, “Don’t tell mom or dad.” I was going upstairs at the time, so I asked them what they didn’t need to tell me. I quickly saw that a cup from my daughter’s tea set had gotten broken. I asked her if she broke the cup. She replied “No”. I turned to my son and asked him if he broke the cup. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He was thinking about what to say. It seemed like he was deciding whether to tell the truth. His sister had said no, and she didn’t get in trouble. If he said no, he shouldn’t get in trouble either. When he responded to me, he confidently said “No!” His tone emphasized that he had given great consideration to the question before he answered. It expressed confidence in his answer, and I should have no doubt that it was true. It also seemed like this was the point that my son realized for the first time that he could lie and get away with it.
Growing up, I watched the Little Rascals and Laurel and Hardy films on TV whenever I could. These movies were made at Hal Roach Studios. Watching them as much as I did, I noticed the same music being used in all the films from this studio. Leroy Shield wrote these song and musical cues. The library of musical cues effectively matched the range of emotions displayed in these films. I fell in love with the music as much as I did the jokes from these movies. I was pleased when I discovered a Dutch music ensemble called The Beau Hunks that had created transcriptions of this music and recorded albums of them using vintage instruments and recording techniques. The first discovered them around 1995 when they released a CD called The Beau Hunks Play the Little Rascals Music. Later that year, they released On to the Show: The Beau Hunks Play More Little Rascals Music. I picked up copies of both and listened to them regularly. These recordings are faithful reproductions of the music on the soundtracks of the films. There is only the occasional deviation from the original arrangement. Most of the time, it sounded like you were listening to a cleaned-up version of the original recordings.
When my youngest daughter was little, she would run around with no clothes on after she got out of the shower. She would stand in the hallway upstairs outside of her room, raise one arm above her head and the other down by her side and shout “I’m Naked!” She didn’t do it all the time but often enough that it became a family thing that everyone knew about. Actually, she said “I’m Nekkid!” but we are from the South, so I assumed this is what you were thinking anyway.
A few years ago, we went to eat lunch at a restaurant on Mother’s Day after church. Only my immediate family were present, so it was my wife and our three kids. We were at a family style chain restaurant. The hostess seated us with my son and I on one side of the table and my wife and daughters on the other side. We had been seated less than a minute when my son leaned over and whispered to me that he thought television celebrity Montel Williams was sitting at the table behind our women. I looked but couldn’t really tell. My son whispered across the table to tell his younger sister that he thought that Montel Williams was sitting behind her. She turned around and looked. When she turned back she was excited and whispered that she thought it was him too.
When my kids were little, they would sometimes sleep over at my parent’s house. My girls would sleep with my mom and my son would sleep with my dad. During one of these sleep-overs, my son had gas. He was breaking wind regularly and my dad was trying to talk him into stopping. I’m sure my son thought it was funny. This was during a time when my immediate family lived about 4 hours from my parents and we didn’t see them as often. My son also watched a lot of professional wrestling around this time and had a bit of wrestler attitude for a 4-year-old. My dad continued to correct him. Finally, my son sat up in the bed, looked at my dad and said, “You…are a LOSER!”
My son didn’t get in trouble and my dad had a laugh.