Wonder Years
I am a salesman’s daughter. My father, a veteran and a pool shark, has made his living over the years employing his greatest attribute in any way possible. From John Deere to a hole in the wall bar in Portland, my father’s innocent looks and (therefore) surprising jocularity have provided him with a comfortable life and an impressive resume. Having skipped college to join the Army after his parents passed away, my father learned everything he knows about business and people who want to do business by being there, interacting and making things happen.
As much as I love my dad, there were periods of time when I couldn’t understand why he did what he did. Before lawyer jokes were popular with WASPs, salesmen were the target of many wisecracks. I heard all about it at school. It didn’t matter that my father managed the 2,000 car Volvo lot, it only mattered that he worked at a dealership. But it’s always been the case that no one likes a salesman unless they need one, just as no one likes a lawyer unless they’re a murderer. My father managed lots, drove new vehicles wherever we moved, and worked insane hours my entire young adult life. My father would come home, announce that we were moving, and fall asleep on the couch ten minutes later with a full beer left to sweat its life away on the coffee table next to him.
My father, who once fired a man for telling a joke with a punchline that depended on the word “fuck”, because if a customer heard a salesman talking that way, they’d lose respect for him and never believe a word he said.
Like any kid, I hated to move around, and I made my protest as pitiless as possible, considering my position as a mere tag-a-long to my parents. By high school, I had attended over ten schools, and had perfected the Slow Drive Away from Best Friend’s Driveway, waving through my tears, knowing I’d never see them again. See, my dad never made a big deal out of moving because for him, it was far more important to work somewhere he liked and continue to pay the bills and what not. For us, however, it was a huge pain in the socially awkward ass. Because my father seemed immune to the severity a move has on one’s emotions, I often found myself purposefully trying to piss him off. I was the queen of accumulating $500+ dollars in long distance charges, coming home late, and talking back. By my junior year in high school, I was a vegan straight-edge punk with dyed-black hair and a chain wallet. My parents hated it at first, but when they realized I was socially conscious and getting straight A’s, they decided it was a good move for me.
As you can imagine, this was infuriating.
One of the reasons it was so hard to displease my parents in high school is because my brother and I had already spent years torturing them with various mishaps and contretemps. In fifth grade, my mom left my brother and I at home with my little sister, who was then five or so. After locking her in a trunk in a rare show of solidarity, my brother and I proceeded to argue and I ended up locking him out of the house. He retaliated by smashing the patio door’s glass pane with a broom handle. A few years later, in Dallas, we took turns darting out from the bushes into neighborhood traffic, throwing ourselves onto the hoods of cars and pretending to be injured, only to run away laughing when the drivers either had heart attacks or tried to flee the scene. Once I had my driver’s license, we were in Arkansas, and I would offer to drive my brother and his friends places, only to kick them out of the car halfway there. When challenged, I’d tell my mother that Timothy was striking me from behind, forcing me to remove him from the car in order to continue driving safely and responsibly. Usually, karma repaid me for this with a car accident. The most notable one involved me rear-ending an old man hooked up to an oxygen tank who passed away in his car after I hit him going approximately 5 miles an hour.
As we grew older, we learned to appreciate our father more and more, and came to realize that moving around so much actually taught us a lot about life. We learned invaluable people skills, and also learned how to tell just about everything you need to know about someone by the way they enter a room. Case in point: by senior year of high school I knew that one should never make friends with the first person that offers to let you sit with her at lunch: she’s definitely either insane or on the nation-wide loser-list. This is true for moving to new cities as well. If she appears to have no friends besides you, there’s a reason for that.
By the time my brother and I were both adults, we had grown into ourselves enough to know that our dad had, in fact, instilled us with scores of useful life-lessons, despite his emotional timidity and frustratingly consistent sense of humor. My brother and I realized how much he gave us, and it actually helped us bond quite a bit, especially once I had moved out and started college. Since then, my brother and I have rarely lived in the same city, had plenty or arguments, but always had a solid familial friendship that withstands our distance.
So it is with this unnecessarily verbose and unjustifiably prolific diatribe that I congratulate my brother on his marriage to the lovely Meghan, and wish like hell that I could have been there to hear my father’s toast.
Good job, little brother.
although my grandfather took the place of my dad and he gave a cute speech at my wedding, ending with “Gimmie lotsa bambinos, ok?” i don’t have the heart to tell him that we aren’t having kids 
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