Monday, November 16, 2015
That's Just Dandy
My dad (who is Grandandy to the kids) has had some falls lately. That makes him sound like the Fall Guy but really he’s not old enough to be taking any falls, you know, like Bob Barker might be doing at his old age home but he’s so rich he probably has people just following him around and he gives them brand new cars if they catch him.
Well my dad is just a regular guy in the irregular sense that he’s partly a wizard. He came out here to Los Angeles with a wife and a couple of kids, and he was already just a kid and from Arkansas and Maryland, and he made a bunch of tv shows that are in the fabric of any kid who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s (that would be me). He made us some heroes and some villains and some people worth fighting for and worth taking the time to listen to. He made entertainment.
So it is frustrating to have him only entertaining us at bagels on Sunday, our bagel church. And to have his entertainment being the bike folding up on him and breaking his shoulder or the dog pulling him and splattering him on the street. My bruised but rallying dad, with his arm in a little blue sling.
At bagel church last Sunday we were wandering in Montrose and found a pin that said “Dandy” on it with a little fedora hat pictured at a “jaunty” angle. We got it for him and he pinned it on his sling so he could have some sling bling.
Later I talked to him and he had taught a film class and he was happy he still had his button. I still have my dandy on, he says. People noticed it. It made things brighter.
Yesterday he took us all on a tour of JPL – NASA. He wanted the grandkids to see the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, see all the amazing stuff they’re building and shooting into space to discover new things about the stars, the planets, and beyond. I had never been there before, so I didn’t know how amazing it was going to be.
I was watching him go into the building with my kids and he’s talking enthusiastically with them about what we’re going to see, and they’re as tall as him, and catching all his happy spirit.
I say to my husband, kind of in wonder, “My dad is so excited about this!” And my husband says, “Well he never grew up,” he says, watching my dad jubilantly open the door for our kids. We watch him. It is the best thing, to be able to follow along, behind in the group, and watch him.
“He’s Peter Pan,” Barry says, simply.
Network executive, broken bike, foiled movie investor, errant crazy dog – my dad has his share of villainous life. But there are still children here, ideas to be heard, and stars to be seen. He is opening the door. Hurry up, he says. With that twinkle in his eye, that is knowledge, and some kind of magic. It’s nice to never quite know someone all the way. There is still mystery, in the universe, and in the human world.
Best of all, he still has his dandy on.