Life's Lessons for the Dad

By Bart McMillan

Ok dads, so you thought you were the only one who had a boatload of embarrassing, funny and yest sometimes-painful life changing experiences. You will soon discover in this book that we are similar in so many ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780972200417

Book preview

Beastly

I’VE BEEN THERE BEFORE

I’VE BEEN THERE BEFORE

Christmas is one of the greatest times of the year for my family, and I guess you could say it was the greatest time in my life growing up. You see Christmas didn’t last just one day. For us, it was an event that took place from the last week in November all the way through New Years day. It was a fun time for our family.

When it came to Christmas time, ours was almost a chapter out of Christmas Vacation. I think my dad was the first Clark Griswald. He loved to create the atmosphere of Christmas and have fun. Oh, we all had a good time doing that. My mom wanted to decorate, but she was into buying presents and loved doing so. Of course, my sister and I were busy making lists. We would get the Sears catalog out, spend hours looking at it, and circle everything we wanted in it. Then we would make that wonderful journey over to Sears. Whoooeee, it was a child’s dream! I would go through the store and dream about being an astronaut, a fireman, or a policeman. When we were young, there was nothing like going to Sears and Roebuck to look at the toys.

The Christmas season got its official kick off by getting the right tree. That was always an adventure to a gravel pit in town. We would get in old Hoopy. That was my dad’s ’63 Chevrolet Impala. We’d load up the ax, some rope and head over to the local gravel pit. We set off on a journey to find the most awesome tree that God had ever created. Our ceiling was 18 feet high, and it took a big tree to reach that height. My dad was into big trees. Sometimes the perfect tree would be cedar, and other times it would be pine. If it was a pine, we usually had to tie on extra branches to fill it in. I was a Cedar man myself. Oh, how I loved them. They made the house smell so good.

Now, you understand my dad always wanted the biggest and best tree. So, we usually cut down one that was about 30 feet tall. Of course, the Chevy Impala was only about 12 feet long. Let me give you an idea of what the scene looked like. We would lay the tree on top of the car, and then tie it down in the front and the back. It would cover the entire car and then some. Of course, the rope shortage meant that we would have to hold onto the tree. It was necessary for everyone to hang out of the car and grab a branch.

Just envision it. All of those arms poking out of the windows and holding onto the tree. It was truly a funny sight. When we’d stop, half the tree would slide forward and cover the windshield. Going around a corner was when it really got interesting. We always made it back to the house.

My dad and I would make some kind of makeshift tree stand that really never held the tree up. We always were bound to tie wire behind it just to keep it from falling over. We’d get the tree in place, and we’d start unloading the Christmas balls and the lights. Now, let me tell you about the lights. They were those big outdoor lights. My grandfather gave them to us. He was a carpenter and did some building at the local zoo. When the zoo changed out all their lights one year, they gave the old ones to my grandfather. So, he brought them to our house in the back of his pickup truck. We’re junkmen, and we’ll take anything. We ended up with those over-sized lights and began putting them on our tree. You’d have to wear sunglasses just to put the ornaments on the tree. You could get a suntan standing in front of our Christmas tree. Wooo! That was a nice tree.

When the tree was finished we would spend the next few weeks anticipating Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve was a major event. We’d go over to both sets of grandparents and exchange gifts. My aunt and uncle, Bonnie and John, and their son, Don, would come down from Chicago. They were the life of the party. I’ve never seen anything like it. I think they saved up all year long just to blow it all on us kids. They’d buy us everything that our parents never wanted us to have, especially dart guns. We’d have a war with the dart guns. Every year, my mom and my aunts would get mad, but every year, we’d get dart guns! Christmas Eve was a family reunion we all looked forward to.

After we left the grandparents, we went back home in anticipation of Santa’s big show. This is where the true element of this life lesson begins. We’d go to sleep, and inevitably my sister would wake up about 5:30 in the morning. It would still be dark outside, and she’d come beat on my door and say, Get up! I think Santa Claus came. Sure enough, we’d look over the top of the stairs, and there would be presents everywhere. I was very fortunate to grow up in a home where my parents were able to buy me just about anything I wanted. We had a big tree with gifts everywhere.

On one particular Christmas, the routine went the same. We went down to my parents’ room. After some begging they got up and walked to the room covered with the loot Santa had left behind. And, I mean presents were everywhere. My sister started counting to see if she had more than I did. If so, then she was happy!

On this particular Christmas, I was eight years old. I’d been looking