A Million Atta-Boys and a Shirt

Originally published Father's Day Week, 2008 in the Upper Cumberland NOW

A Million Atta-Boys and a Shirt

A thousand thank you’s, ten thousand words of gratitude, a hundred thousand units of respect, and a million “atta boys”. All of these and a shirt go to my father for Father’s Day. All of these and whatever inadequate token I gave go to my mother in a belated Happy Mother’s Day. For how can I possibly thank the two people that have always been there? How can I possibly tell them how much I love, honor, respect, and appreciate them.
My parents live in Knoxville (Karns actually). They are the living epitome of the classic love story. They were the boy and girl next door. They met when Daddy was 14 and Mama was 13. They ran off and got married in 1953, when Daddy was 18 and Mama was 17. Fifty-five short years, three children, and seven grown grandchildren later, they are still a team.
We weren’t well off when I was a child. We weren’t poor, just your average middle-of-the-road Americans like Andy, Aunt Bea, Opey, Barney, and Floyd. Daddy was an electrician, and Mama was first a stay-at-home Mom until later when she went to school and became a nurse. As children, my brother, sister, and I didn’t realize that we didn’t have a lot of money. Our wealth came in the form of time. Time that our parents spent with us. Time that they spent on our behalf. There were countless hours of playing catch, croquet, and badminton in the backyard. There were the countless hours they spent pulling us around the lake on skis. Pulling us, I might add, in a wooden boat that Daddy built himself, so we would have one. We spent time hiking in the mountains, fishing in the pond and Granny’s, and building snowmen in the snow. Our vacations consisted not of a trip to the beach but tent camping on Norris Lake. On those trips, Mama would make us peach cobbler, and cook it in a Dutch oven hanging from a tripod over the fire. Daddy would play checkers with us when it rained. We sang songs, went on hikes to “the rocks”, and were amazed at the power our Dad had to change the direction of the campfire smoke. (We weren’t real bright.)
Later on, Daddy was a Boy Scout leader, and Mama was a Girl Scout leader. After that they were leaders in the 4-H horse and pony club, where my sister and I spent so much of our time. Daddy let us hang around and play with the soldering gun while he talked on his ham radio. Mama provided our dolls not with just a few clothes but entire wardrobes, which she sewed herself. Sometimes those clothes matched our own, as she made all our clothes, too.
What they couldn’t give us in material possessions, they gave us in time. Rather than taking us to the movies, we stayed home and watched “Friday Night at the Movies” on TV, where Mama always provided popcorn and orange juice milkshakes, and you know what? It was a grand ol’ time! By the end of the movie, my sister and I were feigning sleep so that our Daddy would carry us up to our beds. Rather than going snow-skiing, we would walk down to the local sledding hill and spend the day trudging up the hill and flying back down.
I don’t remember my parents ever getting outrageously mad, even when my sister, my cousin, and I picked durn near every flower and leaf off of all the shrubbery and strained it through water down the slide to make perfume. All the bushes were naked, but we had fun. I don’t remember them getting angry when my sister and I had the fight while we were painting the rabbit cage and painted each other black. They smoothed my ruffled feathers when we played “Tarzan” and as the youngest I had to be “Cheetah”. (I wanted to be Jane!) They consoled me when my brother got to be Samson, my sister got to be Hercules, and I had to be stupid ol’ Son of Hercules.
In the later years, my parents took my children and their cousins to the beach. They took them to Disney World, they took them to Washington, D.C. They have rented cabins in the mountains so that we could all get together in one place. We still spend a lot of time together. After Daddy retired and we all got into this music thing, Daddy built us all dulcimers.
So, thanks, Mama and Daddy. You have been and still are the greatest! You’ve provided me with everything a person really needs. You’ve provided me with example. If can achieve even half of what you have, I’ll be doing all right. Atta Boy, and I hope you like the shirt.