***I totally changed the person I was going to do my profile on. Sorry for the last minute switch.***
“Well, look what the cat brought in!” This is the type of thing my dad would say whenever I would get home from school. My dad is as country as country can get. He was born back in the hollows and had an outhouse for a small amount of time when he was younger. He comes from a family of six children. Most of them were farmers. His highest education was high school and barely graduated in 1963. Whenever my mom and I would go somewhere and asked him if he wanted to come his reply would be, “you guys go ahead, I have to stay and take care of my dogs. That’s just the kind of guy he is.
Dad is a man of few words. The only things that really get him talking are the words “John Deere, tractor, beagle, and beer.” If you want to talk about anything else it’s a one sided conversation with you doing all the talking. He might add the occasional “huh” and shake his head back and forth. You will never see him in the house either. His house is the garage. It’s fully equipped with DirectTV, wood burning stove, and two full size refrigerators. One of them holds all of the soda and the other his Michelob Ultra.
His wardrobe consists of white t-shirts and handkerchiefs, blue jeans, tube socks, his work boots, and his flannel shirts in the winter. Oh yeah, and don’t forget his John Deere hat regardless of what season it is. Because of his refusal to buy new clothes my sister and I always end up getting him something to add to his wardrobe at Christmas time.
Being a man that has worked construction all of his life, he has a very set routine. He is up before the sun and my mom gets up with him. She makes his breakfast of “EggBeaters” and bacon while he takes a five minute shower. When I lived at home the smell of his deodorant and aftershave would tickle my nose. It made me run out to him and give him a hug. This became our routine. I would brush my face against his cleanly shaven stubble. He would squeeze me with what I thought to be his muscular arms. I would also feel the chapped cracked skin on his fingers when he would squeeze my hands. This was from the thirty-five plus years of working construction and being outside.
He would get home a little before me since he went to work so early in the morning. We would share some time in the garage talking about our days. I would go in to start my homework while he would piddle around in his garage doing little projects that mom had for him.
My mom would get home later and start dinner for us. By this time I would be finishing with my homework and he would finish up with his projects of mowing the grass, gluing something together, or just cleaning his garage. Once he finished we would all come in to eat together.
After dinner, the sun starts to go down. It’s time for him to go to bed. He kisses my sister and I on the heads, gives us each a hug making a grunting noise, and says, “love ya.” He then heads back the hallway to the bedroom so he can wake up before the sun again.
Word Count: 572
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