It’s Father’s Day! What are your stories about your dad that you love?

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1. I’m the middle of three girls. My dad is your classic overprotective girl dad. He would always tell us how much trouble boys were and that we should just focus on ourselves. My parents were divorced. My dad lived in Michigan and my mom in Virginia, and their custody arrangement involved us bouncing around to each parent for a couple years at a time. When I was with my mom, my dad constantly wanted to keep in touch and stay updated on my life. When I was with my dad, my mom never did that. He was the emotional support parent, and I’m significantly closer with him today than I am with my mom.

   My favorite story is his toast at my wedding reception. He told my husband that he could tell that when they first met, he was trying to seem “impressive” to my dad in the hopes of winning his approval, but he then said “you had my approval the first time I saw her face light up when she looks at you.” He’s an awesome dad. My older sister had a baby a couple years ago and now he’s an awesome grandpa, too. Hope to see him sometime this summer.

2. My dad and his mom ran away from their boundary (similar to a reservation) when he was 13 so he wouldn’t be sent to Indian boarding school.

   They worked in a movie theater in Florida.

   Eventually, he joined the Navy, and got a GED, BA, and MBA.

   I’m proud that he refused to let his culture be erased, and that he always valued education.

   Those are the values I strive to teach my own daughter.

3. One lesson I got from my dad in how to treat people was this:

   It was after a Saturday baseball and softball game. He took us to a Steak ‘n’ Shake for post game lunch.

   The service was *awful*. The waitress was a young woman and she was just mean. Like rolling her eyes and exasperated about everything. Didn’t bring us water. Took forever to even come take our order even though the place wasn’t busy. Was snappy with my sister when she took a minute to decide what she wanted.

   She screwed up our orders completely and then was shitty with us when my dad asked if he could get what he ordered. I ended just eating what she brought but it wasn’t what I ordered and she never brought our drinks until my dad walked up to the counter and asked if they were coming.

   So when she finally brings the check it was wrong and she overcharged us. She was super rude about fixing it.

   So when she brings the right check back my dad looks it over and says “so do you charge extra for all the rudeness.”

   She immediately bursts into tears. Just sobbing by the table. My dad immediately went into full dad mode and had her sit down at our table. The manager hears all this and starts coming out. My dad waves him away. My dad apologized to her and said that was wrong of him to say. She just starts profusely apologizing and just unloading her whole story. Her boyfriend had just left her and stopped paying rent so she was afraid she was going to be evicted and now she was going to lose her job.

   My dad let her sit and compose herself and apologized again for adding more needless stress to her day.

   He left a *very* generous tip and went and talked to the manager.

   She was there next time we were there so she didn’t get fired.

   In the car on the way home my dad told me and my sister that he was embarrassed with himself and that was why you always treat people with kindness. You never know what someone else is going through.

   I remember that event and lesson to this day.

4. My Dad died when I was thirteen. He was an electrical engineer, aka a programmer.

   One day, as we were driving along a bridge, he spotted a square of sod that had fallen into the emergency lane. He turned around as soon as he could, drove back down the length of the bridge, u-turned again, so he could stop and snag that square of sod.

5. About a week before my birthday in 2016 (I’m 16 now so I was turning 9) we went to a mall in town to run some errands. My younger sister and dad went to GameStop while I went with my mom to Ross, I was pretty upset that my sister would get to look at the games and play on the kiosk’s while I had to spend hours bored at the clothing store, there wasn’t much I could do about it though so I had to just get over it.

   As we were leaving I saw that my sister had even gotten a figurine which made me pretty jealous as well. Anyway my birthday rolled around and it turns out the trip was actually so my dad could get me a 3DS! I had a DS Lite at the time but the bottom screen was broken/beat up in general and I really, really wanted a 3DS to play the newer, more advanced games. I still have it, although I gave it to my sister about a year ago and it still works perfectly (aside from 2 battery replacements) after over 1500 hours of gameplay and 7 years.

6. Just how my dad taught me to be accepting. He was born in the 1920s but was cool.

   My mom was conservative and judgey and but my dad was cool as shit. We managed a rooming house (as my parents second job) and it had a lot of vulnerable people and people who had brushes with the law. Rooming houses are sad as hell.

   I cleaned the toilets and my dad did maintenance. When I was in my teens in 1982, the aids crisis broke out.

   A young kid with AIDS from Pueto Rico moved into the rooming house. He was gay and an ex junkie and got kicked out of his home and Puerto Rico and came to Massachusetts. His family didn’t want him touching anything in the house because of AIDS. My dad took him under his wing since he didn’t have anyone. I don’t think my dad ever knew a Hispanic person before. My dad grew up in rurla Mass, coon and squirrel hunting and working on the farm and getting farmed out living in strangers barns all summer. It was a very White place. But he was cool with this wildly different person and never said a peep about him being gay or his previous heroin use. He just tagged along fishing or playing ball or fixing stuff like it was some long lost son.

   My favorite reminder of this is my dad was going to refinish our floors and he wanted Dempsey to learn so he had some skills. He let Dempsey do the floors in our 1700s colonial home, and now there are these giant swirl marks everywhere from the orbital sander. They are hilariously deep, and my dad was totally cool with it.

   He helped a lot of people in small ways at that place.

   I can remember in the 70s how much my mom disapproved of hippies and bell bottoms.

   I was walking somewhere with just my dad and there was a pack of teens in some pretty crazy getups – that my mother would have been a bit outraged about. I can so vividly remember looking up at my dad to see his reaction. He looked down at me and cheerfully said, “It takes all kinds”.

   It was a weird house. We had a little back yard and he let these Hmong people we met in a bank use it to grow food – they had brought seeds from their country but didn’t have a yard.

   Friends came over and look out my kitchen widow and there were literally a bunch of Asian ladies with those cone sun hats with babies strapped to their back hunched over gardening in my teeny backyard. 40 years later I’m still in touch with those kids.

7. Family trip to the Grand Canyon. It was my parents, siblings, some aunts and uncles, and an 8-year-old cousin. My cousin was running around and of course, we were all worried that he would just fall into the canyon. So my dad told him to hold on to my 17-year-old brother’s hand, because he was worried that my brother would wander off and get lost. My cousin took this very seriously and held on to my brother’s hand the whole day.

8. Shout-out to those who have troubled relationships with their dads and don’t celebrate Father’s Day.

9. When I was about 2, I fell into a swimming pool. I didn’t know how to swim, so this was kinda serious.

   My Dad jumps in *immediately*–shoes, wallet, and everything–and scoops me up.

   All I remember is how cool the air bubbles looked as I was falling in the water. If my Dad hand’t jumped in right away, I would’ve been terrified of water. Instead, I just remember the bubbles.

10. My dad would go out early every morning with his coffee and feed the squirrels. They would get the treats right from his hand! I was thrilled that Daddy had charmed the squirrels!

11. My dad is one of my favorite people in the world. He’s just a great guy in general. I worked alot of jobs involving kids and people wondered how I was so good with kids. I would just do what i thought my dad would do. I was always hyped when I got to spend time with him, especially when it’s just him and me.

    When I was really little, my dad and I went to the bank. A guy comes in and tells us someone stole our car. Obviously, it was a bad situation for my dad, but it’s one of my favorite memories because my dad carried me home on his shoulder (you know, because we don’t have a car anymore).

12. My dad got to law school with a car that would run but wouldn’t start and his friend had a car that would start but wouldn’t run. They lived on top of hill and so they would have the car that would start push the car that wouldn’t start and get it rolling down the hill and jump in and pop the clutch and then when he got to school he would park at the top of the parking garage and have some people help him push the car to ramp so he could get rolling and jump in and pop the clutch again to get it running when he went home.

    He went to Woodstock’s follow up festival in Dallas with his friends. I’m the way they accidentally locked the car keys in the trunk but my dad tried his own car keys which just happened to be the same as his friends car and they were able to continue. The festival was next to a lake and there was a Holliday Inn with a free break fast buffer do every day they would jump in the lake to get clean and then go eat half the buffet. I can’t imagine how bad they smelled. They were sad at low number of female attendees at the festival though the music was great.

    He made money in college by going back to his home town and working as a gandydancer laying new tracks for railroads and driving out to fix “sun kinks” when the rail would expand after sitting out in the hot sun and bust out of its fastenings and you just wail on it with sledge hammer to force it back into place before the next train gets there.

    He decided to go to Washington to protest the Kent State Shooting so he and his friend were on an interstate ramp with bags and sign looking for a ride to Washington and they saw a police car approaching upon which they decided the best idea would be to runaway as trying to hitchhike on an interstate ramp was illegal but unbeknownst to them there had recently been a prison break and this resulted in a brief chase and them getting ordered out at gun pint after hiding behind a shed in someone’s yard and eventually getting an earful from the cops after they clarified who they were and were told not to do that ever again.

13. I’m very close with my dad. We enjoy going to tourist spots together, theme parks and zoos and etc. He has always been very encouraging of my love(s) of animals, science, reading, etc. I remember him saying “no matter what, no matter what we have bought that day, no matter what day it is, I will always buy you a book.” My parents divorced when I was a baby so I never really knew them together, only apart, but they do-parented well and got along.

    One of my more recent favorite memories of my dad is just how he was helping me at my wedding. It was a destination wedding and he flew in a day earlier than everyone else to help me get welcome bags put together. I did a first look with him for the wedding and it was the best decision, he happy cried so much.

    He texts me every morning: “Good morning, beautiful daughter.”

14. My father went to federal prison before I was born when I was 3 around Christmas time he escaped and came to my mother’s house, mainly to hide out, but if d like to think it was to see me for Christmas

    I never saw him again he’s been out for 12 years

15. My dad got parked at a go-kart complex in Myrtle Beach for wrecking me. When the teenager getting paid minimum wage to keep an eye on the track said “come on, man, you ain’t #3,” my dad responded, “damn right I’m not! I’m a Rusty fan!” and high-fived me.

    Now at this point, you probably envision my old man rocking a wife-beater, mullet, and camo Tennessee hat. Nope! He has degrees from two of the most prestigious universities in the country and plans my parents’ vacations around art museums and historic architecture. He just also loves racing and cars, and isn’t above wrecking his kid at a tourist-trap karting complex.

    Love you, dad.

16. Really mundane story in comparison to a lot of others here, but it’s one that I always get a chuckle out of.

    So one day after my dad picked me up from pre-k, he drove through a yellow light to beat it before it turned red. Me, being the curious little dumbass I was, asked him what the yellow light meant; I knew that red meant “stop” and green meant “go,” but what the hell was this strange, in-between color supposed to mean? He answered that it meant to slow down before the light turned red, so I asked him why he didn’t slow down, and his response was, “I didn’t feel like it.”

    It was that day I learned that my dad was a smartass and where I would inevitably get it from.

17. Not exactly a story. He danced with me on my 15th birthday. We cried. That’s a nice memory. It’s easier to remember the bad things he has done and the ways he has hurt me and the family than it is to remember the good times he has made me smile. But he’s a good father. He’s out right now getting my birthday cake as I’m writing this. I’m fortunate. He’s present in my life and for that I’m thankful. He’s built a whole life in this country since he was barely an adult, without the presence of his parents, but he pushed himself forward to provide a good life for his family. That alone makes him the best father I could ask for. I’m not the best daughter, but I try my best and I know that he does too. For his presence, hard work, and resilience I am thankful.

18. It was around 1970, so I was around 5 years old. We were in Florida at our beach apartment when a huge commotion brought everyone to the edge of the beach.

    It was a boat, unpainted and incredibly rickety looking. Hugely overburdened with people. They were Haitians, illegal refugees. I didn’t understand any of that part back then but I can remember crying because the people crammed on that little boat were crying. They all looked skinny and scared.

    The neighbors began shouting about blocking access, making them land elsewhere but my dad refused. He waved them in, then walked them through the crowd to the road.

    My dad did some shady shit now and then but his determination to let those poor people start a new life has never been forgotten by me.

    He could be ridiculously tight fisted with money, or incredibly generous.

    He died 2 years and 6 days ago, I miss him.

19. It was the early ‘90s, Christmas time, I was in middle school (6 or 7th grade) and I wanted a Game Boy really bad. My stepdad knew this and one day, brought home a wrapped big box I could open early. I was so excited! I was finally getting one! So, I rip off the wrapping, rip open the box and it was newspaper. There was another box under that, a little smaller. I open it and it was filled with packing peanuts. This smaller box could have fit the Game Boy very easily. I take the smaller box out, put my hand in the packing peanuts and lift out… a grimy old radio. Up until that point, I had never seen my stepdad laugh that hard. Of course, I was pissed. But I did end up getting a Game Boy on Christmas Day, with two games.
    This story might sound mean, and it kind of was at the time, but man, he and I have big laughs about it now!

20. When he told me he was gonna get milk and candy at the store.

    Never saw him again

21. I always thought my dad was very intelligent. He’s not the most educated, but very smart to the world and reading people. So one of my favorite stories is a time when he just completely missed the clues someone was giving him.

    I was 17 and trying to get my driver’s license. The state was in the process of changing the laws so it was really annoying to get. Well we finally get to the point where I can get it and the DMV lady informs us I need a permit first. So my dad is pretty damn annoyed at this point, but the lady was trying to help us out. She informs us on a Friday morning if I go and do all 100 hours of supervised driving over the weekend and come back on Monday morning, I could get my license. The lady explains that there is no way of them confirming how many hours I drove and is basically winking at us.

    My dad just completely misses what she is hinting at, despite the lady explaining it multiple times. I eventually tell her I will explain it to him later. My dad was so embarrassed when I explained to him why the lady was saying to do 100 hours of driving in 72 hours.

22. When I came out to my family my dad joined his workplace’s LGBTQ+ affinity & ally group and has been super active with the programming they put on. He has now been to more pride events than I have, haha!

23. My father is on hospice right now for throat cancer. It’s gotten so bad he can no longer eat – hasn’t in over two weeks now.

    He is feeling miserable, but yet he always thinks of me first. Reminds me to sleep because I work 4am shifts. Always reminds me to drive safe. He is so selfless.

    That’s what I love about him most.

24. My dad would buy all the toys under the sun and said they should be kept in his den.

    One night I awoke to horrible noise. I was about 4 years old so it couldn’t have been to late. I decided to investigate the noise. Daddy was playing with thr toys I thought were mine and eating candy!

    Hilarious in retrospect. At the time I thought it was unfair that I had to go back to bed.

25. I didn’t have the greatest father. Lots of issues. But the one memory that i carry to this day is the time I spilled a milkshake in the backseat of his brand new car that he worked and saved for, and after he told me to be very careful.He didn’t get angry or raise his voice, he hugged me and said “ that’s ok, everyone makes mistakes “

26. The best advice my dad gave me when figuring out what career to pursue was “I don’t care what it is you choose to do. You can be a burger flipper and I’ll be proud. Just make sure you’re the best burger flipper that ever lived.” Basically just to say work hard and strive to do the very best with a bit of comedy. I think that kind of sums up who he is too.

    He grew up with little and with parents who didn’t do much for their kids. He and my mom made it on their own. I admire that about them.

27. When I was really young my mom worked days and my dad worked nights. My dad would take care of me all day, my mom would get home at 3 or 4, we’d have late lunch/early dinner, my dad would crash for a few hours, get up and go to work, come home at 5am, sleep a few more hours, then wake up and take care of me.

    Crazy schedule, but because of that I have so many happy memories of us spending time together. My favorite thing to do was to act out scenes from movies, so sometimes we’d go play in the park and I’d be like, “now you’re Prince Eric and I’m Ariel, I just saved you from drowning” and he’d immediately get into character. He’d even do this if he had friends around – “sorry guys Ariel has to save my life, one second.”