Call Me Ted

When I was a child, after the laundromat my father owned turned first into a pool hall & next into an appliance repair business, my father drove a van. It was a retired Sears & Roebuck repair van of a certain blue-green color, almost/not quite, a pastel – way before Tiffany’s was on my radar. Call it turquoise or light teal or, when I attempted to present him with a Crayola van rendering, sea green layered over cadet blue, his van was my first experience with the serene, relaxing Tiffany hue. Turns out, that’s a big no-no in the commercial vehicle auction process. Sears required him to paint the van per terms of the sale. So, in Ted fashion, he turned to his BFF, local Seagoville wrecker operator Charlie Ballard, for a remedy. Charlie reckoned they could paint it themselves. Why, he even had a professional automotive paint sprayer at his garage. And, paint it, they did. I’ll never forget the time my mom went on a girl’s trip to Memphis with her mom & sister. While they were touring Graceland and snapping roughly 200 triple exposed pictures of the Peabody ducks – to this day when I see articles on those ducks, I envision duck world domination – my dad was left behind to care for me, his 10-year-old kiddo. That included taking and picking me up from school. Technically, there was a bus that ran right by my house, but I was a painfully shy kid. The year before, the bus driver couldn’t remember my name. She also couldn’t remember where I lived on the rural route road. Her solution was to pump the brakes, bring the bus to a screeching halt, and yell, “Ted, where’s your house?” I suffered from bus PTSD from that day forward. So, color me Crayola red violet when the all new, Ballard & Stilwell rendition of the Sears van pulled up to Central Elementary School one fateful afternoon. I mean, I heard Mrs. R. Jones (never to be confused with Mrs. S. Jones) going on and on about a red van, but I was too busy stressing out about the upcoming field day & how mortified I was when I learned they were forcing us to compete in at least one activity. I had reluctantly chosen the lemon twist marathon, since at least it did not require running. That’s when I realized there was a vaguely familiar noise that sounded equal parts like a sick goose, a model T Ford, and the cartoon character whose eyes popped out when a pretty lady walked by. “AhhhhhhOOOOOOOOga, AhhhhhhOOOOOOOga,” went the noise. Snapping out of my movie reel daze of my mangled ankle wrapped in a lemon twist while a gaggle of mean girls screamed “Ted, Ted” at the tops of their lungs, I looked across the parking lot. There, parked illegally in the bus lane, no less, was the brightest, glossiest, candy apple-est RED VAN I had ever seen. And, right down the middle, ran a stark, white horizontal stripe. A girl who shall remain nameless, no doubt someone who’d signed up for the 100 yd dash, sashayed by me with a disdainful look on her face. “Does your dad drive a Coca Cola van or something?” Oh, the shame.

Poor dads. Why, Father’s Day didn’t even get an official presidential nod until 1972! Mother’s Day faired better. Floral associations were skeptical that a day bestowing adorations on the fathers of the world would never take, citing that “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.” Other groups joked that gifts for fathers were ridiculous – gifts given to a dad, bought with his own money – hardy, har, har. We owe the national adoption of all US dads to Spokane’s Sonora Smart Dodd, who made a mission over the dad recognition concept, citing the selflessness of her own father, a widower with 6 children, who fulfilled that role with gusto. Sonora took her idea to shopkeepers, to the city/state/federal government, and to the YMCA. Washington jumped on board back in 1910, but it would take the rest of the country over 60 years to hop on the dad train. As with many things we celebrate, the take hold moment was money motivated. Department stores, post Great Depression, began to advertise Father’s Day as a dad’s second Christmas. After WWII, there were campaigns targeted toward celebrating the hero in your life by showering him in gifts on Father’s Day as recognition for preserving freedom for the world. And, in case you were wondering if there’s a political twist to Father’s Day, it became a signed proclamation as a part of Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign. Today, in the US alone, over $1 billion is spent recognizing our dads each year.

Let’s go back to that first post paint job van sighting, because my reaction to Big Red was not what you might think. I remember walking toward my father’s “new” van in wonderment. In addition to the new paint, and the white stripe, both of which looked extremely professional (nary a drip or overspray in sight), my father had hand lettered his own company name and phone number on both sides of the upper rear panels. “Ted’s Home Appliance – Service & Repairs - 287•1721.” It looked better than the Sears typeset. My father, the guy who wanted to be an engineer and who was on his way to Texas Tech before a world war changed everything, talked to me for hours, the light of excitement bright in his eyes, about fonts and spacing and DIY stencils. Later, he would develop a sign making side hustle. Thanks, Dad. Thanks for showing me how to never lose the passion for going all in. I miss you dearly, sir. Now, about that bucket I had to sit on in lieu of a passenger seat….