He's a total paradox, first of all. He's a biker and has a few Harleys in his garage, and he's a BIG dude. Not fat, but just a huge monster of a man; giant hands, huge biceps and quads. Put nicely, he could be a bouncer and is not the guy you want to mess with in a bar fight. But, he's also like a big teddy bear. He never once laid a hand on me; did a lot of yelling and threatened more than once to "get the belt" but never actually followed through. Once when I did something I shouldn't have, he tried to spank me. He wound up to the moon, started the follow through and I closed my eyes and waited...and waited...and waited...and then *bink.* I almost started laughing but I thought better of it and ran off to my room instead.
Second, he's a freaking genius. He's never had his IQ tested, but I'm sure it's at least in the 150's. He can build anything, fix anything, invent anything. Once when I was a kid I asked him to build me a functional space ship. I remember being totally shocked when he said no. I was convinced that he was capable and just didn't want to bother with it. I'm still pretty sure that was the case.
When I wanted a basketball hoop, he didn't go out and buy one, he freaking built me one. It was made of steel, and could have survived an atomic bomb. The support post was probably 12 inches around and the back board was a sheet of steel. It was out in front of our house, right near the functional cannon he built out of an old oxy-acetylene tank and some wagon wheels. Next to the flag pole he made. On the brick pad that he laid. In the huge cement driveway that he poured himself.
When working at a power plant, my dad had to attend a class about critical thinking skills. The class was divided up into groups and each group was given a sheet of paper. Their instructions were to use the paper to make an object that would fly the farthest. The other groups got to work, feverishly building all sorts of paper airplanes, but my dad just sat there. The members of his group, who probably thought they were sure to win since Apple was on their team, began to get nervous. Finally one of the guys said "Apple, come on. What are your ideas??" My dad simply took the paper in his giant hand and crushed it up into a ball! His team won. He also won a contest at that job for eating the most McDonald's cheeseburgers--23 to be exact. But that's another story.
He was the hero of the quarries, where he rode dirt bikes and hill climbed. He invented a modified swing arm for his bike that basically allowed him to kick ass and take names. Nobody could beat him. At the age of about 54 he decided, on a whim, to enter a hill climb competition called Lucifer's Ladder. He found some sort of dead animal on the road, cut off the tail, hung it on his bike and said it was his good luck charm. He won in his age division and placed second or third overall if my memory serves me correctly. "Not bad for an old man," he said.
When I was about 15, I had a boyfriend who told me, "You know, when I first met you I didn't know who your dad was. Then someone told me you were Apple's daughter and boy was I scared." I always laugh when someone tells me what a bad-ass they think my dad is, because I've seen him play with kittens and go nuts over babies.
He's generous to a fault. He often asks, "You need money? Dad'll bring you some money." He talks to us kids in the third person; we don't know why and we don't care (especially if there's money involved). He can refer to himself as King George if he wants to. A few years ago, I mentioned to him that I'd like a rat bike, some old Harley that I didn't have to worry about laying down or wrecking. A few weeks later, he called me up: "Hey, Dad bought you a bike. It's a Sportster, real nice, gray and cream with some red on it. It's 1000cc, but the guy souped it up, too much horsepower for you. We'll get you a practice bike first." Needless to say, I'm scared to death to get on that bike, so my brother rides it instead.
Some years back, he was on his way home from work late at night and saw a young girl walking down the road, laden with luggage. He pulled over to see if she needed help. Turns out, she had come from New York on a bus to meet a "boyfriend" she had met online. The "boyfriend" never showed up at the bus station to pick her up. She had no money, and nowhere to go. My dad took her to his house, and set her up in my sister's room. The next day, he drove her to the bus station, bought her a ticket home and gave her money for food. He told her, "You get home, your family is worried about you." Thank God it was my dad who came upon her and not someone else.
My dad is the hardest worker I know; he'll run circles around you and then get up the next day and do it again. Once when he worked for a power plant, a coal conveyor broke down. The plant called in all sorts of professionals and engineers to fix it, but they were stumped. Somebody thought to call Apple; bing-bang-boom-FIXED, just like that. He's the only person in the history of that plant to have worked a triple shift. He worked doubles all the time; we weren't rich but we never wanted for anything and we took a vacation every year without fail.
When I was a kid, I thought my dad was mean; he doesn't talk, he yells. It took me many years to realize he was yelling because his hearing was going. All those years of riding loud motorcycles and working in loud environments had done a number on his ears. My brother Aric and I joke that when we were younger, and Dad would yell for us, he'd just yell "AAAAARRRRRI...." We could never tell who he was yelling for so we'd both go running! I was afraid of him, or so I thought. I realize now that it was respect I had for him...and also a little fear. His bark was and is worse than his bite.
As I write this, I think of more and more things that I could include but that would turn this into a novel. As an adult, I try to tell my dad often how great I think he is and that he's the best dad anyone could ever wish for.
But there is one thing I will never tell my dad...two years ago I was in his garage using his air compressor. He was at work, so it was just my friend and I. One of his motorcycles was sitting on the hose for the air compressor, so I had to move the bike. It was one of his bigger bikes, but all I was doing was backing it up a bit to release the hose from under the tire. I straddled the seat and stood the bike up. leaving the kickstand down. I backed the bike up very carefully and proceeded to let it down gently onto its kickstand. The bike slowly went down...and down...and down, down, DOWN. The kickstand had slipped! The bike was on top of me, I was on top of a giant metal cement float and my friend was yelling "Oh my GOD! Are you OK??" I yelled back "Who cares if I'm OK, we have to check the bike!!" 32 years old and still a bit (OK, at that moment a lot) afraid of my dad. We managed to get the bike up and to my relief there wasn't a scratch on it. I, however, had a GIANT bruise on my thigh from the metal cement float.
I was shaking with fear and immediately called my sister. "Katlin, I dumped Dad's bike!" She was just as afraid as I was and her first words were, "Did you tell Dad??" "Hell no I didn't tell dad," I said. "Are you NUTS?? I'm not EVER going to tell him. I'll save the story for his eulogy."
And that's just what I'm going to do.
My first day of first grade.
Dad took a break from pouring cement to get me on the bus.
©Kari Potochnik
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