A Father's Place

A Father's Place

Dads explain what’s fair or unfair and moms decide when it is okay to go out and play. When she tells her friend she has to go in but goes out five minutes later to play with someone else, Dad says how would you feel if they did that to you? She knows how she would feel and pledges not to do it again. But dad knows that she will, and when she does, she’ll remember what her dad said. Maybe.

Dads are their children’s protectors. Dads chase the mon¬sters out of the closet at night. Dads have a special hug that resolves a nightmare’s terror. Dads are as tall as the sky and can reach the cookies moms hide on the top shelf.

Dads have to be dads sometimes. That means they have to yell and maybe spank. Any child can tell you that nobody hits as hard as daddies can. Not even Grandpa. Yet after every repri¬mand comes the guilt of being a daddy. Dads want to be kids, but too often get trapped into being adults.



Dads are as old as forever. They listen to ‘old people’ music like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. Their car radios are set to all¬ talk stations. Yet, with their own children, dads are forever young. They play horse, hide and seek and checkers when they are in the mood and decide to make time. Dads don’t like to play checkers too much because they lose a lot.
On a hot summer day, dads will chase you around with a water pistol, and sometimes even let you sneak up on them with the garden hose.
Dads have the largest, strongest hands in the world. Little girls in their cradles tightly grab their dad’s index finger and it’s as big as the world outside. But for dads, they see that those small hands hold so much. They hold the future and all dad’s hopes. They instill the fear of God in Dad when he senses the responsi¬bility in that precious grip.

Dads fix everything. But, what they actually do is take it to their side of the basement and shelve it until everyone forgets whatever it was that was broken.
from A Father's Place, an Eclectic Collection
by Anthony Buccino

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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
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An easy date to remember

Letter of introduction

... She was taller than me then. Her presence in my French class always made my day. Her hair was dark and very long, and sometimes it tangled in front of her face and she had to brush it away. She dressed conservatively with long skirts and baggy pants. Never glamorous, pretty much the way you’d want your sister to dress. She was bright, being a friend of mine for a time notwithstanding. Yes, and she wore braces when I knew her.

I took her to see the double feature at the Royal, or maybe it was the Center, in Bloomfield Center. Then, afterwards, we went to IHOP for a bite. We met another kid I knew (not too well, actually); he asked me if she was my sister. Fortunately, I don’t remember if I said anything witty, I doubt it.



I decided to make a habit about reading movie reviews before I took dates to them. One movie we saw that night had Marlo Thomas as an unwed mother. She talked about taking the pill, and never making love because no one might ever ask her, or not taking the pill and getting pregnant. At the end of the movie, she breast-fed the baby. It was some first date. I squirmed in my seat, and even now, I can remember how sweaty my palms were when that movie ended.

The other movie was about a cowboy named Zachariah, and it was biblically significant. All that went right over my Catholic head.

At IHOP, my date had a strawberry shake and told me there were real strawberries in it. I didn’t have anything witty to say. I called my mom to come pick us up. We brought her home. Every time I called to talk to her, her mom said she was out with Jeff.

I stopped bothering her April 14, that year. It was an easy date to remember. That was when Lincoln was shot and when the Titanic sank.

Talk about irony, didn’t know anything about her, really. I learned later her father was a minister, so she probably understood all that Bible stuff in the movie. And later, I learned that Jeff was her brother.

In my yearbook, the next year, she wrote, “It was nice.” I saw her once since then, at a funeral, but I couldn’t say to her what was racing around in my mind. But like I say, she wasn’t there, at the reunion. Her brother was. He was bald, and he sang a solo. She still adds music to my words but it’s a soft tune...

A Father's Place, an eclectic collection
by Anthony Buccino

**********************************

Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

A Hare-Raising Story

That old tale of Murphy the Easter bunny ...

I bought Murphy the Rabbit for my wife last year just before Easter.

That Murphy made it a full year with us is a great achievement in a house where the average pet fish lasts about three months. To tell the truth, I never really expected my wife to take care of the rabbit even if, theoretically, it was hers.

Every Easter for the six years we’ve been married, Dawn has talked about getting a pet rabbit like the little white bunny she had as a child. Another dependent was just what I needed. Of course, my wife, clever English teacher that she is, had her arguments all ready. This rabbit would save us money.



“If we got a bunny, we could keep it in fat Libby’s (our dog’s) old crate,” she reasoned. “Anyway, the crate’s just rusting away in the garage, so we wouldn’t have to buy anything new - except the rabbit and some food.”

That is the usual selling point of everything w: buy: Once bought we are done paying. It never works out that way, though.

In the pet store my wife told me, “I tested all the bunnies like we did the dog. You know, make a little noise and see which one sneaks up to investigate. This brown one here looks like Murphy.”




This Murphy had milk chocolate fluff for fur and looked as if it had been somewhere it shouldn’t have, because the tips of its fur were a smoky, dirty gray.

“Why not get a traditional white bunny? They’re the kind that deliver the eggs -and the chocolates,” I suggested. The look in her eyes told me it was not a discussion. This was Murphy.

from A Father's Place, An Eclectic Collection
by Anthony Buccino

**********************************
Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.