But I suppose that it doesn't matter what you call him.
At the end of the day he works about 60 hours a week on a normal week.
Most people work less around the holidays, but that is when my Dad works more. Thanksgiving pies, Christmas cookie orders, New Years cakes....there is always something to be baked and delivered that time of year.
All it takes is one look at him, and you know he has worked hard his whole life. He looks tired, and his eyes are worn from the monotonous stress of making sure his business operates smoothly day in and day out.
Hours a night behind fryers and hot ovens.
Hours a night lifting huge trays of baked goods out of ovens, moving massive bags of flour around, fixing machines that aren't working.
Hours a day working with advertisers, accountants, and customers.
Hours a day dealing with employees, tax codes, and regulations.
That lifestyle has turned him into a very serious and tired man.
Sometimes as a child I resented him for working so much and not being home more often. Sometimes as an adult I feel guilty for resenting him as a child.
...
I have always had insomnia. When I was younger I would spend the night reading everything I could get my hands on.
In my reading ventures, I once found my way across a box of old magazines of his.
They were coin collecting magazines, and I was in love right away. I went through old copies and I drooled over the shiny coins and grand treasures people had found, and I became determined that I was going to get a metal detector and become a treasure hunter.
...
I finally worked up enough courage to inform my father of my future career plans in the world of metal detecting, and informed him that of course for this to happen I would need a metal detector.
I remember him trying to hide his smirk a bit. He seemed more amused than anything else. He told me that the summer was coming up and he was too tired to mow the lawn, and that he had heard through the grapevine my Aunt and Uncle would also be too tired to mow their lawns over the summer and there was money to be made like that.
I thought he had misunderstood me. I didn't want to make money like that; I wanted to find money with my brand new fancy metal detector that I had already picked out from the magazines.
When I explained that I thought he might be confused, he pointed out to me that I was the one who was confused if I thought he was just going to buy me a metal detector, and before I could start my career as a treasure hunter I would need to work as a lawn mower first.
So off I went. I went above and beyond as I also contracted my neighbor at the time. Three lawn mowing jobs a week. And every time I got paid, I gave him the money and he put it in a manila envelope that he kept hidden in his closet.
Finally, at the end of the summer he took the envelope out and we counted the money and looked at the choices available to me.
After much serious deliberation we settled on the perfect metal detector for me. He called various sporting goods stores in the area to see if they carried that particular make and model, and we found a store about 2 hours north that had it in stock.
He decided we might as well go that day to pick it up, on the off chance someone else decided to walk in to that store that day and buy the metal detector of my dreams. The metal detector that I had worked all summer for.
This meant a grand total of four hours in the car with my Dad. Two hours there, two hours back.
...
As I stated above, my Dad was always a very serious man and had little free time, so when he had four hours in the car, it was used to listen to talk radio to keep up with politics.
As a young girl who was about to embark on grand metal detecting and treasure hunting journeys, I was worried that the sounds made by talk radio would ruin the adventure, and something in my eyes must have said the same to my Dad because he went into his bedroom and grabbed a mix tape to bring along for the ride.
…
The first song I remember on that tape was Fast Car by Tracey Chapman. I remember it starting right as we were merging onto 127 North and picking up speed. I remember thinking it was such an appropriate song for getting on the highway, I thought my Dad must have planned it like that even though he assured me he did no such thing.
It would be easy to say I was too young to understand the lyrics of the song at the time, and I suppose that that could potentially be true. But I wasn't too young to understand the feeling of the song.
The feeling of getting away and leaving it all behind.
I didn't have much to leave behind being that I was only in 6th grade at the time, but my metal detecting future gave me hope that I would find enough money for my Dad to quit his job and leave behind the lifestyle that seemed to be killing him.
...
The first week of metal detecting got me down. It wasn't like the magazines had portrayed it.
I wasn't finding gold or ancient coins and relics from lost civilizations. In fact I hadn't found anything. Not a damn thing,
And then it hit me. I needed a body of water.
All the great finds in the treasure hunting magazines seemed to be near water.
My Dad seemed to notice my frustration and loss of excitement surrounding the metal detecting situation, and when he asked me what was wrong, I explained to him the obvious; the lack of water was making it impossible for me to find silver and gold, lost pirate treasures, or even just change.
He thought for a few minutes and agreed that that was quite a problem for a young metal detecting aficionado to have, and he told me to wait up for him the following Sunday morning.
...
My Dad does most of the baking for his business at nights and into the early morning. He usually arrived home from work anywhere between 4 AM and 6 AM. I would usually sleep for a few hours earlier in the night, but being up at that time was no problem for me as I never slept for long periods at a time anyways.
That Sunday he got home and told me to get my jacket, and the metal detector, and to go grab the mix tape from his dresser.
And off we went.
It was the same mix tape as the one we had when we went up to purchase my metal detector. After Tracey Chapman was done singing about fast cars, Crimson and Clover by Tommy James came on.
I remember lighting up when I heard it on the tape. I had heard it before, it was one of my Mom's favorite songs, and I was happy to hear it because it made me think of her.
When I excitedly told my Dad that that song was one of Mom's favorite songs, he smiled and acted as though I had just informed him of one of the best kept secrets.
...
It's weird what a song can do.
Years later I was driving by myself from San Diego to Phoenix in a rental car, listening to an oldies station, and Crimson and Clover came on.
I had heard it in between of course, but there was something about being in a car on the highway at an odd hour with no one else on the road and hearing the beginning notes.
It gave me chills to hear the song again like that, and I realized how far away I was from home that night, some place between San Diego and Phoenix, and how alone I was without my Dad behind the wheel.
...
That Sunday morning we drove about an hour west to an inland lake that would become our regular treasure hunting location.
It was quite a large lake, but it was man made. That didn't seem to bother me, or change the idea that I had in my head of finding lost treasures from sunken ships.
My Dad got situated on a bench with his coffee and his stack of newspapers, and I set off to find some gold.
And boy did I.
Ok, not real gold, but....
Right off the bat, I found a nice little pile of change!
I ran back to my Dad, so proud of my findings.
He seemed amused, and pointed to a jar he had brought with him for me to put the change in.
The fact that he knew I was going to find change and need a jar to put it in should have tipped me off, but I was too excited about my findings to think clearly.
I ran back out to the trails by the lake and continued my mad hunt for more change to fill the jar with.
And so began quite a tradition.
...
On the drive home from the lake I usually fell asleep.
Treasure hunting is an exhausting career choice, and it takes a lot out of a young girl.
But I remember one morning in particular on the way home when something woke me out of my sleep.
It was a voice.
Not just any voice though.
The voice of Tom Waits singing Downtown Train.
There was something so alluring about his voice to me that I couldn't help but slam my finger down on the rewind button on the tape deck when the song ended so I could hear his voice some more.
And that is really what it came down to the first few times I heard Tom Waits. I was trying to understand his voice, trying to make sense of his raspy grit.
I became really good at rewinding that song right back to the beginning. After doing it enough times, I knew in my head right about how long it should take, and I am surprised I never wore the tape out on that song.
I don't think I understood then what I loved so much about his voice, but I understand now; his voice is real.
...
The Sunday morning routine began to settle in.
I would spend the night before reading and planning what part of the trails near the lake I should get to this time, then as the time neared for my Dad to get home, I would start getting things ready.
I would get the metal detector out of the basement, I would grab the jar that we used each week to keep the change in, but most importantly I would grab the mix tape.
It is sweet to think of those mornings as sunny and warm, but the truth is, we began this venture early in the fall that 1st year, and as the weeks passed it became greyer, foggier, and colder.
I needed more and more layers, and my Dad needed bigger cups of coffee.
It was usually grey, and we were always alone. I don't remember one occasion where anyone else was there that early.
He would sit on one of the many benches and settle into the papers. And I would begin my hunt for treasures.
Every now and then he would nod me off in a certain direction, and I would always find change wherever he pointed.
I remember wondering why it was so hard for everyone who went to the lake to keep their change in their pockets.
I also remember thinking that my Dad was brilliant and he always knew where all the change was, and that when I was a professional treasure hunter I would take him with me on my quest deep within the Amazon to find lost cities of gold.
...
This went on and off for a little over a year. Sometimes we would go two or three weeks without treasure hunting, but then we would pick back up without missing a week for a while.
But one week it just stopped.
I don't remember how or why now, neither does my Dad.
I imagine it had something to do with me going from childhood into adolescence.
And even when it was done, I don't remember caring too much either way at the time.
It was simply something my Dad and I did for a while, and that was all.
I never realized how important those mornings were to me until later in life when the songs started bringing them back.
...
My Dad doesn't like talking on the phone very much.
When I was 20 I got a bad case of wanderlust, and it never really went away.
I spent years on the road, traveling about aimlessly.
It was hard to keep in touch with him since he was always working and rarely had time to talk long when I could get him on the phone.
One time we had gone for a few months without much communication and I had just landed in Los Angeles. When I got off the plane and got into the Taxi heading to my friend's apartment With Or Without You by U2 came on the radio and the cab driver turned it up a little bit.
I don't know why he did that, but there I was in a random cab in Los Angeles, 3 time zones and a couple thousand miles away from home, and all I could do was think of those mornings with my Dad, my metal detector, and that mix tape.
With or Without You. I remember the first time I heard that one on the radio, and it sounded so weird to me when Downtown Train didn't follow it up immediately. I can't listen to that one without thinking of those mornings for at least a brief second.
…
A few years prior to that night in Los Angles I had found myself at a small smokey hole in the wall type bar outside of the Bourbon Street district in New Orleans.
The band was playing the blues. Everything was moving slow. The people, the sounds, the smoke. It was dark and dingy and I had been wanting to go home for a while at that point.
The band started up the first note of Wish You Were Here.
That is an emotional song for most people. There are few songs in the world that genuinely make people wish someone else was there the way that song does.
But it was different. I didn't wish anyone from home was there in New Orleans with me, I wished I was there at home with them.
..
I decided to call him that night.
I don’t even remember saying hi when he answered, I'm pretty sure I just started talking about our treasure hunting mornings and the mix tape I loved so much.
He laughed when I told him how much I loved the tape, because he said he hardly remembered it, but he did let me in on a little secret.
On those mornings he would leave work much earlier than I thought.
He would cash out some bills and turn them into change, drive the hour to the lake we went treasure hunting at, and sprinkle little piles of change around for me to find.
He would then drive the hour back home to pick me up, and then the hour back to the lake for me to go find the change.
I remember my stomach sinking when he told me that.
For some reason, I felt guilty about that. He already worked more hours a week than anyone I have ever met, yet he found the time to do that almost once a week for a little over a year.
Even though I felt guilty about that, I would be lying if I said that it didn't hurt that he didn't remember much of the tape or those songs. For some reason I felt like they should have meant as much to him as they have to me over the years.
But the mornings must have meant as much because he told me he still drives to the lake to have his coffee and read his papers.
I asked if he has ever seen anyone else there treasure hunting in the morning.
It was a joke of course, but he answered seriously and told me that him and I had already found all the treasure, and there was no reason for anyone else to go hunting for it there.
...
So....
What was on that tape?
Here are the ones that I remember
Fast Car By Tracey Chapman
Crimson and Clover by Tommy James
With or Without You by U2
Downtown Train by Tom Waits
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
That Old Black Magic-Frank Sinatra
A Case of You-Joni Mitchell
Sounds of Silence- Simon and Garfunkel
For What It's Worth-Buffalo Springfield
Famous Blue Raincoat-Leonard Cohen
It's not exactly a happy mix. It's not sad either, but something about the songs cries nostalgia. And when I hear them, depending on where I am or what I am doing, I feel nostalgia also.