Happy Birthday Dad

Last Sunday was my Dads Birthday so we went down to visit and celebrate. I forgot to bring my camera so I only have a couple pics that Laura took. When I say couple I literally mean a couple. (two)


Last year while hiking in Moab we noticed that my Dad walks on the sides of his feet so all the Brothers and Sisters pitched in and got Dad some sweet Keen boots.

Amanda made some delicious pizza, and chocolate mint cupcakes. We also came over and made breakfast. This is me making syrup.


Since we are on the subject of my Dad I thought it would be appropriate to share a heart touching, life changing, tear jerking, spine tingling, warm fuzzy short story about him.

This story will simply be called;

"THE BROOM"

There are many useful and practical things that can be done with a broom. For example one may use a broom to sweep the kitchen floor, or sidewalk, or you can use it to sweep your carpets at 4:30 AM when your house guests are trying to sleep(that's what my grandma did). A broom can be used to remove cob webs from the ceiling, or to shew away a dog or small animal from your house. It can also be used to inflict punishment upon misbehaving children, which is exactly what happens, or nearly happens in the following story.

I believe I was around the age of 15, it was in the mid 90's a time when flannel shirts, and Nirvana music was the latest craze. My Mom, Dad, and I were sitting in the living room one Saturday afternoon engaged in some sort of argument, now I don't remember the exact content of the dispute, but I am quite sure that I was in the wrong (as are most teenagers who oppose their parents).

If you ever have found yourself in a dispute with your parents you may have noticed that the kind and gentle ways of your mother makes her an easy target for arguing, so as the conflict continued I focused my efforts to my dear Mother, which turned out to be a mistake. My Father is not typically easy to anger, but there is one thing guaranteed to cause instant rage, if anyone says or does anything disrespectful to my Mom the gates of Hell open wide and all the wrath of my Father is unleashed on the offender. It just so happened that in this case I was the offender.

I cant remember exactly what hurtful thing was said, but one thing was as clear day; my Dad was mad! Seeing that I had infuriated my Father my efforts quickly switched to something much more important, Survival! I quickly sprang to my feet narrowly escaping my Fathers grasp. Running about 45 miles per hour I hurdled the stairs and proceeded down the hallway toward my bedroom.

As I ran down the hall I wondered why my Dad had not pursued me, he was very quick and was typically one step behind me. Then as time slowed down I heard a strange noise, it was the same noise you hear when an arrow is shot from a bow. There was no time to investigate the sound. I continued running, the sound grew louder and louder, something was heading straight toward me, It was like one of those dreams when something is chasing you and you can only run in slow motion. As I rounded the corner to my bedroom I felt something graze my side in an instant I looked back and saw a broom strike the wall behind me. It struck with such force that the broomstick went completely through the wall and into the bathroom so that all that could be seen was the head of the broom sticking out of the wall (thank goodness no one was using the toilet).

While I was fleeing the scene rather that chase me down, a broom somehow magically appeared in my Dads hand, and in that moment it was no longer a broom, it was a deadly weapon, set to kill its target. Now there is no doubt whatsoever that if that broomstick would have hit me it would have instantly killed me. After seeing what had been done my Fathers heart was somehow softened and he did not chase me down and give me a much deserved beating.

The broom left a perfectly round hole in both sides of the wall which made it kind of awkward when using the toilet. My Dad later patched the hole.

I have since then become very suspicious, and wary of my Father, he must have received some kind of secret training in the Army or somewhere. He is a human killing machine.