My Father's Favorite Day of the Year

Sheldon loved April Fool's day. It was HIS day. I remember being a little boy, playing in the yard one day. My father came to get me. "You're wanted on the phone," he said. This was, of course, the first time anyone had ever called me on the phone for anything ever, so it was a very unusual. I must have been about eight years old. Eight year olds don't get phone calls.

I go to the phone and the caller says:

"This is your principal at school. We need you and your parents to come down first thing tomorrow morning to have a meeting."

"Ok," I said, not having any clue what or why, but worried anyway.

I hang up the phone. Within seconds my father comes in and wants to know what the phone call was about. I tell him and he tells me that I must be in big trouble otherwise there wouldn't be a need to have a meeting with the principal.

I think the look of worry was enough to satisfy my father who then told me it was an April Fool's joke. Somehow my father was able to get across the street and get on the neighbor's phone fast enough to make all this work. This would have been quite a feat as I don't recall my father ever moving fast.

But as I said, April Fool's day WAS my father's day. His favorite target was Grandma Katie. He would get her year after year, even when everyone would tell her not to fall for it. Sheldon had a gift because it was, after all, his day.

The best prank he pulled on Grandma Katie occurred one evening at closing time out at the store in Carefree. He called Grandma Katie to tell her that the store had been robbed. He said that three big black men with machine guns had come into the store and took everything.

He said they took EVERYTHING... all the jewelry, stuff off the walls, the animal mounts... everything. Grandma Katie bought the story, of course. Then Sheldon said they even took the showcases. The entire store was bare. Sheldon at this point was beet red from trying to keep the laughter from bursting out of him. He even said the men took Todd and Kathy with them, and because he was slightly laughing, to Grandma Katie it sounded like he was crying... and this, of course, helped sell the story to Grandma Katie.

There were other pranks over the years, but I don't recall any of them being as good as this one. It was, after all, HIS day.

The Pineapple Sundae

My father went through a period of time right around the time I started driving where he had to have a Pineapple Sundae from Baskin Robbins nearly every night. Since I was driving, I was the one who had to go get it for him. Getting pre-packed vanilla ice cream, pineapple sauce, whipped cream and cherries in bulk directly from Baskin Robbins was NOT good enough. No, he insisted on having one made fresh for him every day.

I'd like to think that he was doing this so that I could get experience driving or it was to get me out of the house and away from my Model I TRS-80. But no, the only conclusion I can really come to is that he was just addicted to the sugar.

This slave abuse continued for two years. Why two years? That's how long it took until my sister was old enough to drive and it was her turn.

Guns for Fun

My father fancied himself a hunter. And yes, he did hunting in his younger days. After I came along the hunting was limited to shooting weapons at odd things or using a fishing pole and worms. Nevertheless, my father did purchase guns over the years and proudly told me "these will all be yours someday."

When a parent tells you that, don't believe him or her. But that's another story.

As mentioned before, we did go out shooting. At one point my father had a semi-automatic .45 caliber machine gun that was fun to shoot. He also had a 30-06, a .22 long rifle, a .357 magnum, a 12 gauge shotgun, and various other guns all of which disappeared in his late years - either sold to pay some bill or stolen from him.

I have no idea if my father ever hunted ducks, but he was an avid supporter of Ducks Unlimited. To my knowledge, he was never a member of the NRA, but he supported their ideas. What I do recall about my father the gun owner was one summer in Montana. My father had purchased a large chunk of land outside of Bozeman, Montana. He thought he was going to be a rancher, and part of preparing that property for ranchin' was keeping the groundhog population down.

He spent countless hours driving around his hundreds of acres in his 1978 Ford "Crew Cab" with his .22 long rifle, stopping occasionally to blast a groundhog or two. Part of the blood fest was clearing the land of the rodent infestation, but most of it was just his pure "kill" instinct. And part of it was simply for fun, for as he put it best:

"If you shoot them in the head, they do a little dance for ya!"

It's the LAW

My father was an avid trout fisherman. He liked to hunt and did a lot of that in his younger days, but what he really like to do was fish. I spent many summer days in Montana fishing with my father.

Movies like "A River Runs Through It" and a general misunderstanding of the nature of fishing has produced a lot of "Catch and Release" sentiment which is very popular now. People don't seem to understand that playing a fish until exhaustion is just as detrimental to the fish as catching a fish and eating it. I can't tell you how many times I've been downstream from the "Catch and Release" crowd and seeing dead fish float by... caught by people who kept the fish on the line, played it until it was near death, then released it thinking they were doing the right thing.

My father grew up in another era. In his day, you caught fish to keep them and eat them. And quite frankly, a tasty trout dinner can't be beat. My father was not a fan of the "Catch and Release" crowd and often spent time debating it with the fly fisherman that would frequent the Yellowstone area. They would come in with their expensive ORVIS equipment and fancy tied flies. My father, on the other hand, preferred a regular old night crawler and some sinkers.

One of the most unusual things my father ever said to someone one day, after a debate about "Catch and Release" versus "Catch and Eat" was the following:

"Worm fishin' is FUNNER than fly fishing, and THAT'S A LAW IN THREE STATES."

Damn "Slant Eye"

My father loved to "borrow" money... from banks, family members, whoever he could get money from. He also liked to write checks to pay suppliers for merchandise for the family business. He looked at bounced check charges as cheaper than the interest on paying for a loan, so that happened a lot. Back in his day the fee was only $10 and he'd rather pay that a few times than actually have the supplier get paid. It was a short term loan... why not?

Often he would get letters in the mail from banks offering to loan him money and he would go for it. Sometimes they would get paid back... sometimes not.

One time he received a reject from a bank. It was a standard form letter denial. At the end of the letter it was signed "Regrettably, Lee Reynolds" or something like that. The only part I remember seeing is the "Lee" part. My father, getting mad reading the letter and seeing the name "Lee" immediately scribbled on the letter:

"Go to hell, Slant Eye!!"

And instructed me to put it in an envelope and mail it back to the bank.

My father, seeing the name "Lee," immediately assumed it was an Asian who wrote the letter and lashed out in his typical Sheldon fashion... with a racist slur.

Welcome to Sheldon's Witticisms

Sheldon was my father. He was born on July 23, 1930 and passed away on October 21, 2006. Many people, including myself, will tell you that this man was the most unique person you would ever meet. 

He had an unusual way of looking at the world and an even more unusual way of expressing himself. The things that would come out of his mouth were absolutely astounding. 

With this blog I hope to capture some of his wit and character for future generations.