GAYS MILLS - For the longest time as Thatcher babbled away in a language only he could understand, I dreamed of all of the things he would say. For we all know ‘kids say the darndest things.’
Recollection of my childhood is not my dad’s strongest suit. It’s not exactly that he doesn’t remember period, it’s mostly that he can’t remember if it was my brother or I who said or did something. I really don’t blame him though, we’re only 18 months apart and we looked like twins. It was fairly easy to mix us up in the blur that is your day-to-day life as a working parent with two kids.
Usually if you ask my dad about our childhood, he sums it up by saying “All I remember were a lot of pink and blue diapers and cases of soy formula because you and Patrick were always puking everything up otherwise.” And then he’ll usually add that he too was intolerant of dairy as a child and his mother would have to walk next door to the farmer for fresh goat milk every day to feed little infant Tommy.
Despite the blur and whirlwind of raising two blonde, curly-haired rug rats, my dad has a sharp recollection of some of the more comical things my brother and I have uttered over time.
One of my more famous lines stemmed from a moment that every farm kid has probably had.
Since we grew up on a small hobby farm, we quickly gained the understanding that the mother chicken, goose, duck and or turkey will sit upon its clutch of eggs, keeping them warm which would usually always result in hatchlings, as long as they were left alone to do so.
I don’t remember participating in this moment as much as I remember watching my brother, who was probably not much older than Thatcher at the time.
My dad was on the phone gabbing way to my grandma. The gray-coiled cord was wrapped around the doorway into the kitchen, as my brother and I were only a few feet away in the dining room, preparing to commence.
Patty dragged a laundry basket full of clothes over to the table where he had cleared a small spot. He began dragging clothing up to the top of the table and putting it in a nice little pile. From there, he extracted a few goose eggs from a hiding spot where he had apparently smuggled them to earlier in the day. He lovingly and carefully placed the eggs in the small nest before whipping off his diaper and carefully squatting over the eggs.
By this time, my dad had realized that we were being far too quiet and thought something most certainly could be wrong. He rounded the corner, phone still in hand and the long gray-curled phone cord dragging along the floor as it wrapped back into itself.
He burst into laughter describing the scene to my grandma. My brother remained unflappable to the laughter and continued to hover above the eggs in hopes that they would soon produce goslings, who would consider him their mother.
Once off the phone, I apparently said in a rather deadpan manner, “That’s a real Kodak moment dad!” I would forever be reminded of this phrase that was such a hot piece of pop culture at the time.
Over the last, nearly five years of a steady relationship with Chasca I’ve also gotten to hear his greatest quotes that have gone down in family history.
One of my personal favorites even has a photo to accompany it, apparently making it a genuine ‘Kodak moment!’
Chasca’s grandparents had taken him fishing, and judging by the photo he was probably around seven or eight years old.
As the story goes the young lad with the buzz-cut red hair and freckles had just caught a small pan fish of some sort. As he pulled it up out of the water his beloved Grandpa Mark offered to remove the little fish from his hook. Chasca declined his grandpa’s offer with the infamous line, (apparently delivered in a quite serious tone,) “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
For now, Thatcher’s language is all utilitarian demands, “Mama, Bee Bee, EAT!” “Dah Dah, Bee Bee, UP!” But I’m sure it won’t be long before something utterly hilarious, inappropriate or down right goofy passes his little lips.
