More accurately, a moment I wish I had a full documentary film crew following me around:
Imagine a 64 year old, white, Idahoan banker in a room of about 20 young, extremely black men and women from Detroit. Sounds like a joke, right? Well, it was my life this morning. Today I took my dad to work. Because of a weird scheduling thing, I didn't actually have to teach today but Dad attended our regular morning meeting and, after I introduced him, he regaled the students with stories of growing up on a farm in Idaho. I loved every second of it. I was like a little kid, egging his dad on to tell the next good story. I had him tell some of the gorier stories to get the students' attention -- Grandpa Brown losing his fingers to the corn chopper, his brothers beating a badger to death with shovels, Dad losing the tip of his right pinky, Grandpa's leg getting sucked into the combine, Dad's friend from California being attacked by bees, etc.
The students were attentive and respectful and it was a lot of fun.
I'm 34 year years old and, apparently, I have not grown out of the "My dad is so cool, I'll bring him for show-and-tell" phase of my life. Probably never will.
3 comments:
Now those are some family stories I've never heard! I didn't realize your grandparents had a farm, or that appendages were lost in the pursuit of potatoes!!
I would have loved to see the footage from this film of 'Dennis in Detroit'. Dan told me about it and I just had to smile to myself at the thought.
Well, technically the fingers were lost in the pursuit of corn, sugar beets, hay, and grain. Potatoes continue to be a very pacifistic crop.
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