| | It's about 10pm and the phone rings. Daddy picks up and starts chatting. Booty call? No. It turns out that his old high school classmate got a hold of him and felt like catching up on a Wednesday night. They talk for a while. I hear bits of the conversation. "How much do you weigh now?" "You're down by Sawgrass Mills? My mother's living near there." "Yeah, we used to stay longer before my dad passed away." "My oldest is 24 now." "I don't remember that!"
Dad comes into my room, as I expected he would after he finished the call, to tell me what's happened. Mum was no doubt sleeping by now, and will probably hear about it tomorrow in the car on the way to work with Daddy. He goes on about this guy, and how different he sounds now. He's half telling me, but half just reminiscing to himself. He describes what his friend (Joe?) used to look like, and then decides to go dig up his 1969 yearbook. He goes downstairs, and soon I hear the rustling of the paper bag that's sitting in our corner of old books and magazines. He comes back up with the page already open to his picture. "We used to play football together. He was big but fast." We flip to Daddy's picture, and laugh at how goofy his hair looked (parted deeply from the right). I'm half listening to him talk, and half enjoying my dad's excitement (or...my dad's version of excitement) at this random visit from the past. It's endearing, this rare, tender moment from Papa Eng.
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| | Posted 10/23/2008 12:11 AM - 33 Views - 6 eProps - 3 comments
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