“Hey, Dad, do you want to play ‘Throw Socks at Soldiers’?” Patrick asked.
My thoughts instantly flashed to my father. Although always busy, Dad found ways to involve my older brother and me. When he repainted a car, we helped him sand off the old finish. When he built a boat, we put glue into the holes for the screws that held it together. When he developed his photographs, he welcomed us into our darkroom where we witnessed the magic as negative images became finished pictures. We must have been more trouble than help, but he never complained.
My father built things for us, too. He built a three-story toy garage with a working elevator. He strung an antenna across our roof so that we could discover the wonders of radio with our crystal radio receivers. He built a train table for us, enclosing it in walls that he painted with scenic vistas. These walls served double duty, both keeping our trains safe from a sudden impact with a concrete floor and serving as a support for the table tennis court that he built to cover the top of our layout.
Dad gave freely of his time, too. He woke us before dawn to take us on local fishing trips. He took us on field trips to Fort Osage and other local historic sites, teaching us our heritage. On father and son camping trips we discovered tadpoles, frogs, mosquitoes and poison ivy.
From the time I witnessed Patrick’s birth, I followed my father’s example and immersed myself in his life. I changed diapers, released his hand as he took his first steps, and he became my constant companion when I ran errands. When an imaginary tiger frightened him in his bedroom at night, I threatened to punch the tiger in the nose, making the tiger disappear forever.
I also made up a game, a simple game, that we played together for nearly a decade. We dumped all of his Lincoln Logs onto his bed and evenly divided them between us. We built forts at opposite ends of his bed and put about six soldiers in each fort. Patrick always chose the Napoleonic British and I took their opponents, the Napoleonic French. Then, we took turns throwing a pair of tightly rolled tube socks at each other’s forts, trying to knock down the other person’s soldiers, demolishing the forts in the process. With the direct honesty of all small children, Patrick named this game, “Throw Socks at Soldiers” and he loved it. I loved our time together.
“Dad,” Patrick asked again, breaking my reverie and bringing me back to the present. “Do you want to play ‘Throw Socks at Soldiers’?”
This was my time, my time to relax from the rigors of the workday world and passively absorb the culture of the day. Instead, I chose to give it to my son. I rose from my chair and turned my back on the TV.
“Sure,” I answered, smiling in anticipation.
Belton dad Bill Bartlett enjoys the joys and challenges of raising two sons with his wife, Sandi.