Dad, My Inadvertent Philanthropist

Mom and Dad on their wedding day, 1956

A case could be made that all parents are philanthropists. Defined as “altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons,” the philanthropy shoe does fit. One could even argue that the first mutual donation occurs in that singular celestial moment of conception—genetics. And that perhaps the only one more needy than the  vulnerable newborn is the teenager plying his parents for keys and cash.

Fathers however, particularly with daughters, pony up for more than what is generally acknowledged. And what they most indelibly bequeath is this: a definitive set of nuances and cues to all things masculine, in short, a girl’s essential ‘Real Men Are…’ list. Perhaps it, too, is gifted genetically alongside the hair, height, and the humor gene. This influential list is manifested in life altering expectations, dreams, and decisions. Yet it is most often bestowed so obliviously—and even that is so perfectly male.

Typically, dads are celebrated for the familiar and self-evident: life-lesson anecdotes, the less than subtle screening of potential boyfriends, hiking epics, fish tales and skiing exploits, Sunday morning pancakes, and cheering on your team. These are things they do. I am talking about who they are, the essence of what makes them “Dad.” Fundamental to their lifeblood, these idiosyncrasies become intrinsic to mine. I am talking about things like hands and feet, cars and cigars.

Dads are a daughter’s first glimpse into the strange but true world of men and boys. Perhaps not the first one you run to with a scraped knee, they are the often the administrators of the almighty allowance.They tumble and rough house and jab. They drive things like lawnmowers, boats, power tools, rototillers, and barbecues—with gusto and bravado. They dress up—work shoes, shirts and ties, suits with apparent distaste. Everything seems somehow bigger with dads: their hands, their feet, their eyebrows and ears. And louder: their cheering, their singing, their laughter, their anger. And more certain: their handshakes and opinions, their conviction and coolness.

JFK and daughter, Caroline

I lost my dad never having known him as an adult with human frailties. My memories live in the raw, pure unadulterated love of a child, uncomplicated with growth and change. The “real men are” list I fell heir to was Dad’s ultimate act of inadvertent philanthropy. And while my list is specific to him and to me and my generation, I imagine that the more things change the more they stay the same; that now as then father/daughter relationships are intangible, complicated, and critical. I imagine that as daughters we all inherit a list and that as girls we are all influenced by it.

I don’t smoke. I have never smoked. I don’t like the smell of smoke in my hair, my clothes, or my car. Yet for me there is little, if anything, more intrinsically masculine, sensual, and seductive than the distinctive sweet scent of cigar blended with notes of spanking new car leather. Cerebrally it makes no sense. Yet, in the space of an instant I am slayed. It is, in a nutshell, my dad.

Memories of Dad are inextricably tied to cars. He loved them. He sold new and used General Motors cars for a living, managing three dealerships in the fifteen years I had with him. We never actually owned a car. Dad would arrive home, or pick me up from school or figure skating, in the “car of the day” off the lot, invariably rather new yet still mildly infused with the organic pungency of Dad’s Old Port cigar.

Tractors, snowmobiles, cars, trucks, Dad sold them all.

We lived in Balcarres, Saskatchewan. It was a small, two dealership town, Ford and General Motors. Dad was the GM dealer. My best friend, Jane, lived across the alley and her dad owned the Ford dealership. We were Catholic and they were United. Of course they were. Catholic was GM. United  was Ford. They went together like roast beef and potatoes. It was the 1960’s, I was seven years old and this, apparently, was just how it was.

Main Street, Dad's GM Dealership on right

I remember walking down the one main street town at the end of June to show Dad my report card. Like the town Pool Hall, the dealership was a distinctly male bastion, a boy’s club, a ‘no girls allowed’ club. Dad, however was general manager and with that tiny first notion of entitlement and my head up I beelined for his office, acutely aware of all the salesmen in white short shirt sleeves, cigars or cigarettes in hand, The darkened back aisles of the Parts Department, with innumerable mysterious boxes of little screws, nuts, bolts, and other odd car things exuded testosterone as did the grimy mechanics in grease monkey suits. The glittering new car on the rotating pedestal in the center of the showroom was the only thing even slightly appealing to a seven year old girl.

Then, there he was, his size 13 polished brogues protruding from under the worn oak desk. His large hands setting down his fountain pen to give me his full attention as I listed my A’s and A+’s, my own legs dangling, saddle shoes not quite reaching the floor. Dad would scrawl his signature, broad, fast and indecipherable. With my weekly 25 cents allowance pocketed he would walk me out, my small hand lost in his large safe one. Leaving all that overwhelming masculinity behind I would delve into the Town Library housed in the basement of the post office right across the street. Six Nancy Drew books later, I was happily ensconced in girl world once more.

Dad was six-foot-four. His huge hands would effortlessly lift us literally, heads and shoulders above everyone else. And way, way down there on the ground would be those thick-soled, two-pound brown leather shoes he polished religiously every morning before work, hunched over at the stairs, swiping the warm brown wax from the round, flat tin with that stiffened shoe rag.

I remember the weighted scuff of those shoes on the stairs in the evening as he came up to say good night. Four young girls in two small rooms, we would wait for his footsteps and duck under the covers, excited as all get out in anticipation of the tickling that lay ahead. In silent delirium we would lie motionless, listening to squeals of delight raising the bar. We were  hysterical before our tickling even started. We’d roll and twist and kick and turn unable to escape those gentle giant hands and hoping we’d never have to.

Dad was glad his feet were big, he said, because he would never be out of a job. He could always stamp out forest fires. We were glad because those shoes were the first and best ride we ever had. With little toddler arms wrapped around his lower leg we’d sit facing backwards on his shoes, one of us on the left and one on the right. We’d fly through the air and land; fly through the air and land, tromping all around the near universe.

Come to think of it, Dad was always giving us a ride somewhere. In elementary school Mike, my brother and I would beg Dad for an after lunch drive back to school. There was an alley short cut which completely iced over in the winter. Straight for a block or so behind the church it made a big round S turn around the slough by the skating rink. “Dad, please…” we’d whisper conspiratorially. Mom never suspected, as Dad accelerated around the first corner, corrected and in making the second corner let the car slide into a full 360, Mike and I grinning from ear to ear. We didn’t say a word for years and Mom still doesn’t believe us.

In true flatland tradition Dad gave us rides on the toboggan behind the car. With three kids facing backwards on the wooden toboggan thirty feet behind the car he’d tow us, swerving side to side on an icy farm road, tearing in and out of the ditch, bumping up and over the culverts. With our mitts frozen into a perpetual curl under the side ropes we were too scared, too thrilled, and too cold to yell “Stop!” We would tumble off, run like the Michelin Man to make a flying leap back on, laughing and urging each other on, the scent of Dad’s cigar wafting from his half open window.

All of us at Katepwa Lake, I'm in the middle.

We had a boat. I know now that Dad loved all things that had motors and went fast. I can still see his cigar dangling happily from his fingers, the wind blowing in his hair, the warm sun and a perpetual half-smile on his face. At the end of a long day of waterskiing, driving five wasted, sleepy, sun-kissed kids home, he would insert the Oldsmobile GM eight-track and croon along to “There’s a Kind of Hush” with Herman’s Hermits, or “Cracklin’ Rosie” with Neil Diamond, tireless in his love of life.

Dad must have been contemplating his future options in giving five kids a full ride to university when, driving with my Mom to an interview in Edmonton in March,1974 they were involved in a head-on collision with a semi that took his life. Mom grieved for the love of her life while miraculously recovering from a fractured skull and three fractured cervical vertebrae, returned to nursing, and raised five teenagers to adulthood. She became both Mom and Dad and to this day she is my hero and heroine.

Outside the hospital with relatives after visiting Mom

I have cerebral memories I can recall at a whim Dad’s ‘go big or go home’ attitude, his love of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the Toronto Maple Leafs, cherry pie, and Dairy Queen chocolate dipped cones. But it is hands and feet, cars and cigars that flash into my consciousness like a growing pain, at will, distinct and primal, when I least expect it. Walking behind a tall, broad shouldered, dark haired man on a warm summer evening and catching the scent of his cigar, I could walk behind him forever.

I know that daughters need dads in ways that dads will never fully comprehend. More than likely dads need daughters in a beautiful dance of synchronous reciprocity. And I suspect that while not every man in my life has embodied all or even any of these characteristics, he is, fairly or unfairly, always measured against them.

This post originally appeared here.

Carla Smith lives in Calgary. She is a storyteller/filmmaker, photographer, tennis player, Sports Physiotherapist and a Mom to three daughters and friend to the happiest dog in the world. She blogs at http://carlamariasmith.blogspot.com/.

—Photos by author