I have a family desk in my house and looking at it brings back memories of New Year’s Eve in 1949. I was 17 years old and was, of course, very wise. New Year’s Eve fell on a Saturday night that year and my Methodist Youth Fellowship group was having a Progressive Dinner, having a salad in one home and then going to another home for the main entree and end up at my house for dessert. We would play Canasta all night. To bring you Millennials up to date, it’s a card game.
As a teenager I always thought I had the coolest parents in the world. When my MYF group would do this, my Mom would come down in the morning and cook us all breakfast.
As an adult, it hit me how smart they really were – they always knew where I was and what I was doing.
New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday that year and on Sunday evening, there was a pot luck supper at my church. My family was in attendance along with those MYFrs. We young folks decided to go to a movie after the supper. My Dad had other ideas. He reminded me that I had been up all night and all that day, and I should come home.
But what do Dads know? I was fine and went to the movie with my friends.
It was probably 10:30 or 11 p.m. when I got back home.
Our house was a fair size one with a hallway as you entered the front door. There was a desk sitting in this hallway with a light on it waiting for me to show up. My folks and my sister, two years younger, were already in bed.
Standing on the outside of the front door I realized I did not have my key. Suddenly it appeared – on the other side of the door sitting on that desk.
Since my sister and I shared the same bedroom, on the left front of the house, it made sense to throw pebbles at our bedroom window to wake her up. The bedroom on the right front of the house was my Dad’s. You guessed it.
This effort only woke my Dad who came storming down the steps, opened the door and went into the kitchen to cool down. I tore up those steps and into my bedroom, shutting the door behind me.
This childhood memory is like getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar. My Dad never said anything to me about the matter, but he didn’t have to.
