Two-steppin' with Dad

This weekend, my family went camping at Garner State Park. This was the first time it was the “five of us”, so it was fairly momentous.

The weekend was great, and there are a lot of memories I could write about right now, but there is one that just keeps popping into the forefront of my mind. Today, I’m going to take a break from being a sappy wife and, instead, be a sappy daughter.

Throughout the weekend, Dad had told us stories about when he was younger and would come to the park. They are stories of a man I hardly feel I know, like the time he got so drunk he woke up with a rock in the center of his back. Granted, the stories are funny, but my dad is a gentle person who cried on my shoulder before we walked me down the aisle a month ago. On Saturday night, Dad and I decided to go to the little dance Garner hosts every Saturday. My mom, brother, and BJ all hate to dance, so we left them and their six left feet behind. We danced to nearly every song, and we worked up quite a sweat doing it. But then a slow song came on, and the words hit a little too close to home: “When tough little boys grow up to be dads, they turn into big babies again.” I hid my face a bit so Dad wouldn’t see me fighting back tears. I’ve laughed countless times at the cheesiness of country music, but sometimes life just hits you in all of its glorious cheesiness, and you can’t help but be glad that there is some country song out there saying exactly what you’d been thinking.