Dad's Favorite Word

favorite word During my childhood, I don’t think the word Yes was even invented. My dad was a salesman during all of my growing-up years. He was the head of the household even though he was not home most of the time. This required any decision-making events to be put on hold upon his return from work. Now, you couldn’t just say “Hi Dad” and pop the question which would require a simple yes or no answer. No, you had to work with due diligence and with a lot of savvy on how to handle a man that didn’t know the word yes.

Whenever he was asked by his girls (the two of us, or maybe just one of us), the older one was usually the exception to this rule, if I could do something. This would consist of going to a friend’s overnight, a school dance, the park to hang out, or perhaps a football game, the answer would automatically be “NO”. This was given without any thought so it seemed just a natural response. Then you would spend the next day or two, if you had that time frame, trying to change his mind.

Another thing he would never do is (and this is a biggy in my book) stop at the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. For some reason every time we would go past someplace where they were selling ice cream, being the children that we were, we always wanted to stop. In all my years of growing up we never, never ever were able to stop for that damned ice cream cone.

Another thing, if you should be so lucky to get him to take the family to Madison, or Black Earth, those are the only two places I can truly remember going to, if we had to go to the restroom, you got it, the answer was not no, “but you can wait”.

One of the things that first brought shock and then appreciation was when I was dating Art. Whenever I would ask if we could stop for anything, he always said, “Yes”. My god, what a shock that was to my system and I must say it was so appreciated.

I have found that we can tend to say no so automatically without really thinking it through. I notice this, especially with my grandchildren. There have been times when no comes out so easily versus yes from my daughters to their kids, that I try to subtly remind them to think it through.

It is now so easy to say yes, especially to those precious offspring, known as my grandchildren.