CONFESSIONS & CAMOUFLAGE

            I have a confession to make. For over a decade I flew false colors so to speak. And worse, it was my own daughter that I used for cover.

           

            It started small. Whenever Wife and I went into a supermarket I noticed the line of rides for very young children just outside. There were little horses that galloped up and down. Miniature trucks that rumbled over imaginary highways. Motorcycles and rocket ships. Each cost a quarter for a few brief minutes. I looked at them and wondered who would waste money on such things.

            Then Wife had Daughter and I found out. It’s amazing how much happiness one could buy for a quarter. The little rides are more expensive now; fifty cents last time I looked. Still pretty cheap for a child’s laughter.

            Then, about the time our tiny lady bug grew into a little girl, we discovered merry-go-rounds. We liked the big ones best with their powerful steeds with flaring nostrils that pranced in endless circles to music box drums and pipes. Daughter would sit in front of me, my arms around her as we went up and down, up and down. Pretty soon as she grew she graduated to her own horse.

            When the ride ended we’d hop off our horses and run to the booth and buy tickets for another go-around. Wife, usually sitting on a bench watching us, would roll her eyes and shake her head. But we were too fast for her! “What a nice dad,” people would say.

            Well, I have a confession to make. I enjoyed those years-ago merry-go-round rides as much if not more than Daughter. Certainly more than macho males are supposed to. So I used Daughter as cover. “She wants to go again,” I’d call to Wife who would frown. But only a little frown. Worked every time.

            Don’t ride merry-go-rounds much anymore. Not since Daughter became a young woman making her own way in the world. But there are other things I still enjoy. Just takes a bit of camouflage. When I was a boy I enjoyed toy soldiers. Still do, only now they’re called “military miniatures” to be painted and displayed in a china hutch.

            Comic books. I still have several only they’re no longer comic books. They’re “valuable collectibles” now. But I never cared much for Superman, Batman and the rest of their ilk. No, my favorite superhero was Scrooge McDuck.

When I was a boy Scrooge and Donald and the rest of the duck gang were drawn by a genius named Carl Barks. (“Unca Carl” to us fans.) When Unca Carl retired he and his wife settled in Temecula, California where as it happened, we lived. I never bothered him of course. But every so often I would stand in our backyard and gaze across the valley toward his home and murmur, “I am not worthy, I am not worthy.”

When I was a boy I also enjoyed toy trains. But no more, now I am a model railroad hobbyist. And I have a splendid layout. My trains cross high bridges over turbulent rivers and pass Lilliputian forests and stop at towns where my attention to detail is astounding.

Admittedly my layout exists only in my imagination but maybe someday. Meanwhile occasionally I grow silent and look into the distance. Wife will ask, “What are you thinking about?” But I’m not thinking. I’m putting in a new railroad station on my layout. One with little people and tiny baggage waiting for the next train.

Dad out.