Yes indeedy. I am leavin’, but I do know when I will be back again. For one week, I get to return to the family bosom and rejoice with them that he has reached his 80th year. For one week, I don’t have to be the wife. I don’t have to be the mother (and frankly, I am weary of being the mother--one of our favorite movie lines is from Middle Age Crazy, in which Bruce Dern, in a delightful performance, yells at Ann-Margaret, his long-suffering wife “I don’t want to be the Daddy anymore.”) For one week, I get to return to being just the daughter. For one week, I can take a trip back through time and be Daddy’s little girl in bib overalls sitting on the stream bank with a fishing pole. I can be the little girl who watched Daddy clean the trout we caught before breakfast and dusting it in cornmeal and frying it over the campfire. I can be a little girl at the beach with a hula skirt that Daddy made of kelp. I can be the little girl perched on the bicycle bar as he peddled me to school. I can be the little girl floating on an air mattress on the Merced River in Yosemite National Park while he walked alongside and sang Up the lazy river, by an old mill stream. Happy birthday, Dad. I love you.
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