Joanne Sherman’s column: Daddy’s Girl

This past Memorial Day, I stepped outside at dusk. 

My house is surrounded by trees, deep in the woods. Woods so thick that sometimes I’m never aware of spectacular sunsets until I see pictures on Facebook, and I think to myself, I gotta get out of these woods more.

I was just standing in stillness when I heard a distinctive sound, for the first time, ever, near my house. It was the pied-piper jing-a-ling from Mr. Softee, slowly making his rounds through the part of Shelter Island that backs up to our property. And then, in the distance, the voice of a young, excited child hollering,  “Dad! Dad! Ice cream!” 

That moment revived one of my favorite memories of growing up in Cleveland, and how my dad handed out dimes for popsicles, and a little extra for Mom’s higher end Fudgesicle. Of course, most of us probably think about our dads when it’s closing in on Father’s Day. I think of my dad a lot, most often when something — like the sound of an ice cream truck — triggers decades of tucked-away memories. 

My dad would have celebrated his 100th birthday in February, and this will be my 15th Father’s Day without him. 

He was an easy-going, fairly unflappable person. I guess he had no choice being the only male living in a tract house on a quarter-acre lot with a wife, five daughters, a mother-in-law who only spoke Italian and a dog named Bridget. 

I remember him complaining as he pulled long hair from the shower drain, that he felt like he lived in a girl’s school, but he adapted and actively participated in tea parties if we let him pour, helped rearrange dollhouse furniture and on Saturday night, polished our Mary Jane shoes, for Sunday church. 

No matter how often we promised not to do it again, some rebellious female in the house would shave her legs with his razor or poop on the carpet (Bridget was hard to train.) And he took naps on the couch with his eyes open so he could see us sneaking toward the television to change the channel. 

We would get in trouble for those crimes but that was nothing compared to the stereophonic ruckus that ensued when he left the toilet seat up. In a house filled with ladies, ladies rules apply.

My father taught me how to spin a tale, mix a martini, play poker and when to bluff. I’ve forgotten what beats a full house but the bluff lesson stuck. 

One particular memory that stands out was when I was in my mid-40s, and I’d called my parents to tell them about a minor disappointment I was dealing with. Not a big deal, just something that happened a little differently than I’d wanted. And I was over it. So I thought. 

I expected my mother to answer the phone, because that was her job. But it was my father. 

“Daddy!” I was crying immediately. And not that mature woman, sniff-sniff-type crying. Oh no. I was a little-girl-with-a-big-boo-boo bawling. 

Though, by then all five of us girls were grown and married he was accustomed to the occasional call that began, “Daddy!” 

Dad couldn’t figure out which one of us I was because we all sound alike, especially when we’re blubbering. He calmed me down, determined which daughter I was, and soon had me laughing over the time he brought me a pony.

That’s a vivid memory, too. He was visiting us right after we moved here. Though he was a city boy, he loved the Island. My mom, not so much. She craved sidewalks, street lights and weekly Bingo! 

On one visit he went outside after dinner for a walk but came right back for a flashlight. “There’s something big thrashing in the woods,” he said. “I want to see what it is.”

My first thought was a mountain lion or a bear or the Tasmanian Devil. Of course I know now that they don’t live in these woods here, but I’d just moved to Shelter Island and was not yet up on those real woodland terrors: Ticks!  

After a few minutes and a lot of grunting and snorting, he emerged from the woods holding — not the Tasmanian Devil — but a pony that had escaped from its coral on Smith Street.

When he went back to Cleveland, no one believed his story until I confirmed to family and friends that he had, indeed, gone into the woods and come out with a horse. However, in his version it was a Clydesdale. (And yes, I get my tendency to exaggerate a story from him, too.)

I miss my dad, but I’m lucky to have many wonderful memories of him. And also that the Tasmanian Devil doesn’t live in these woods. Just ticks! 

And Clydesdales.