In the early 90s, when the West Jordan house was bursting at the seams, it was time to build the dream house. I remember the thought, care and prayers that went into selecting the perfect lot in the best neighborhood. I remember touring the model home and watching my dad’s keen eye finding inefficiencies in layout and design, the redesigned kitchen perfect for canning and gatherings, and changing the open floor plan master to accommodate the large jetted tub. Growing up the son of a plumber, my dad had an appreciation for a jetted tub, especially an oversized one. He understood what was necessary to re-enforce the floors and he planned every step. He was darn proud of his tub.
When building the house, Dad wanted the future. He planned for a security system and an intercom and to afford it. we wired everything ourselves. We spent hours at the new house pulling wire with Dad up and down the ladder while he taught by skill and example. He really could have built a home from the ground up and I depended on him many times to learn the skills that helped me with my own home. The carefully selected lot for the big house was planned for a perfectly placed home triangulated by the schools so we could always walk to school safely. This was a lesson learned the hard way at the Creekwood house where a scary open canal and train tracks made them bus kids to elementary school. Though, looking back on it, I think we were driven to school more than we rode the bus to school. For some reason, we just chronically missed that early bus.
At the new house, we could walk to school, but the option of early morning band happened. Mom asked grandma for her old plastic clarinet. And Dad, who always wanted a saxophone player to play like the guy from Eddie and the Cruisers, purchased an alto sax for Neal. But Neal’s hands were too small and pretty soon I was in both advanced and early morning band getting rides to school 4 days a week. There were no crossing guards available for early morning band, and soon we were given that ride to school
every morning. Without big sis, of course, the younger kids couldn’t walk, so my dad delayed the start of his work day to transport us to school ever day. That ride was Dad’s check in time. Those were quiet alone moments where he got tabs on us and felt out how we were doing at school, with friends, and at church; semi-private dad conferences that I didn’t appreciate.
As I was thinking over this talk, I realized this was the start of the "unsolicited fatherly advice" my dad was so famous for. As we graduated and became parents ourselves, these check-ins took place on the front porch in the green rocking chairs. My final long drive home with Dad happened this July. It was strange to be the one in the driver’s seat; we all knew Dad hated to be driven because he never wanted to be stranded.
You didn’t wager with Dad. After Calder died, Paul and I went to a fertility specialist who very bluntly told me if I wanted to have more babies, I needed to lose weight. And so in a seeking "fatherly advice" on the subject conversation, I was listing excuses as to why I didn’t want to lose weight and at the time the biggest barrier was I didn’t want to have to buy new clothes for work. So Dad said, "If you lose 100 lbs, I’ll buy you a whole new wardrobe. Some time later, after my surgeries and 150 lbs weight lost, I had just shared the news of being pregnant with Ryker to my dad on his birthday. I brought up the new wardrobe, hinting that I would be wanting new clothes after I was done with this pregnancy and he better be ready to pay up in March. My sly dad said, double or nothing. Instead of a new wardrobe if Paul and I had 10 kids he’d give me $10k. I didn’t really care about the new clothing and honestly the odds of hitting 10 kids when I had 4ish seemed impossible, so I took that bet. Two years ago, after Denver was born, Paul was teasing Dad about how Denver was number ten and it was time to pay up.
Dad quickly started counting the babies. Ultimately, he decided that I could count Cat and Dakota as kids because they had lived with me for several years, but he wasn’t going to count Elizabeth in the total kids for the bet because she hadn’t lived with us. Therefore, we were at nine kids. On Father’s Day, when Denver wore his big brother shirt and it clicked, Dad shouted for joy and quickly turned to panic when Paul said, "Yup, number 11."
"Dad, this is a crappy way to get out of our bet."
My dad loved cars. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the front seat (it was the 90s) and helping “shift” while Dad drove. I distinctly remember being taught how to shift on our way to Montessori from the condo. I also remember the elicit gas station breakfasts on these school trips. Perhaps the only “selfish” thing my dad did was the purchase of the G8. Before the G8, Dad always had the hand-me-down commuter car which were usually given to me eventually and driven to their demise. The Escort, the Suzuki; I remember when dad was sideswiped driving to L3 and the Suzuki was totaled. Neal bought the Suzuki because he wanted to learn how to drive a stick and there are very few manual cars that could accommodate his size and allow it. Eventually it was gifted to Paul and it became Paul’s everyday commuter until Cat needed it and she eventually wrecked it. It was mostly cosmetic, but our insurance refused to cover repairs so we gifted it back to Nephi who also wanted to learn to drive a manual and fix up the car. And while that project has been sitting and has since been gifted down, I hope the project is actually fixed and Kori does get to drive it, because year before that, it was Dad’s daily commuter and fatherly advice is woven into the fabric of the car. No pressure, little brothers.
With the Suzuki wrecked, dad drove the big van and after months of commuting and the parking nightmare, he decided he wanted to buy the G8. It was researched and planned. And too expensive, something mom complained about the first time he needed to buy his special tires for it. But dad was so proud of that G8. Although to this day. I do not believe he ever let my husband drive it, not even to play driveway shuffle. Sorry Paul, you shouldn’t have rear-ended Andrew Clark in the snow at 5 miles an hour the first winter we were married.
Back to building the dream house; Dad’s childhood house was magic, more than the pull up bar on the stairs and the unfinished wraparound porch with the excellent climbing rocks. It had the shed full of Grandpa Christensen’s tools, and the larger than life garden and sandbox. So when my parents purchased their third of an acre lot, it was no surprise that we would have a big garden and mom had consented to a sandbox similar to the small garden we had that the West Jordan house. I remember the day the dump trucks brought the sand. Yes, I said trucks. Now dad claims it was a miscalculation when he ordered 2 trucks and a pup worth of sand for our sandbox, but I know that man knew how to calculate materials correctly. And that sandbox was the 9-year-old boy's fantasy. I could spend the next hour telling stories of flooding the sandbox and playing hard in the yard with Dad. But few appreciate the work and efforts he has made over the last 30 years to maintain it as a sandbox and not an outdoor litter box. First, it is high quality sand, not the construction sand that was in his Dad’s sandbox.
He worked hard to keep it weed and pest free and I have never found any animal waste in that sandbox. It has always been a safe clean space for imaginations to run wild.
Last part tomorrow...
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