Back when refrigerators were iceboxes,
Dad worked for Texas Instruments
When station wagons were bandaged in fake wood,
Seatbelts never got a thought:
Our Dad rented a block & tackle from over by Gibsons in Richardson to pull the engine outta the family Pontiac wagon that we took to the drive-in movies with the 3 dogs over off Arapaho Road.
Out on the Warfield driveway, 920, when the Elm tree was still alive, Dad stubbed out his Camel filterless cigarette and flicked it into the Juniper bushes where all the bagworms grew all summer and the bluejays chose their victims and the wasps counted coup.
He came into the house, his white t-shirt soaked-through over his greasy swaybar, McPherson front-strut forearms, said that I’d stole moon bars from the high cabinet.
Dad drank Sego for breakfast
Mom switched to Benson & Hedges after she dropped out of U of F, Gainesville
Dad taught us to eat our Captain Crunch w peanut butter scraped onto the side of the bowl
Dad filled the icetrays and shoved them into the freezer
On the RCA rabbit-eat TV on wheels, I turned the dial to WFAA the Stockyard Report, the Hereford heifer prices came on outta dusty Fort Worth at 5:30am, killing time until the 3 Stooges came on.
After his Masters degree from NTSU a KZEW hour away over in Denton, Dad quit Texas Instruments. He dropped Camel smokes for Pall Malls, started wearing cuff links.
Ain’t one of that engineer’s 3 boys called for him in years. Ain’t a daughter-in-law wants that engineer in her house, around her kids.
“Why did you use hot water in the icetrays, Dad”
“Well, you see son, hot water has a steeper cooling curve, so it turns to ice faster.”
“Oh”