MEMORIES OF DADDY

This past Sunday was Father’s Day and, although I had a good day with my husband and his father, every year I always get a little misty-eyed missing my daddy. It’s funny how, no matter how old we get, we still take our parents for granted. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate my dad and love him, but I took for granted that he’d always be around. Mostly because I just couldn’t fathom the idea of him not being around. A fifty-plus year smoker, he died from lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 66.
My father was Charles Fred Laue VII—yes, that’s the 7th (pron. LAW –it’s German and used to be Von Laue). Then he had 4 daughters and no sons to give his name to. But he never seemed to mind. He was the best kind of Daddy for little girls.
He was the only child of a feisty, Irish schoolteacher and a gruff German train engineer who came along late in their lives. Also livings with him were his paternal grandmother and a maternal aunt. The result of having 3 women catering to his every need was that he didn’t speak a word until he was 4 years old.
Worried for her only child, his mother took him to a doctor. The physician quickly realized that Charles only had to point at whatever he wanted and it was instantly provided.
My dad attended Notre Dame but was so unhappy there he begged to come home to Fort Worth after two years.
He was handsome but very shy and quiet, and while home for Christmas break of his third semester he met my mom while he was playing the saxophone in her uncle’s band and wrote her quite eloquent letters expressing his loneliness and longing for her. So, he came home and enrolled at Texas Christian University.
While they were dating my parents often went dancing. Daddy was a wonderful dancer. He used to play Perry Como and Herb Albert albums and dance with us in the living room. He gifted us all with his love of music.
Daddy eventually earned his degree by going to school at night while working full time during the day. He was a chemical engineer and worked for Lockheed (What used to be General Dynamics) most of his life, and received an award for inventing a special glue used on F-16 so the heavy rivets were no longer necessary.
When my sisters and I were kids, Mama played bridge one evening a week and on those nights Daddy would always play the “Monster” game with us. Scared us half to death but not really and we loved it. While we hid in our bedroom room, he would point two shoes in different hiding places and then hide in one of them. He would knock slowly three times on the door and when we would finally muster up the courage to go looking for him, he would jump out and chase us back to our room. We loved that game!
The other childhood memory I have was a bedtime ritual he went through with all of us girls every night. I did this with my kids when they were little. He would kneel down next to our beds and slip his hand underneath our pillow, and then ask us questions about our day.
“Were you a good girl today?” Then he would shake our heads “No” for us and we would giggle and try to nod our heads yes. Then he would tell us to have sweet dreams and kiss us good night.
I remember Daddy walking me down the aisle at my weddings and the tears in his eyes on that special day. And that special dance to “Daddy’s Little Girl” at the reception and the joke after the reception was over when he pulled his pockets wrong side out and tried to declare bankruptcy. He was a consummate over-actor and often had us rolling in the aisles with laughter at his antics. Mama was always saying “They’re not handing out academy awards tonight, Chuck.”

He was a fun-loving Papa to his grandkids, taking them to the air shows out at the Air Force base. He loved old cars, Coors beer, and rainy afternoons. But mostly I remember him as the man who kissed my boo-boos and made pancakes on Sunday mornings before church.
I miss you Dad. I’ll be seeing you.