 In Praise of the Unexpected Nancy H. Rosenberg Copyright © June 2004 All rights reserved. Early Young Adult Under contract I grew up with an unconventional father, and around our house things were never dull. My childhood is filled with memories of the unpredictable, the unexpected, and things and events that often left the neighbors amazed. When things got a little too predictable, dad would come home with a new orange convertible, a trampoline, or a puppy. One day, in a burst of childlike enthusiasm, he brought home shiny new minibikes. My brother and I yelped with delight, and soon we were zipping across the fields in a crazy rush of wind and adrenaline. My mother was appalled. Dad was the sort who really, truly didn't care what anyone else thought. Don't get me wrong: he was always the gentleman, never rude, always a paragon of gentleness and good manners. But when it came down to doing something a certain way just because that's the way everyone else did it… well, that's where he had trouble. Instead, dad always seemed to find his own way. We had a farm out in the country where we'd spend weekends, and one year the fishing pond was overrun by a gar, a four-foot scavenger fish that killed all the catfish that we'd stocked the year before. Dad tried all the conventional methods for catching the gar, but nothing worked, and the battle soon escalated into an Old-Man-and-the-Sea type of primitive warfare. Man and Beast were locked in a deadly duel; my father was not to be outsmarted by a fish. I'm not sure where my dad got the dynamite, but one lazy summer afternoon he headed for the pond with a look of fierce determination. My mother held us back, and we knew better than to ask what he was up to. The explosion could be heard for miles. Dad won, and the story of how he killed the gar became something of a family legend. My father's unusual methodologies were contagious. It wasn't long before my brother, Rocky, was demonstrating an uncanny knack for the unorthodox. When Rocky was about 12 years old, my great-grandmother died, and her trusty old Chevrolet was parked in our driveway until my parents could figure out what to do with it. Rocky had an idea. He wanted to learn how to drive, and he wanted to learn by driving the old car around (and around, and around) our long, winding circular driveway. True to form, my father didn't see a rational reason why this was not a perfectly reasonable request, so my brother was given the keys. Rocky would fire up the old Chevy and, with his best friend Cleo, the family mutt, together they put literally hundreds of miles on that old car. My father's skill was passed on to me in more practical ways, I think. One day I glanced in the rearview mirror on the way to an important business function and realized that my nose was shiny and I'd forgotten pressed powder. In a pinch, I opened a tin of peppermints, swiped my finger around the peppermint dust, and patted it across my nose and cheeks. It worked like a charm, and I smiled to think that dad would approve. Every time I mix cake batter in the blender or put the plants in the shower with me I'm reminded of the great unorthodox tradition that is my heritage. Last week I asked my five-year-old to help me break up some pecans to put in cookies we were baking. "Mom," she said, "why don't I put these pecans in a baggie and break them up with the back of an ice cream scoop?" I beamed. The ice cream scoop worked beautifully, then we ran to the phone to tell grandpa. |
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