"The Way You Do The Things You Do"
You've got a smile so bright, you know you could have been a candle
I'm holding you so tight, you know you could have been a handle
The way you swept me off my feet, you know you could have been a broom
The way you smell so sweet, you know you could have been some perfume
[Chorus:]
Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to
And I can tell, the way you do the things you do
As pretty as you are, you know you could have been a flower
If good looks was a minute, you know that you could be an hour
The way you stole my heart, you know you could have been a crook
And baby you're so smart, you know you could have been a schoolbook
[Chorus]
You made my heart so rich, you know you could have been some money
And baby you're so sweet, you know you could have been some honey
[Chorus]
You really swept me off my feet, you made my life complete
You've got a smile so bright, you know you could have been a candle
I'm holding you so tight, you know you could have been a handle
The way you swept me off my feet, you know you could have been a broom
The way you smell so sweet, you know you could have been some perfume
[Chorus:]
Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to
And I can tell, the way you do the things you do
As pretty as you are, you know you could have been a flower
If good looks was a minute, you know that you could be an hour
The way you stole my heart, you know you could have been a crook
And baby you're so smart, you know you could have been a schoolbook
[Chorus]
You made my heart so rich, you know you could have been some money
And baby you're so sweet, you know you could have been some honey
[Chorus]
You really swept me off my feet, you made my life complete
You made my life so bright, you make me feel alright
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I like to think that if there is a song that shows my viewpoint of how Dad felt about Mom, this one would be it. As a child I'm sure that I had a very idealized concept of their relationship. Nonetheless, I got to see the sweet stuff. My dad was a salesman and all you had to do was see how mom handled his appearance to know that it was a labor of love just by the effort she put into making him look super sharp. She picked the most beautiful suits, shirts, vests and ties. Mom could have been a stylist. She was so good at knowing what looked good on him. To my dad's dying day, he might not have been in suits towards the end, but he always had a carefully folded cloth handkerchief in his pocket. But not just folded; ironed and crisp and white too. To me, that's how my mom loved my dad because she cared about him and those little details. And I don't mean that she cleaned and cooked and did all those other things. Her daily activities where pretty normal. But it's what Mom fit through the cracks that showed her love. For Dad, that meant beautifully ironed white crisp handkerchiefs. She didn't have to go to all that effort. I say that as I know that the laundry that I did yesterday is sitting in the dryer or as I call it "Our Circular Dresser."
For me it was when Mom made pancakes and she would take the time to make teenie tiny pancakes for me. I'm talking small. The biggest were about the size of a quarter and the littlest ones were mere splatters. Then Mom would carefully wrangle all of those bitty and uncooperative pancakes off the griddle and onto my plate. That's love. She didn't have to do it. But every Saturday she did them for me even though it took up a lot of time. But she did it because she knew I loved it. It was special. Mom still does little things for all of us to this day that lets us know her love. She doesn't buy birthday cards but rather paints a delicate and detailed picture in her watercolors. And it's always something that speaks to each of our personalities and interests. It's those subtle touches that make you know that you are loved. And there are too many other things here to mention but, believe me, we know that we are loved.
Now Dad went about this process in a very different way. People would look at my parents and say, "Wow, Ray just absolutely adores Dee." And he was a very demonstrative person and loved to gift mom. I'm sure I've mentioned in other blogs that my dad was Santa so there is a reason for his need to be a thoughtful and loving gifter. I love photos like this one below because it reminds me that they both really loved each other and had different ways of showing it. They were always so affectionate. There was lots of hugging and always goodnight kisses since Mom went to bed before Dad. That was supposed to be so Dad could watch Johnny Carson but really it was so Dad could watch the first 5 minutes, fall asleep, and then complain all morning about how bad his back hurt after sleeping half the night on the floor. But he would always give mom a big smooch and a hug on his way to sit and groan at the dinning room table.
They both had things that they did the way they did but, believe me,
they loved each other very much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I like to think that if there is a song that shows my viewpoint of how Dad felt about Mom, this one would be it. As a child I'm sure that I had a very idealized concept of their relationship. Nonetheless, I got to see the sweet stuff. My dad was a salesman and all you had to do was see how mom handled his appearance to know that it was a labor of love just by the effort she put into making him look super sharp. She picked the most beautiful suits, shirts, vests and ties. Mom could have been a stylist. She was so good at knowing what looked good on him. To my dad's dying day, he might not have been in suits towards the end, but he always had a carefully folded cloth handkerchief in his pocket. But not just folded; ironed and crisp and white too. To me, that's how my mom loved my dad because she cared about him and those little details. And I don't mean that she cleaned and cooked and did all those other things. Her daily activities where pretty normal. But it's what Mom fit through the cracks that showed her love. For Dad, that meant beautifully ironed white crisp handkerchiefs. She didn't have to go to all that effort. I say that as I know that the laundry that I did yesterday is sitting in the dryer or as I call it "Our Circular Dresser."
For me it was when Mom made pancakes and she would take the time to make teenie tiny pancakes for me. I'm talking small. The biggest were about the size of a quarter and the littlest ones were mere splatters. Then Mom would carefully wrangle all of those bitty and uncooperative pancakes off the griddle and onto my plate. That's love. She didn't have to do it. But every Saturday she did them for me even though it took up a lot of time. But she did it because she knew I loved it. It was special. Mom still does little things for all of us to this day that lets us know her love. She doesn't buy birthday cards but rather paints a delicate and detailed picture in her watercolors. And it's always something that speaks to each of our personalities and interests. It's those subtle touches that make you know that you are loved. And there are too many other things here to mention but, believe me, we know that we are loved.
Now Dad went about this process in a very different way. People would look at my parents and say, "Wow, Ray just absolutely adores Dee." And he was a very demonstrative person and loved to gift mom. I'm sure I've mentioned in other blogs that my dad was Santa so there is a reason for his need to be a thoughtful and loving gifter. I love photos like this one below because it reminds me that they both really loved each other and had different ways of showing it. They were always so affectionate. There was lots of hugging and always goodnight kisses since Mom went to bed before Dad. That was supposed to be so Dad could watch Johnny Carson but really it was so Dad could watch the first 5 minutes, fall asleep, and then complain all morning about how bad his back hurt after sleeping half the night on the floor. But he would always give mom a big smooch and a hug on his way to sit and groan at the dinning room table.
They both had things that they did the way they did but, believe me,
they loved each other very much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now then, I told you that story in order to tell you this one.
Yesterday we spent the 4th of July over at my Mom's house. It was a perfectly pastoral scene all day. The ultimate vision of a country afternoon. It's a rare day at any summer event that we all stay outside for the entire day. We just didn't want to budge from that deck. We had a multilayered view of nature and also a multilayer view of sweet young ladies stomping around in the creek. I'm very sure that, as legend tells us, that their laughter was caught in the water and kept there between the rocks so that, when we are long gone, other children will also come to that creek and they will hear the laughter of our children in the bubbling of that brook. I know that when my daughter and nieces are down there that they are hearing the laughs of me and my friends. We too loved that creek. It was full of adventure, and magic, and laughter, and innovation. My friends and I, we were builders. We would scavenge build sites (something I'm sure our mothers would never have let us to ) and we would build all manner of contraptions to see what we could get to float down the reek and how far it would go before it got caught. We were constantly searching for new materials. But I'm getting a bit off track here.
It's been 13 years since Dad passed and over the past few weeks mom has tackled the most physically and emotionally daunting task of breaking down his workshop. She and cleaned it all out and had all of his tools, some of my grandpas tools, and even some of my great-grandpa's tools. Most of us just wanted the tools for decorative purposes. Most of them will go up on mantles or places on display shelves. Nick was really excited to find many tools that he will be able to use in his field of engineering. He was beside himself at some of the rare and exciting things he found.
But the one thing he did come up with was a retractable self-chalking chalk line. Dad's pride and joy. And I laughed because it too was a symbol of the way my parents would do the things they do. Never was a day more exciting when my mom would announce to my dad that she wanted to rearrange a room. That would send Dad off to get his tool box, a giant old wooden red level, and the retractable self-chalking chalk line. Then Mom would spend some time moving things here and there and she'd step back and eye-ball it and then make the minor corrections needed. After working this way for a while, Mom would give the thumbs up and Dad would come in with the chalk line to rehang the pictures. This was also my cue to come in too since I was the Sorcerers Apprentice. My one job was to hold the end of the chalk line, super tight, and not let it scoot even the width of a kittens whisker or the whole thing was ruined and we'd have to start over. After much work with the level we would be ready to use that line. I would hold it as tight as I could and watch wide eyed as Dad would snap it back and twang it against the wall. There would be a small poof of blue dust and then the most perfect straight line would appear on the wall. We would repeat this process over and over until the wall was cris-crossed with straight, perfect bright blue lines. (Now that I'm older I know, or at least I suspect, that Mom didn't see the beautiful perfection of those lines like I did. She would say what I would be thinking if I were in her position, "I can't believe I have all this blue crap all over my walls.)
Then came the one day when Mom wanted to rearrange a room again and when she was done Dad came running in from the "on deck circle", also known as our dining room table. That's when mom did something different that day. There will be no levels today, no perfect blue lines, no hours of squinting; what she did next changed history that day. She said something like, "How hard can it be to hang a painting? I think I can do it if I just eyeball it. I've got a pretty good sense of space." At that moment I was hoping that Mom's "sense of space" was better than Dad's "sense of direction" otherwise we were all in trouble.
Then came the one day when Mom wanted to rearrange a room again and when she was done Dad came running in from the "on deck circle", also known as our dining room table. That's when mom did something different that day. There will be no levels today, no perfect blue lines, no hours of squinting; what she did next changed history that day. She said something like, "How hard can it be to hang a painting? I think I can do it if I just eyeball it. I've got a pretty good sense of space." At that moment I was hoping that Mom's "sense of space" was better than Dad's "sense of direction" otherwise we were all in trouble.
So Dad sat down with a smile and said, "Go right ahead." Now that I'm a grown-up married person, I now realize that the part of the sentence Dad didn't say was, "...I'll just wait here until this plan fails horribly and I step in to fix it." Mom did indeed start the eyeballing. Squint, tap-tap-tap. Squint, tap-tap-tap. Squint, tap-tap-tap. Squint, tap-tap-tap. Squint, tap-tap-tap. Squint, tap-tap-tap. And then 10 minutes later she was done and the pictures were hung beautifully. They were all level, spaced correctly, and arranged artistically. This led to much griping from Dad about how some people think that they have "a good eye" but he still thinks that the pictures are crooked. And when I say "much griping" I mean years of debate over whether or not the pictures in all our house were hung correctly or were just un-level death traps waiting to fall and crush us as we walk by. From first gripe to last my mom always did the same thing; she would smile a big smile, give him a flash of "a look", and then walk away. After a long time Dad came around and started bragging about how Mom could just eyeball a room and know where everything should go.
Whether they were doing sweet and loving things for each other or having the occasional "agree to disagree" moment over a difference of opinion, I have to say, I love the way my parents did the things they did.
How we do the
things we do,
Wilt Family Style!
things we do,
Wilt Family Style!
Enjoy
The
Song!
The
Song!
No comments:
Post a Comment