Dads & Daughters

I wonder what other girls talk about with their dads. This question has been nagging at me since I got off the phone with my dad last night. I know one dad who talks to his grown daughters every single day. My dad and I are more on the once a month schedule. And it usually happens because my mom isn’t home.

A couple years ago my parents finally got caller ID, so at least now my dad will answer the phone when he hears the computer generated voice echoing through the house with “Heidi’s cell.” He’ll pick up, ask me how I’m doing and what’s the weather like in Portland? After discussing the weather, the next thing he says is usually “Well, good talking to you. I’ll go find your mom so you can talk to her.” For some reason, the two minute conversation never ceases to amuse me. Mostly because it always seems like the phone is a hot potato and he’s got to get rid of it. To be fair, most of the time I call home, I am calling to talk to my mom.

While my dad and I get along and like each other, we are very different people with different interests. One thing we have in common is being absurdly stubborn. Ask any of my friends, they’ll confirm this. I’m stubborn, and don’t really care to do something I’m not interested in. It turns out that I come by this honestly, as my dad is the exact same way. When you have two people who are stubborn, someone has to bend if you hope to have any sort of relationship. Having decided that I wanted a relationship with both my parents, in the past it’s usually been me that has bent. I’ve watched countless hours of James Bond movies with my dad and brother, just to be part of the camaraderie. After ten or so, you start to enjoy them and now I look forward to the Christmas Day James Bond marathon. I also kept shooting guns. Not because it was of particular interest to me at the time, although I do enjoy it now, but because it was a way to spend time with my dad. To my dads utter disappointment, I was not a hunter. This was one thing I refused to bend on. Hiking through the dark and snow only to have to drag hundreds of pounds of meat out of the woods if you’re successful is not my idea of fun.

All of this to lead back to the phone conversation I had with my dad last night. After exchanging the usual pleasantries and weather talk, my dad and I had a very long conversation about college football. I know he finds it amusing/bewildering that his kids enjoy being sports spectators, but it’s nice that he asks about the team I follow. I’m not sure if he doesn’t enjoy sports or just doesn’t follow them, but I appreciate that he’s made an effort to talk about something that I really enjoy. And that he pays enough attention to college football to be able to have a conversation with me.

So after at least a 10-minute conversation about college football with my dad, I found myself sitting there wondering what on earth do other girls talk about their dads with? I talked to a friend at work about it and wondered out loud if it was weird that college football was our conversation topic. My guy friend informed me, “That’s not weird, that’s awesome.” And so it is.