Ergo, the Ogre

The Daily Post

My dad was different.

He wasn’t like any other dad I knew. In addition to being my one and only Da-Da, here are a few of the things that made Bruno, Bruno.

1) When he went to his job as a Sheet Metal man each day, he carried his oily sardine sandwiches in a “lunch bucket” rather than a lunch box.

2) Every June Dad took our small family on fishing vacations to Cranberry Lake in Eagle River, Wisconsin. We packed our clothes in “grips” instead of suitcases.

3) We swam in “swimming tanks,” not swimming pools.

4) Dad never got tired, but he did become “fagged-out” occasionally. This was confusing because he preferred smoking “fags” to cigarettes, but it wasn’t “fag” smoking that made him “fagged-out.”

5) He yelled louder than a drill sergeant, but never raised and angry hand. There was no need; with a voice like his it would’ve been overkill.

6) Dad was in the Signal Corp in the Army, which I assumed (as a kid) meant that he went around fixing traffic signals in foreign countries. He let me believe that, too, and I never thought much about it.  It was just a few years ago that I learned what the Signal Corp was, and the importance of the job he was assigned.

7) My dad was a quite a dancer. He tried so  hard to teach me how to polka, but it was no use: even the Bunny-Hop challenges me.

8) My dad was the best dad he knew how to be. He tried harder to be a good dad than I did to be a good daughter.

9) I regret that.