My Dad

So he’s not really my dad. Technically, he’s not even a step dad. However, if I say ‘Dad’, this is whom I am talking about. His name is Kerry.
Kerry met my mom when I was just a little squirt. My mother was living in Troy and dating a guy named Jimmy, known to all as ‘Bubba’ and Kerry was his best bud. So one day, when Bubba came over, he brought Kerry with him. I don’t’ remember this first meeting, but Dad does. He says that the first thing I did was insisting on showing him my room, which was carpeted with floor-to-floor toys. The second interaction was later in the evening, when I spilled whatever it was I was eating all down my front. He said “little girl, you have food on your shirt.” and then I ran off screaming and had a nice little hissy fit.
I wouldn’t say it was a very good indicator of the future.
A few years later, he came across my mother again, and asked her out. Or maybe she asked him out, I don’t know. All I know is that I was about 6 years old when Kerry started to occasionally baby-sit me when mom went out to contra dances and jams. He’d come over in his old beater of a car, with his dog and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and we would hang out on the porch. Northwest befriended the dog across the street, a playful lady White German Shepard named Timber. A few memories from this time jump out at me, like the night I wanted to blast my one cassette of Disney TV show theme songs, specifically the theme song to Rescue Rangers. Or how, whenever Kerry went inside, I would get Northwest all worked up by saying over and over “where’s Kerry?!?!”
After awhile, due to a raise in rent at the house in Batesville, my mother decided to move us in to the small trailer out towards Scottsville that Kerry lived in for free, because it was owned by one of his best buds and business partner. I was in Connecticut for the move, and when I came home to Virginia at the end of summer, it was too a new room and the beginning of a new school year at a new school, but the biggest change was now I lived in a home with an adult male for the first time since I was 3. Best of all, Kerry didn’t drink, and was perfectly willing to play with me. He read me bedtime stories, he listened to my childish blathering, and on rainy days, he would come up with brilliant new ways to dress up the dogs.
Kerry is a creative guy. When he was a preteen, his buds and him actually made a full-length film about Doc Savage, plus short films, everything from horror to Batman spoofs. In his 20’s he was in a punk rock band, in which he wrote much of the lyrics. I think this is where I get my own creative sensibilities. He didn’t just read stories, he would make up funny voices and brought them to life, he made up songs about the dogs and we would sing them, and he always encouraged me to add in.
One of the best nights ever, he had both my mother and me in stitches. It was nearing Christmas and I had a children’s book about how on Christmas Eve all animals could talk and would get together and have a party. Kerry made up our own version. It centers around all of our dogs and the animals from the neighborhood who where given roles in the Slate Hill Christmas party in our neighbors Bill’s shed.
To this day, our odd little family has its own language. I suppose every family has its version, but I like to think ours is a bit crazier and a bit more elaborate then most. This was Kerry’s influence.
He influences much of my life. Most of the things I like or I believe can be traced back to him. I already liked Rock and Roll when I came to the Trailer, but it was Kerry that refined my taste and introduced me to bands like King Crimson, The Ramones, X-Ray Spex, T-Rex and Deep Purple. Kerry was the one that taught me how to defend myself, both with and without firearms. His concern over my safety is still obvious. He still goes and checks my house gun every so often. He likes to know where I am, although, he often try’s to act like that’s not what he’s doing now that I’m in my 20’s. He is the reason I believe so strongly in the Bill of Rights and a limited federal government. With me he shared the stories of his life, the lesson’s he learned.
He told me once that one reason he gravitated to my mother was because he wanted a child. I was perfect, because I needed a father. His first inkling that I would be his child was one night when we went to the Circus. During the performance, I leaned back against his knee. I remember asking my mother if I could call him ‘Dad’, she told me to ask him and he said yes.
Now I don’t really remember not thinking of him as ‘Dad’.