Father's Day

It is 1941. My father is three (or is it four years?) old and his young mother and much older father live in an apartment building in downtown Detroit, mere blocks from the river bearing the same name. Rail lines back up to their apartment building which is located on a street busy with both living and making a living. Wartime industry is still chugging and grinding and forging in America. His father is a crane operator, his mother is learning to be a homemaker, learning how to cook simple meals from her husband. Money is tight. His father brings home the money. It is his mother’s job to make it last, stretch it out, buy shoes for the baby.

Now, picture a quiet Saturday morning in spring. My father has crawled out of bed early, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He is awake much earlier than both his mother and father who are still huddled beneath cool sheets. The sun is just beginning to appear in hazy pinks and smoky yellows through the small window above the kitchen sink. Pigeons are perched, or pecking here and there in the courtyard, and from where my father stands, on a chair he has pulled up to countertop/kitchen sink/window, my father (happy, eager boy) watches the pigeons in delight.

My father sees the special treat his mother has left on the countertop from her trip to the market. (Donuts!) The bag rustles as he takes one cake donut from the first row of the tray. The crumbs spill down upon his little boy belly, and a few crumbs land on his toes. But he is a good boy who listens to his mother, and so he picks up a few crumbs to tidy up. (But the birds! They look hungry too!) My father notices the window is ajar, and a slight breeze ruffles his soft-still-baby-hair. He tosses the crumbs out into the courtyard and watches as one pigeon flies over to peck at the crumb of cake donut. (What fun!)

Chewing his donut, he thinks to break off a larger piece for the pigeon in the courtyard. The pigeon steps closer; my father leans out the window to toss the piece of donut at the bird. (But look! Now there are two pigeons!) Delighted, my father throws the remaining half of his donut into the courtyard. Three more pigeons swoop down to join the excitement. My father is smiling, and laughing his little boy laugh, eyes bright with the wonder of the treat and the birds. He reaches into the bag again, and lobs a whole donut through the window. A flock is forming! (Look at all the birds!) In a flurry of excitement he reaches into the donut bag again and again, until there are no donuts left at all. The birds swoop and peck and eat donuts with my father.

His father is awake now and enters the kitchen to see crumbs/open window/birds outside. There is a pause, then soft laughter. “Well, I guess we need to buy more donuts.”

N.B. When my father tells the story, he builds it bird-by-bird, describing the exact number of donuts left in the bag, the exact number of pigeons at the window. By the time he reaches the climax when all of the donuts are gone, you can actually picture him as a small boy quivering with excitement on his tiptoes leaning out the window to feed the birds. I love this, my father’s story, because he is four again when he tells it. When he spins his tale, my dad laughs this huge laugh that sounds like a lion playing a baritone. He laughs and roars and laughs so much that he cannot stop laughing. I think it comes down to this: What matters is the laughter, of my father at age four, of his father standing in that kitchen, of my sons as they listen to grandpa’s story about the donuts.