There are several things I remember that we did as young kids that probably drove my daddy crazy. On one of his sleepy journeys out of our driveway on his way to work, he missed the driveway just enough for the car wheel to fall off into the ditch. He was stuck. Well, that was one of those jokes that never died.
I remember many mornings as we sat at the breakfast table eating our Maltomeal or Oatmeal, Dad would walk through the dining area on his way out of the house, start mumbling something about how you can’t eat cereal without milk, go to the fridge, get the milk, dump it all over our cereal and then leave. Mom must have wanted to kill him since we no longer wanted to eat it! I know I certainly didn’t appreciate it. We worked hard to get our cereal just the way we liked it (without milk!!!).
Well, the reason I bring this up is that I think that that was partially the reason that we loved to chant as Dad left for work each morning “Bye Dad, don’t fall in the ditch!!” We said that nearly every morning, even though he didn’t ruin our cereal every morning, nor did he ever repeat the ditch incident. I wonder if Mom taught us to say that – probably not. Mom is not a smartass – we inherited that from Dad. I must say that most everyone at some point did copy the ditch incident – it was actually easier to fall into the ditch than it seemed. We really did inherit so many attributes from him, virtues and vices.