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AMY SMITH LINTON

Daddo

7/15/2014

12 Comments

 
Picture
He was tall, dark, and handsome, my father.

Rangy as the Marlboro man, he had straight teeth and good bone-structure. Brown eyes and a tan the color of mahogany.
He rocked the Ray-Bay aviators and a cigarette. He played piano by ear and slowly wrecked his elegant hands with rough carpentry and masonry work. 

In photos he looks like a movie star, equal parts James Dean and Clint Eastwood.

So many things to remember -- little quirks and big adventures, his imagination and creativity, his lifelong friendships, the oddball vocabulary and phrases.

There was a theatricality about him: upon opening a beer and taking the first sip, he'd say, "How do they make it taste so good?"

Picture
A nap? Well, "A rested hand is a steady hand." 

During a card-game, he reacted to anyone's belly-aching by painstakingly retrieving a quarter from his pocket and then sliding it deliberately across the table, and saying -- with a certain restrained malice -- "Here you go, why don't you call someone who gives a damn." 

Before dry-swallowing an aspirin, he'd look into his palm and say with wonderful puzzlement, "How do it know?" 

Daddo offered dramatic, matinée-idol advice with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, "Develop many interests, honey," he'd say. "Because one by one --" 

Pause for a sip and a deep breath of smoke, and the rest of the line delivered with absolute sincerity, "You'll be forced to give them up." 

Picture
"Do it right or do it twice," was his carpentering advice, sometimes inverted as, "Anything worth doing is worth doing right." His workshop was a wonder of neatness.

On the job site, he once called out, "Uh, honey?" from the other room, where he was replacing a ceiling fan while I rolled paint. "Honey, REAL painters don't say 'oopsie.' "

Fifteen years and whenever the word comes out, I remind myself each and every time that real painters (real dish-washers, real gardeners, real parallel-parkers, real basketball shooters, real anything-ers) don't say "oopsie."


12 Comments
cathmason
7/15/2014 02:11:26 am

Exquisite.

Reply
Amy
7/15/2014 02:57:49 pm

Thank you!

Reply
Scott Smith
7/15/2014 02:24:33 am

I miss him dearly and remember several of those lines quite well. I think I may have even learned about rhetorical questions from him...

"Son, how do they make it taste so good?"
No answer needed Uncle Hollis.

Reply
Amy
7/15/2014 02:59:13 pm

XO

Reply
Sarah Ellen Smith
7/15/2014 05:46:01 am

I have so many of those stories in my mind right now!
Going out tomorrow to have a beer with Daddo in Eel Bay. They threw away the mold with him. Thanks Sis

Reply
Amy
7/15/2014 03:00:40 pm

Spill a few sips for me while you're at it, if you will. Sending a hug!

Reply
Elmer Taylor
7/15/2014 06:56:45 am

Never have I known anyone like him.
If you didn't like him, you had to respect him.
If you didn't respect him, you had to like him.
I liked him and respected him, what a guy.
An amazing person in meany meany ways

Reply
Amy
7/15/2014 03:01:45 pm

See under: lifelong friendships --
Thanks for stopping by -- hope all is great in your neck of the woods, Elmer!

Reply
Grace Alfiero link
7/15/2014 01:52:03 pm

Thank you for this fantastic memory! I wish I would have had the good fortune to meet your Daddo!

Reply
Amy
7/15/2014 03:03:11 pm

Hi Grace
Thanks for stopping by. I'm sorry you two didn't meet too, he would have thought you were the cat's pajamas!

Reply
Betsy McKenzie Bailey
12/29/2015 01:31:37 pm

We played guitars on High St. & he played our piano @ 1 Cherry St. Many other great memories. (I'm Sarah's Godmother)

Reply
Amy
2/19/2019 06:31:48 am

Oh, those musical soirees! Thanks for stopping by, Betsy!

Reply



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