George Eberhardt

A father to a little girl is like a god. He is all powerful, he can solve all problems, he can accomplish tremendous feats and inspire his fair share of fear. When I was a little girl, I was terrified of mosquitoes and could not sleep once I heard that horrible high pitched buzz in my ear. Dad would be roused by my cries from a deep sleep. He’d turn on the light in my room and hunt that mosquito down until it was nothing but a flattened splat on a rolled-up newspaper. He had to get up at 4:00 in the morning those days and was probably muttering and cursing under his breath, but I was blissfully unaware of his discomfort and happy that I could finally sleep. My cousin Fran gave me a doll, the kind we would now consider quaintly old-fashioned with her porcelain face and cloth body. I had decided I was a big girl now and didn’t need a doll so one night, out in the trash she went. That night, I could not fall asleep, tormented by visions of my dolly in the garbage. I moaned and cried enough that Mom came in room. A few minutes later, Dad was on his way out to the trash to retrieve the doll I had so triumphantly declared too babyish for me. Another middle of the night journey, probably more muttering and cursing but I slept well. In the 1950‘s when I was growing, neighborhood kids would traipse through each others houses as if we owned the place. One of my neighborhood friends was apprehensive around Dad. One day, I led a reluctant Barbara by the hand into the garage, through the converted breezeway and into the kitchen where Dad sat at the table. As we passed him I said, “Barbara, don’t be afraid of my father.” My mother was standing at the sink and just roared. She often repeated this story. In college, I shared a house with four other students. Being last one in on the deal, my bedroom was the dining room, with one opening into the kitchen and another into the living room. Dad came up to New Paltz with two doors and a collection of tools to close in those two spaces so I could sleep at night. He was a big hit with my roommates and I suspect the large bundIe of Entenmann‘s cake he always brought along helped. My definition of a good father has changed over the years but as I look back, I now think that the best kind of father a girl can have is one who makes it possible for her to sleep a night. That’s the dad I had. Thank, you, Dad.