Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

Father’s Day is Sunday. My mind goes back to a familiar smell. Old Spice aftershave, a newspaper’s ink and cigarette smoke. Yes, Old Spice, that was my dad’s signature scent.

Anyway, instead of doing a story about how great our dads were, I’m going the other way. Stories about how our dads may have inadvertently embarrassed us, with love, of course.

My Dad, Fred Del Ponte.

I’ll go first. My dad threw my rowdy friends out of my piano recital. One of the guys had dungaree overalls on, with no shirt, and barefoot!

Plus, I think they were tripping. He showed them the way out, bodily. He was right, but I wish he didn’t have to be right and really loud.

On Father’s Day we remember our dads and the influences they had on us. Here are some tales of those times when our fathers embarrassed us:

“I broke my leg when I was in high school. Dad took me up to Somerville hospital to get it checked after six weeks of being in a cast. Sitting in the radiology department to get an x-ray, me trying to hide my hairy skinny leg behind my healthy leg. Dear old dad in his big booming voice said, ‘Quite the monkey leg you got there, Sue!’ The waiting room was, of course, full.”

“How about my mother calling the police to pick me up at a high school dance because my dad was late!”

The scent of my dad.

“My late husband answered the door, to find two questionable boys who stated they were here to pick up my daughter and her friend. It was quick, succinct, and completely appropriate. He said ‘NO’ and closed the door on them. The girls were devastated and I, as the mom, was elated.”

“My dad was umping a Babe Ruth game at Trum Field and threw me out because I dumped my coke on a woman who was calling the ump bad names. The ump she was swearing about was my dad.”

“How about when my father showed up at my BBQ last summer in a 1988 mini-van with faded paint that looked like it hit everything but the lottery. That wasn’t the embarrassing thing, it was when he got out, put a big foil-like protector over the cracked dashboard and then proceeded to install “The Club” across his steering wheel. Lol!”

“When I was around 12 my mom and dad took a bunch of us girlfriends to pick apples in NH. We proceeded to steal them in every imaginable way – stuffed into our socks, under our shirts (a dead give-away, lol) and in our pockets. We were, of course, caught and my dad had to pay for everything we’d stolen. He was so embarrassed but didn’t make a scene. But the car ride home was looooooong and silent.”

A gift from my sons.

“My folks were divorced. I went out on a double date to a Somerville movie theater and it was past curfew. She showed up in nightgown and curlers, walked all the way to the front, turned around, found me and said, ‘YOU! LET’S GO!’ I was mortified. lol”

Thank you everyone who contributed. I miss my dad every minute. My sons never met my dad but they love stories about him. They also reminded me of the time I was at one of their band gigs and embarrassed them by yelling out “TURN THE BASS UP!” I think I actually went up on stage because the sound wasn’t to my liking. But my boys always took my meddling with a grain of salt.

My dad was my hero, and my protector. He always had my back and never let me down. I hope my sons remember me as fondly. I bought some Old Spice to keep in the medicine cabinet just for old time’s sake. Happy Father’s Day, dad!