MY POPS IS TOPS

When I was 7 years old, that would be 1957, we lived in
Cheney, Washington just outside of Spokane.

My dad taught at the local elementary school, where I also attended school.

I could get away with nothing.

In the first grade, I ate white and gray library paste out of the giant jar while I was sitting under one of the wooden tables in the library. I still remember the creamy white paste in the middle of the jar and the slightly crusty gray paste on the edges.

I thought no one could see me. Alas, my eating habits did not go unnoticed.  One night, my dad gently suggested that eating paste out of a jar in the library was not something I should do in the future.

I am sure he and my mom were mortally embarrassed.

I was, a could be best described,
as a round child and was certainly not lacking for any nutritional needs.

However, thinking back on that episode,

it may explain why I am willing to eat just about anything now.

 

Each year before Father's Day the Spokane newspaper sponsored a writing contest.

Sons and daughters could write an essay into the newspaper and describe why

MY POPS IS TOPS.

Winning essays would be published in the paper and the father and child would be given free tickets to a Spokane Indians AAA baseball game. 

 

I got out my solid- and dotted-line penmanship tablet and my stubby fat pencil and penned an essay.

I'm not sure what I said.

I'm pretty sure it didn't mention how kind my father was when requesting I refrain from eating library paste in the future.

It probably mentioned how much I loved him.

On Father's Day, if I remember correctly, the winning essays were published.

I won, I won.

There was my essay published in Spokane's Spokes-man Review.
He and I went to the baseball game, father and daughter together.

So dad, I'll be thinking of you this Father's Day. In my book
MY POPS IS STILL TOPS.
Love you Dad.