Fun is whatever you make it

The day was perfect. The comfortable temperatures and slight breeze made conditions perfect to roll the windows down on the car and simply enjoy the scenery. As my two daughters and I made the turn on College Street in Van Buren I couldn’t help but smile. The sight of students being released from a day filled with learning at the local school, coupled with my having a captive audience inside the car in the form of my beloved daughters, brought back joyous memories of days gone by.

As we approached the school yard, I just couldn’t help myself. I asked my girls if I had ever told them about all the times I dropped their older sister, Natalie, off at school? With a lost look in their eyes neither admitted to hearing about those adventures. Although skeptical, Lilli, the oldest of the two, asked, “Is it really something we want to know?”

With that I began describing how I did my best when Natalie was young to show her just how cool of a father she had. When I realized that my status amongst parents and her friends held very little bearing in her world I, like any good dad, resorted to doing my best to make her smile a bit or at least that was the plan.

Rather than simply telling the girls about Natalies experience I deemed it best to show them. Not every day do we find the perfect learning conditions right? With that and a swipe of the hand, I rolled down all the windows in the vehicle and gently pressed the window lock button. As the girls looked on with excitement at which friends they could see outside the school, good old Dad shifted his plan into the second phase. The unsuspecting children both inside and outside the car had no idea what was about to unfold before their very eyes.

With a slight of hand, and a turn of the knob to increased volume on the radio, the fun began. In Natalie’s youth, it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear a bit of Freddie Fender blaring from her vehicle as he sang about when the next tear drop fell as she debarked for a day of learning. This had to be different...it had to be epic, so the girls understood the awesomeness of their dad. As the words began sounding to the epic Frozen song, “Let it Go,” a look of terror displayed itself across Lilli’s face. Her pleas to turn it down did not worked so she rapidly attempted to roll up the windows and resorted to finding a place on the floorboard.

With similar looks of terror falling upon the children in the school yard I was pleased to witness the grins of a select number of parents, mainly fathers, as they shook their head in alliance with this one dad who dared to share a bit of levity that afternoon. The times are different now. Lilli routinely guards herself from dad’s antics while Riyann is more than willing to go through it all again. In the end, life is about experiences. Those experiences don’t always have to be serious. Let it go, my friends, and have a little fun with the ones you care about.

Richard J. Stephens lives in Carter County and is the father of three little ladies ranging in age from 9 to 29.