Skipping I was watching a rerun of “The Middle” with Patricia Heaton where she mentioned skipping. She asked her husband, “Whatever happened to skipping? We used to skip everywhere in the third grade. Then for some reason we all just stopped!” I want you to know, not everyone stopped! My dad skipped almost everywhere. I remember when he was in his thirties, he would grab his shirt pocket (he didn’t want to lose his cigarettes, lighter, or pens), then he’d just take off. People pointed, stared, and laughed, but that didn’t phase my dad. The mall, the department store, even into the dispatcher’s office at work. The last one cost him an untimely drug test, but that didn’t stop him either. Even into his forties, fifties, and all the way through his sixties, he just loved skipping! Dad once pulled his rig into the main FedEx Ground yard in Memphis and after dropping both trailers went to the dispatch office to turn in his bills and get his next load papers. A dispatcher happened to see him skipping across the paved yard and alerted the terminal manager. I suppose a sixty something year old truck driver skipping happily across a yard is just a bit strange. The terminal manager then stopped dad’s paperwork and had someone call the clinic, which was just about a half mile outside the main gate, to set an appointment for a drug test. Before dad could hook to another load he had to go to the clinic, pee in a cup, and wait for the results to report to the FedEx terminal manager. The experience slowed him down by a few hours on his schedule, but he still skipped everywhere he went. The Memphis office never made him drug test again, but they did start calling him Skippy. I remember mentioning to him once that he sure seemed to lose a lot of pens. His retort, “I don’t mind losing pens when I’m skipping. They can’t spell correctly anyway.” With a smile he continued, “If I ever find a pen that can spell, I won’t lose it.” He passed away in January of 2007. I remember he skipped almost everywhere right up to the time he began to feel he might fall. Now, Every time I see or hear of someone skipping, it brings back a flood of wonderful memories of my dad. Skippy was such a great nickname for him!
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 12:58:15 +0000
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