In this rough and ready world, there are still a few things that cheer people up.
I am still surprised, when I walk down the street, to see people looking at me with big smiles. I don’t know them and am always temporarily bewildered as to why these strangers appear happy to see me. Then I remember that I am wearing a big, bulky blue sweatshirt with the word DAD emblazoned across the front. It seems as though the concept of DAD makes some people feel good.
In smaller letters above that word is written the name of the university where my daughter is in her final year of a four-year dramatic arts program.
I was given the sweatshirt by my daughter a few years ago and have worn it day and night and sometimes even overnight if I couldn’t find any other suitable shirt to keep me warm in bed.
I also have worn it to all the university plays my daughter has appeared in and even one or two where she didn’t have a role. And I became a fixture in the audience. Her classmates, friends and fellow actors would look out from the stage and relax when they saw DAD in the audience, smiling away. I became a bit of an omen, a good one, apparently.
Those involved in theatre productions are known for their reliance on omens, mostly bad ones. It took me a while to get used to never wishing anyone good luck, for example, and advise them instead to “break a leg!”
I have even been informed that I have apparently become DAD to not only my daughter, but all her fellow students as well. How, I wonder, will I remember all their birthdays and am I expected now to start doling out weekly allowances?
But it is the positive attention from total strangers that intrigues me most. I have even had people yell out, “DAD!” at me, smiling all the while. I am glad they find those three little letters uplifting. It seems to be a happier word than the message on a T-shirt I once saw on a young man at a college where I was teaching. In large letters were the words: MURDER, DEATH, KILL. That left me scratching my head (and running for cover).
I waited 45 years to become a dad.
My daughter may be the actor but I’m the one really hamming it up.
Shameless, as I have always been, I am milking the part for all it’s worth.
And if you see me, go ahead and wish me good luck. At my age, I have no interest in breaking a leg.
©2020 Jim Hagarty
