Courting Destiny

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My Father’s Moustache

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In this week before Father’s Day I will continue talking about the father I knew best.

In the summer of 1969 my family flew to Mobile, Alabama for a family party. My parents insisting on vetting my wardrobe so that I didn’t bring anything that would mark me as a hippie princess.

My wardrobe passed inspection. I could dress both English mod and Pucci New York if the occasion demanded it. I don’t remember how many second cousins were around my age but there were many as Great Uncle Max and Great Aunt Ethel had five children all of whom had propagated and except for Ricki and Peter didn’t stop at two. Each one took me into the closet in the kitchen where they would take the one telephone for privacy and ask the same question: Could I get them any pot? “Why me?” I would say pretending to be shocked, “I wouldn’t know.” Meanwhile back at the Long Island Gold Coast college….

We rented a car to drive us to New Orleans and then home to New York. Though we had made many road trips most of them were no further South than DC; North than the White Mountains; and West to Amish Country . This trip was different.

The car was rented and had a Kansas license plate. My father, normally the slowest driver in America, sped through the Blue Ridge Mountains. My mother, sister and I sat in amazement until finally I asked why he was driving so fast.

Oh it’s a Kansas license. Nobody will ticket me.

While there’s truth in that statement, I think it was something more.

My father grew a long moustache during the road trip. Forever after he would let it grow large and his hair way too long. I called him Einstein; he thought it was a compliment. Every time he cut his hair and moustache he looked ten years younger.

One day about 20 years later he asked me if he should shave half his moustache. I wasn’t shocked but simply asked him why: “So that when I go up there  the people who knew me before will recognize me and so will the people who knew me after.” “Only if you want to look ridiculous in this life, daddy.”

Comments

  1. That’s a wonderful memory of your father’s suggestion of shaving 1/2 of his mustache… I remember being conscious about my tags when I lived in NY State and would drive back to the Carolinas…

  2. My father grew his hair long enough to put in a ponytail after retirement and regrew his beard. I remember him having a moustache growing up but never a beard. He looks like a hippie and so proud of it! Honestly the vast majority of them (the ones I know anyway, and I know a few) are happy people. And my hair grows long ridiculously quickly…. six weeks after I had it cut to just above my shoulders it was halfway down my back again…I am his daughter!

    As for driving fast on the Blue Ridge parkway … I just have to admire his skill (I usually get white-knuckled when I drive through it at 25 miles an hour!) and at the same time wonder why… one of the prettiest places on Earth to me.

    • My hair does too–and I’m adopted!

      Oh we would stop every few miles to look at the scenery and his driving fast probably meant he drove 55 miles an hour. No he did 80 on the Interstates–should have been more specific about where he drove so fast. It took us a week or more to get home as we had to look at everything!

  3. I think everyone’s father had a moustache at some point, though yours may very well have been the only with a half-one.

    Meanwhile back at the Long Island Gold Coast college….

    Yes! Such a great line. I feel like Pia is back. Or maybe you never went anywhere, I’m just not on Facebook.

    Where at in Mobile, do you remember? Love driving over the bay there.

    You guys sound like the prototypical Kansas family for sure 😉 I can see my Dad throwing in a corny “You’re not in Kansas anymore” joke if we had rented that car, followed by a collective groan from all the passengers.

  4. My cousins all lived in the suburbs in what looked like mansions to us. But my great aunt and uncle lived in downtown Mobile near the family store–Mobile’s country & western store. Their house was from the 1920’s and I know I would want to own it now!

  5. Your dad was a hoot! I love your wonderful family memories. You can feel the love in them.