I know know, if I ever knew, why Dad sent me to Loves Steakhouse that night.  Occasionally, dad would send me to Mc Donalds, just around the corner, for a meal.  It was rare but it happened.  However one evening, when I was nine, Dad sat me down at the table, taught me how to figure a 10% tip (it was the acceptable rate back then) and sent me off on my own with a 20 dollar bill for dinner.

In the restaurant, the waitress seemed a bit confused at a little girl ordering for herself.  I think I ordered a steak and a coke.  I'm not sure.  The bill was just over five dollars.  Actually, now that I think about it, I think it was about seven dollars.  I took a napkin, borrowed the waitress' pen, and started adding.  She watched me curiously.  I grew more and more flustered and eventually panicked.  I slapped the 20 dollar bill down on the counter with my check, and bolted for the door.

I'll never forget the look of incredulity on dad's face when I admitted there was no change.  "What did you order?"  I explained what happened.  There was a funny look around the corners of dad's mouth.  It was one of those times when a parent just has to remember that sometimes raising kids can be expensive.

However, several good things happened that night.  I learned how to order, how to take care of getting my own meal at a restaurant, and... before I went to bed that night, I had a firm understanding of how to calculate 10% tips on a meal.  Now if he had only mentioned that you tip places other than restaurants.  Cabbies for instance.

Several weeks or months later, I wanted to go to the little shopping center (it's now a huge mall) "The San Buenaventura Center".  Mom didn't feel like going and dad didn't either so he dropped me off at Thrifty in the center and told me to call him when I was done.  I wandered around for hours.  I went into Barker Brothers Furniture and imagined what each room of furniture would look like in OUR house.  I ate a beef stick "sucker" from Hickory Farms and drooled over the jewelry in the store cases.  Finally, I went into the Broadway, went upstairs, and wandered through the girll's clothing department until I found the "Hello Kitty" section.  It was just a clear acrylic tower filled with "My Twin Stars" and "Hello Kitty" stuff.  I loved that stuff.  I learned to read prices on the backs and rarely bought a thing.  It was way too expensive.

Eventually, I got tired or hungry or something so I called dad and told him I was ready.  Dad said he'd send a cab and the five dollars he'd given me was for my ride home.  I went inside, spent .25 of my own money on a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone, and waited for the cab.  He drove up before I was finished so I took a big bite and threw the rest away.  I think the driver was appreciative.  He asked about my shoping trip, told me how neat he thought it was that my dad let me ride in a cab, and generally kept me entertained until I got home.  I paid him, accepted my change, and raced inside to tell my dad.  When I handed dad the change though, he asked, "Did you handle the tip ok this time?"

Tip?  What tip?  The answer was clearly obvious without me speaking a word.  Dad raced out the door and down the street.  Apparently the cabbie was going slow, had taken his time before pulling away, or something because Dad managed to catch up with him and leave him a tip.  I bet that guy had a fun time telling that story when he got back to the station.  (Or whatever you call a congregation of taxi-cabs.)

Being the daughter of an appliance repairman has its advantages.  First, your appliances always work.  Your uncles know how to get you to visit, they  just unplug their washers, say it doesn't work, and you get a nice visit, probably with some good music, and Aunt Marilyn's Devil's Food cookies.  You also get some of the world's best temporary playhouses.  Dryer and washer boxes make marvelous mansions complete with hand sawed (with a kitchen knife of course) windows and doors. 

However, the best use of those boxes was always... the camper.  Yep.  I had a lot of "Okie Campers" as a kid.  Dad would bring home a box, cut side doors (that could be opened or closed at my whim) on the sides, leave one end closed and the other open (to scramble out) and then line it with blankets and sleeping bags.  I had  books, snacks, and a flashlight. I sat in the back of that truck in my "camper" on trips to  Arizona or the desert so many times I can't count them. 

Back in that camper, I was alone in my own little world.  I sang.  I sang every song my dad sang and every song we sang at church.  I read.  I waved at children in cars as they drove past.  I made up stories in my mind.  I always knew someday I'd be a writer.  I was determined.  Sometimes I did hand games with string like cat's cradle and Jacob's ladder.  I had a Rubiks Cube and a long triangular thing that made a puzzle too.  I had  Merlin.  I loved playing with my Merlin.

Those campers were brilliant.  Much better than the "real deal".  I mean, think about it.  They were free, they didn't require maintenance, they were disposable, and no one ever thought to "Break into" a cardboard box.  Occasionally, we had to settle for a dryer box  but they weren't as nice.  They were too short and my feet got cold sometimes.

It was a wonderful life.

Dad loves the desert.  Where most people see barren wastelands and blistered creation, Dad finds beauty and solace.  I do believe that he loved living at Furnace Creek/Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley better than any other place that he has ever lived. 

The Sonoran desert of Arizona is vastly different from California's Mojave Desert.  The simple presence of cati and trees alone show the change.  Wandering around our desert here in Ridgecrest, you'll find creasote, sage, cholla, and similar low shrubby plants with an occasional Joshua and in the lower deserts, Yucca tree.  However, in Arizona we had those plants, barrel cactus, occatillo, manzinita trees and a million other plants.  The Sononoran desert doesn't feel as flat with saguaro cacti and the other taller plants breaking up the landscape.

I confess, I prefer the area around Apache Junction more than ours here in California.  I don't miss the tales of tarantula migration but I do miss wandering through the desert plucking the needles of the barrel cactus, a sense of safety in knowing there was water inside if I ever got lost.

On any given Saturday morning, Dad and  I might climb into the van and drive to the base of the Superstition Mountains after a quick detour at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and glazed donut holes.  I drank milk.  Once there, we'd climb from the van, dad with his books and booklets, me with no goal in mind but to see what was there to see.

Dad spent hours wandering the area looking for the famous, "Lost Dutchman Mine".  I never knew exactly what his facination was with it.  If he enjoyed the romance of the tales, if he found the hunt exhillarating, or if he just wanted an excuse to wander the Arizona desert and "graze" as a friend once called it.  Yes, dad loved to graze on the millions of edible plants in the desert. 

Sometimes, we'd be gone for hours, others we'd just wander around for a while until he got his "Desert fix".  We never found anything with the Lost Dutchman Mine.  For all I know, it is nothing more than a dream of someone's from long ago.  I do know that I'm very glad the legend was there.  Some of my best memories are mixed with milk mustaches, donut holes, and climbing the base of the Superstition Mountains in search of dreams and creating those memories in the process.

I know I learned many lessons on those trips.  Sometimes I know what the lessons were or when they were taught.  I don't on this.  I can't remember.  I just know that anytime I was with Dad somewhere, especially when we had no where to "be" or "go", it was a classroom for me.  Dad was the schoolmaster of my life and spent hours instructing me in everything you can imagine.  From those hours I learned things like why we have never had a "revolutionary war" or a "civil war".  I heard the stories of Geronimo and of when he was a boy and ate a watermelon for an after school snack.

At home, we probably ate liver and fried onions for dinner with bacon strips on top and spinach on the side.  Sometimes we played Yachtzee but others I'd take Earl and we'd go for a walk across the desert from our house while I told him stories of Dad's childhood and the Lost Dutchman mine.

My fourth grade picture (why do I always remember it as my third?) is not one of my more attractive school pictures.  I wore the dress I got for Christmas the year before.  Red dress with flowers, buttoned up the front with pleats on each side and a pointed collar.  Knee high socks.  Blue bar barrettes that never stayed right in my hair.  This was part of the problem.

The other part of the problem was that they sent us all out to recess just before pictures and didnt' give us a chance to brush our hair or wipe the dirt from our noses.  Fortunately my nose was clean.  My hair wasn't so fortunate.  My barrettes hang all askew in that picture doing little to keep my hair from my face.  It's not a fond memory for me.  However, thanks to it, I have another fun memory of Dad.

The following year (and many times after) on "Picture Day", Dad waited until I'd climbed from the van and then said, "Chautona?"

Have you ever noticed that there is something about a dad's voice that stops kids in their tracks?  The voice doesn't have to sound upset, angry, or even interested.  Just the deep voice speaking is enough to stop em in their tracks as though he were E. F. Hutton.  Anyway, I digress.

I looked at him expectantly.  He smiled and sang with that silly grin that he showed occasionally. 

"Are your ears on straight?

Is your nose in place?

Have you got a cute expression on your face?

Are your eyes so bright?

Do you look alright?

To get pictures taken today?"

That's all he said.  I didn't even remember the reference to the Gayla Peevey song, Ears On Straight, at the time.  But I remembered at break time to take a book outside.  I loved it.  An excuse to read a book at recess instead of the incessant banging of the foursquare ball.  I loved foursquare but sometimes I just wanted to read.

"... I can hardly wait..."

When I was twelve, my mom went to visit her family in Missouri.  I believe this was when Grandma Fullerton died.  While she helped out around grandpa's house, Dad went to work each morning and I went to school.  We cooked our own meals, piled laundry up sky high, and I don't know if Dad did any cleaning or laundry or if mom came home to double the work.  I had no concept of the amount of work that went into keeping our home running smoothly at that age.  Mom just did it, and did it with ease.

I've always assumed, however, that we got low on groceries, or dad didn't feel like cooking.  Maybe it was just that he missed mom as much as I did and wanted an escape too.  Whatever his reason, Dad did what he did best.  He created a memory for me- one of my favorites.  We changed clothes and jumped into the truck.  Chevy S-10 pick up.  Blue.  I don' know why that is relevant but I remember it.  I also, for some bizarre reason, remember my clothes.  I wore my khaki Sasson skirt and my blue and tan plaid blouse.  Oh, and my most comfortable Bass shoes. 

He drove us to Santa Barbara.  I'll never forget eating at J.K. Frimples in fine view of the tree that grew up through the middle of the restaurant.  I don't remember what we ate but it was delicious.  We left the restaurant and it was dark.  Why we did it, I never knew but instead of getting back in the truck, we walked.  Up and down State Street and nearby sreets we looked in windows.  Dad pointed out different ensembles.  Red business suits ala Nancy Reagan and midnight blue evening gowns.  Opal Jewelry.  The stores sold outfits for more than we paid for rent on our Ventura condominium not far from the ocean.  The significance of the difference between the thirty dollar outfit that I wore (including my Bass Shoes!) and the dresses of nearly one thousand dollars didn't register back then.  It was just a lot of money to my way of thinking.

Dad said something that night that I've never forgotten.  I don't know if he was serious, musing, or possibly teasing me, but he explained a theory that he had on the best skirt style for different women.  He suggested that we look at flowers for inspiration.  If we have a "thick torso" we should look at flowers with thicker stems, turn them upside down, and create skirts for us that are similar.in size and shape.  I've tried that, by the way.  It didn't work for me.

Dad.  Santa Barbara.  Salt air.  J. K. Frimples.  Excellent Food.  Beautiful Dresses.  Flowers.  Lessons with Dad.  Sliver of heaven on earth.