Michael D. Davis.

One of the questions I get the most these days is: “What’s your father up to?” The answer is, I don’t know. The man usually leaves at the crack of dawn, and I don’t see him again until he comes home in the evening. Your guess is as good as mine.

The fact is, with The Old One, I think ignorance is probably bliss. The man does things without thinking. I know, we all do, but he takes it to a whole new level. I have talked about it before, but the double entendres are a perfect example of this. A week or so ago, after all that rain, my Father looked down in the basement and said, “She may be old, but she still gets wet.” What? Who phrases water in the basement like that? The other day, I was going to Murph’s to get lunch, and I asked him what he wanted. He said, “I could use a little weiner.” Of course, I had to respond with, “I think ya already got one.” But nevertheless. He doesn’t realize he’s saying these things.

Late fall, early winter, there was nearly an incident. The Old One had this weight bar sans any weight, propped up on a pair of jacks in the side yard. The running theory is that he was using this lone weight bar for some little exercises for his feeble old man muscles. Whatever the case may be, someone took the bar off the jacks and dragged it to the front yard, right behind one of the cars. This happened a couple of different times. Each time, The Old One would return the bar to the jacks, growing ever more aggravated.

There finally came a point where he was fed up. So, like a half-witted Grinch or a mentally ill Fred from Scooby Doo, my Father thought up a plan, and thought it up not that quick. He then came into the living room to inform Ma and me about his predicament, his plan, and our parts in the scheme.

It was my Father’s theory that a child had been moving the weight bar as they walked down the sidewalk past our house on their way home from school. His evidence? The bar was always moved in the afternoon, and he was pretty sure a couple of kids usually walked down the sidewalk after school. It was ironclad.

So, his plan was simple. My Father would back up his old non-descript white van until it was about 10 feet away from the bar on the jacks. He would then get inside the trunk area, crouch, and await the juvenile delinquent to start home from school. My Father wanted me to sit next to him in the back of the unmarked white van with my camera ready. This was so when the child came into the yard to pilfer the weight bar, I could take pictures of them and show the authorities.

To rephrase that last paragraph, my 70-plus-year-old Father wanted me and him to sit in the back of an unmarked white van and await a child to wander into our yard so that I may take pictures of them without their knowledge. You add in the terms free candy and duct tape, and I can hear the jail cell slamming shut.

After he told me and Ma his plan, and after Ma and I were finished laughing, we put the kibosh on his plan. I told my Father that’s how people go to prison or get on a registry. For some reason, the plan seemed perfectly innocent to him.

We eventually came to the solution of putting one of our security cameras over by the bar. The camera caught nothing as The Old One consistently walked in front of it as he went to check to see if the bar had moved. The bar finally moved one last time as my Father moved it from the side yard to I don’t know where.

My point is, I don’t know what my Father is doing. I don’t know what my Father did yesterday. I don’t know what my Father is going to do tomorrow. Yeah, he may be working on a tractor, or mowing, or maybe he’s not even in town. Frankly, and I think you’d agree, I’d rather stay ignorant of his activities. If not for my own sake, then so, I won’t have to perjure myself when I’m called to testify one day.