Paper towels, napkins and advice from my dad

It’s not uncommon at the Parker house for Debbie to find paper towels or napkins in our Speed Queen after washing my shirts and pants.

I’m not the best about cleaning out my clothes, and sometimes paper towels or napkins in my pockets find the spin cycle in our washer.

I’m like my dad. He never went anywhere without a pocketful of paper towels or napkins.

“Son,” he’d say, “You never know when you might need a paper towel.”

He said they came in handy when using the public restroom and there are no paper towels, only a hand dryer.

The paper towel served two purposes. One to dry his hands and the other to open the restroom door when he was done with his business.

And on Sunday mornings my dad would wrap a paper towel around his billfold. He worked in a factory during the week and didn’t want any oils in his billfold to get on his new suit, so he always wrapped it up in a towel.

I’m trying to do better about cleaning out my pockets.

Some of the best advice he gave me was to slow down and chew my food. We used to eat at a restaurant near Broken Arrow southeast of Tulsa called Bob’s Fish-n-Fowl.

It was an all-you-could eat place that has long-since closed.

My dad would collect pop cans at work throughout the year, and at Christmastime he’d cash them in and take the family and a friend or two for a Christmas meal at Bob’s.

He always told me to walk past the salad and bread and get to the meat.

“They fill you up with salad and bread and there’s no room for any chicken or fish,” he’d say.

He could eat three or four catfish fillets and a couple pieces of chicken, washing them down with a pot of Black coffee.

Eating at Bob’s was greasy and good, and my dad loved eating there and visiting with Bob.

I can’t say I’ve always adhered to his advice, as I like a good salad with my meal.

My dad always enjoyed spending an afternoon with his longtime friends, Sonny and Ova Smith, in the river bottoms. The Smiths lived in my dad’s neck of the woods where he grew up as a boy.

He went to a one-room schoolhouse a half-mile from the Smith’s place. I have a great photo of Dad with Ova just a few weeks before he passed in July 2010.

Ova could cook a feast fit for a king. My dad would eat a little, get up and go outside and walk around and then go back and eat some more.

He loved Ova’s cooking and also visiting with the many old-time folks he grew up around in the river bottoms.

On occasion, I would take my dad to the river bottoms to visit.

He’d direct me where to go. We’d step inside and I would find a comfy chair where I would quickly fall into a deep sleep.

He would visit for an hour or so, and then it would be time to go. He’d wrestle me from my slumber and off we’d go to the next place.

My dad loved antique shopping. He didn’t care too much for antique malls. He liked stopping at the roadside antique stores where he could visit and find a good deal.

He had quite a collection of old saws and some tools, and I now have a bunch of them. Someday I’m going to hang them in my garage.

I also have an old tube radio that my dad brought home from work. Amazingly, it still works. It is both an AM and FM radio.

I’ve thought about entering it in the Iowa State Fair Heritage (Antique) Division. There’s not a class for old radios or cameras at the state fair, unless it’s multiple units.

My dad worked for nearly 40 years for Gaso Pump, Inc. in west Tulsa. The company specialized in building oil pumps that moved crude oil through pipelines after it was out of the wells.

These were huge pumps.

“Screwdriver” was one of the characters my dad worked with back in the day. Screwdriver repaired old tube televisions on the side in a converted garage. Every so often we’d stop and see Screwdriver.

One day when we were in his shop, I asked him a question about televisions, and Screwdriver thought I said something about his television tubes.

He proceeded to show me every one of his tubes and tell me all about them. There must have been a hundred tubes.

I have so many good memories of time spent with my dad going to steam shows, fishing, cooking out, camping and visiting.

He and my mom taught me so much and gave me a good foundation to build my life on, and I will always be grateful for all they did to make life the best they could.

Have a great week, and always remember that “Good Things are Happening” every day.