My daughter was mad at me for attending her graduation because I’m a biker — with a long beard, tattoos, leather vest and all. She didn’t like me much after she entered high school, because her father was not like the others — he was not a lawyer, a doctor, a businessman. Just an old motorcyclist who spent forty years with grease under his nails.
Parked my 1982 Harley Shovelhead in the garage, my arthritic hands are still vibrating from the engine howling.
At 68 years old, most men my age would have already traded in their motorcycles for comfortable sedans, but I’d rather die than give up my last bond to freedom. “Ok, I’ll call you later… Dad’s here,” I overheard my 18-year-old daughter Megan say before hanging off the phone.
I caught her switching TV channels avoiding eye contact. I knew what this was about — her graduation ceremony was in two days, and she was hoping I wouldn’t bring it up.
“Hey there, darling!
Look what I bought for you,” I said, trying to look cheerful despite deep fatigue after yet another demanding day in the workshop that was still mine. Megan looked quickly then turned her eyes back. I knew that look.
She was ashamed of me — my wrinkled face, the tattoos covering my arms that told stories of Vietnam and fraternity, my gray beard that I refused to cut like ‘respectable’ fathers to her friends.
I respected her space and put the packages on the coffee table. “Hope you like it, baby!”
As soon as I walked out of the room I heard her unwrapping the presents.
Spent my savings on a nice graduation dress for her and a new suit for me. After all these years of working overtime to keep her in private school, I wouldn’t have missed her graduation for the world.
“Thanks for the dress, Dad… but who’s the suit for?” she asked from the other room.
“It’s for me, baby! I must look nice… it’s your graduation, after all!”
The silence that followed was deafening. And then came her voice, cold as steel in January.
“Dad, I don’t want you to come.
All my friends and their parents will be there. I don’t want them to laugh at me when they see you, okay?”
I came out of the bathroom with a towel in my hand, convinced I heard it wrong.
“What did you say?”
“Dad, my friends’ parents are all respectable businessmen. They wear suits to work, not leather vests with patches.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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