Reasons Why My Dad is My Hero (A Random Sampling).

·      He was the dad who would get to work insanely early so that he’d be home in time to sit down to dinner as a family.

·      He was good-naturedly on a first-name basis with the principals of our various elementary schools; I think we all innocently told our friends and our classes that our dad? He makes drugs and sells them.  He’s a pharmaceutical biologist.

·      One of his drugs was very successful, and there was a point in time when I’d see commercials for it on TV and would say, nostalgically, “that drug put me through law school.”  Except people got the wrong idea, and started thinking that I wouldn’t have made it through law school if I hadn’t have been taking that drug.  Wrong impression entirely.

·      In the summertime, he’d take time after dinner to play catch with my sisters and me, and he taught us all to ride our bikes.

·      He built each of our dolls a wooden trunk, with special compartments for dresses and shoes and other doll-sized accessories.·       

·      He let us put barrettes in his hair to play beauty salon.  And he once answered the door like that when mom wasn’t home, and didn’t get mad or anything.

·      He bookmarked the heck out of a book called “how to father a successful daughter.”  I also caught him reading “Strong fathers, strong daughters.”  Needless to say, he took his job seriously.

·      His love for our family is the closest parallel to God’s love that I can imagine.

·      He taught me how to drive—and never told my mom about the time when, in a parking lot, I confused the brake for the accelerator, and charged the van up onto the sidewalk and nearly slammed into a jewelry store.

·      When I had my heart broken in college when I told my then-boyfriend that I wasn’t ready to sleep with him, dad sent me the sweetest, most heart-felt hand-written note.  I still have it.

·      He makes the best cosmo ever.  And he e-mails me when he comes up with new twists or variations.

·      He sends me the most hilarious YouTube videos at work, and attaches the funniest commentary.  I don’t know how he finds them, but they totally make my day when they come.

·      He dotes on my mom to such a degree that I’m constantly torn between making barf noises and going off to sulk that I’ll never, ever find a love that good.

·      He never lets me forget that, no mater how far away I go or how old I get, he’s still my dad, and I’m still his little girl.  And that’s just the way I like it.