Father's Day

My sister, Courtenay, sent an email out to all of us with a short blurb about dad, which then started a flurry of emails back and forth referring to things dad would always say. I thought that was fun and they sure brought back a lot of memories. Carden had the idea to post the list on his blog, so I'm doing the same thing with a little editing :) I put who submitted what after each quote, but they were heard by all of us! (Sometimes more than we wanted!)

So here is a compilation (thus far) of "Dad's Greatest Hits ": (in no particular order)

1. "What do the prophets (or scriptures) say?" (Court)

2. "Did Mom say it was okay?" (Sarah)

3. "Wanna play the hitting game???" (Seth)

4. "Have you prayed about it?" (Carden)

5. "How much sugar have you been eating?" (Sean) in response to health ?'s

6. "Are you taking your Vit A (or E, or Cod Liver Oil etc)" (Court)

7. "Was that kind?" (Sarah)

8. "Have you seen your mom's purse?" - at least twice a day. (Sarah)

9. "You know, you've always been my favorite." (Sarah)

10. "Have you googled it?" (Gabe)

11. "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." (Gabe)

12. "If it is not yours don't touch!"(followed by a swift whack on the fingers)(Gabe)

13. "If you ask, you don't get." (Gabe)

14. "You mean you didn't just call to chat?" (Gabe)

15. After picking me up from the police station at 3 am after 2 friends and I got arrested: "At least you could apologize for waking me up!" (Luke)

16. "Have you read (insert book)?"

17. "Don't give up baseline." (B-ball ref?) (Seth)

18. "Donna* said you forgot to clean the boys bathroom this week." (Sarah) ("You" being a reference to Beth, Jp, Maren, Luke, Bens, Carden and Gabe. Kenzie is not included because she never had to do any work.

*Donna was Dad's office manager and would report on the shoddy cleaning job done
over the weekend by Dad's lazy kids)

Note 1: Both Beth and Carden have since claimed that this was not said to them. (Yeah, right! Wink wink! ) Carden wrote, "Don't you DARE put me in that group. I never got even 1 complaint. Thanks."

Note 2: Gabe writes, "I wasn't on the bad office cleaner list either,
hahaha, thats a good one...Carden showed me how you could get it done in 15 minutes flat!" Very interesting bit of information Gabe! Makes me doubt Note 1.

Note 3: Even though Seth wasn't on the "accused" list, he still put in
his two cents. "That’s right you slackers-Donna never said that when I cleaned the office!"

SO this narrows the mystery of the sloppy cleaners down to JP, Maren,Luke and Bens.

19. "Follow your shot." (Seth)

20. Or the crowd favorite, "Quit reaching in!" (Johnny)

21. "Get your hands up!" - yelled very loudly from stands during b-ball games. I was thinking, "My arms are tired and I don't really care if I get the ball!"(Sarah)

22. How Mom and Dad would get us to play tennis with a bribe saying that if we beat them they would take us to Hawaii. (Johnny)

Note: To date, nobody has beat them!
Note from Seth: Well, I never won a trip to Hawaii playing tennis, but I sure liked it when Dad would take me to the club to play tennis at night,and then after he’d take me to Dairy Queen for a Blackberry Shake. Which reminds me of how much I looked forward to going to Priesthood Session of General Conference because it was big-boy time with Dad, and after we went to Arby’s and Prince Puckler's Ice Cream. Only 10 more years till I can start the same traditions with my own sons.

23. How he would bribe us to run the Butte to Butte by offering a new pair of running shoes if we trained and ran with him.

Note: No fair Luke, he never offered new running shoes to me! (I guess some children needed more motivation than others)

24. "That was a bad call ref!" (every b-ball event)

25. "Quit reaching in!" (again, said with booming voice from crowd!)
Or after the crowd had died down a bit, "That was a bad call ref!" (Johnny)

26. "Beth, get your fingers out of the food." haha - even when I obviously am NOT Beth, he always references her when ya get your fingers in the whipped cream, tater-tot caserole etc. (Carden)

27. Whenever we would get in little fights with siblings and get caught by Mom and Dad and in trouble, when we would try to make excuses dad would always cut us off with, "BE NICE!" (Luke)


"..but Carden threw a rock/knife/ax (fill in the blank) at me fir..."

"BE NICE"

".....but he started it..."

"BE NICE!"

28. Coaching little kids basketball games, in his hoarse voice, "Shoot it! Shoot the Ball!!!" so that his team would at least get a shotoff before turning it over. (Luke)

29. "Hi Dad, guess what?" Dad: Ummm…(and then he’d proceed to guess about 15 things before you could interrupt and say, “No Dad, don’t guess, just listen…”(Seth)

30. One more memory of father: as most of you experienced, paper routes in Oregon had some pretty rainy mornings. One morning in particular, it was just flooding. I was really dreading going on my bike. I folded the papers in the family room slowly, waiting for the rain to stop, or let up a bit, but it just kept pouring. I set off on Anderson Lane, and by the time I got to the first porch, I was drenched, and my papers were too. I sat under the roof sheeves and was just miserable. I didn't know how I was going to do it. Well, as I started down driveway, Dad pulled up in the car. That was huge to me...we were many, but he made us all feel special. (Luke)

31. He always knows how to make you think about it more or from another viewpoint. "Well, why not?" Answers our questions with a question. (Beth)

32. Like Luke's paper route story, I remember him running the whole Butte to Butte with me the first time even though he could have gone faster to compete with Bruce Jolley. (Johnny)

33. "You need to listen to your mother" (McKenzie)

34. For all my mean brothers that I had, dad would always say "Kenzie all you have to say is, sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Aww thanks dad, hahaha!!! (McKenzie)

35. "Your mom is usually right." (Sarah)

36. Another favorite memory for those of us who can relate to the "sweet tooth." How about when dad would let us go trick or treating and then we got home he would say "Ok, I will give you 5 bucks for all your candy..." Hmmm what to do what to do!(McKenzie)

Happy Father's Day from your posterity.