Dad Said it Best
Age-Old Truths for Modern Times
By Estelle Rodis-Brown
Periodically, I find myself rustling through old paperwork to find something in particular… but something unexpected pops up; an old greeting card, a forgotten photo or some other memento. These relics return me to specific moments in time long forgotten; they remind me of who I was back then.
Just last night, I stumbled across a couple yellowed pages of notebook paper scrawled with my handwriting. I started reading my thoughts from 18 years ago. Back then, everything was different. The kids were in middle school and high school, so I spent my time juggling between my work at the county literacy coalition and driving the kids to various sports and extracurricular activities. My husband took a stint in facility management. Dad and my brother were still among the living.
As I read, it struck me that I could have been reading a “Dad Said it Best” blog from mere weeks ago… the setpoints of my mind have remained fairly fixed over the years, despite all the changes that have come with time.
Here are my thoughts on paper from 2003:
What runs through your mind when it has nothing urgent to attend to? Once all the clamor of your day’s to-do list clears from your consciousness… what takes up the ‘blank space’ in your mind?
I’m not talking about the commercial jingle or pop tune you can’t shake; not even the floating daydream of the moment. What common themes keep coming back to you, day after day or every night as you settle for sleep? It could be a flashback from the pages of your favorite children’s book or a scene from a certain movie; maybe a memorable phrase from a classic novel.
For me, it’s words of wisdom repeated by my father, over and over, from the time I was a toddler. When my mind slows down from the urgencies of the day, my father’s phrases trickle back in, as if from a flooded reservoir. One by one, they pop into my head, like blinking neon signs that have become the roadmap to my decision-making in life: “Better look before you leap.” “Haste makes waste.” “A job not done to your best ability is not a job worth doing.” “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched…”
There are hundreds of one-liners my dad has tossed out to his children (and anyone else within earshot) over the years. At times, I have thought he must be impaired by terrible memory loss because he repeats the same lines and morality tales so frequently, but with the fresh delivery of someone telling his story for the very first time.
Looking back now, I realize this was all part of his master plan: to instill a solid moral foundation in each of his five children so that, no matter how hard we might try to tune him out, his words of wisdom would haunt our minds at every waking moment!
Thirty-eight years later, his words are ringing even louder in my ears than when I was the youngest member of the Rodis household. Especially when I find myself wavering in the balance of indecision, Dad’s guidance glows brighter in the embers of my mind. His collection of moral maxims may not be “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” but they have proven to stand the test of time in my life.
Now I’m 55, the kids all live out of state as young adults, my husband and I work different jobs, and we’re all navigating a COVID reality we failed to envision in years past. And yet, as I read my thoughts from nearly 20 years ago, it’s as if time has folded in on itself. The anchors of my mind are still set by the words of my father. Dad said it best.
