Parenting Blog

My Dad And Me And The Wheelbarrow

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Dickies® wants us dads to get out there and have a catch with our kids. I’m happy to be partnering with them to tell this fun story and to convince every proud papa to get out in the yard this summer and toss a ball around with their daughters and sons.

My dad isn’t like most dads — he didn’t teach me how to fix things, he taught me how to write checks to those who do.

Once, when I was 8 or maybe 10, we two worked tirelessly in the garage building a wheelbarrow. It took us 4x longer than what it would’ve taken a single normal human and when we were done with the royal blue hunk of metal, we discovered we’d built it backward. I didn’t know there was a backward install option, but we’d found it. It would be decades before I’d assemble anything more tedious than a menu. This story of my dad and me and the wheelbarrow is probably my favorite funny memory from my childhood. Goes to show that fond (and funny) memories can come from the most innocuous moments, like playing catch with your kid on a warm summer evening…for example.

More recently, the love of my life, the woman who, by law (I think), is supposed to know me better than anyone, bought me an extremely complicated basketball hoop and backboard for Christmas — unassembled. I gave it my best effort but once again, after several hours and the net no closer to being upright, I’d found that I’d started to build it backward. Full disclosure: I am also the world’s worst 50/50 player. Maybe I should’ve called my dad for help. And by that I mean, to borrow a few bucks to pay someone competent to do the job right.

While he didn’t bequeath me a single handyman skill, my dad did instill in me a strong, pure and enduring love of baseball. He coached my little league team for years, and still tells the story of that blistering line drive I instinctively snagged while manning the hot corner. I remember that sweltering afternoon like it was yesterday and I get very warm and fuzzy, even after 30 odd years, when my dad talks about how fast I reacted and how proud he was to see and hear that ball smack into my brown leather glove. I may never have that exact kind of athletic accomplishment yarn to spin as a dad myself, but that doesn’t stop my littlest girl and I from spending a balmy mid-spring morning in our yard playing soft toss. A parent having a proper catch with their kiddo remains one of life’s simplest pleasures — forever and always.

When my new Phillies baseball exercise shirt is in the wash (which it usually is, because I tend to wear it running every morning) I slip on my new moisture-wicking-away, Dickies® performance system shirt, which I still find pretty hilarious because Dickies® has always been synonymous with rugged work gear in my mind and, well, if you read the first two paragraphs of this story you’d know that ‘work gear’ and ‘rugged’ aren’t adjectives that would likely describe the apparel in my closet. I can’t be the only one who didn’t have a clue about …right?

The shirt is terrific, with a snug neckline I demand, and is silky smooth comfortable. The Performance Short Sleeve Cooling Tee allows me to sweat gracefully while swatting gnats and dodging errant throws from my goofy 8-year-old daughter. I reckon that will make a rad father’s day gift for any kind of dad, from the ones who CAN build a wheelbarrow and a basketball hoop to the ones who are more comfortable playing catch in the yard…while trained professionals handle the things that need constructing. 😉

This summer, consider submitting a favorite photo or sharing a memory of playing catch with your Dad or child for a chance to win a Catch with the Kids Sweeps grand prize pack including a Dickies® Short Sleeve Cooling Tee as well as cash and merchandise signed by Toronto Blue Jays pitcher R.A. Dickey by using the hashtag #DickiesCatch.

Hey, speaking of R.A. Dickey…

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Dickies®.

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