Every year as we approach May, I find myself feeling a little melancholy because my Daddy died 
during the Springtime twenty years ago. I have been, for far too long, working on a book about my Dad. I will be posting some excerpts from the book over the next couple weeks. Daddy told us just before he died that he hoped we would smile and laugh whenever we thought about him. These are a few true stories about the crazy mountain man I grew up with. I hope they make you smile and laugh.
…….Around the same time it became a matter of regular conversation with my dad that we needed a Jacuzzi. My brother and I liked this idea. We imagined having our friends up and coming back from our snow adventures to soak in the hot tub and sip hot coco. We would be cool, and we were not sure, but we thought we might like to be cool.
It was not long after that my daddy began digging in the front yard. When asked why, he told us that this was where the Jacuzzi was going to go. Wonderful! We were really going to have a Jacuzzi, I was very excited. However, as I watched my father dig I realized that he was not digging out a square as I had imagined he would. I thought he would dig out a shallow flat area to place the tub. Yet he was digging out a circle. He cut a large hole in the middle of the circle that was a good two feet deep. Then he dug a trench out to the edge of the circle that was about two feet wide. I remember looking at this hole in the front yard and feeling positive that whatever this was, it was not going to make me cool.
Then came the day that my daddy drove up to the house with a large round horse trough on the back of his truck. Now, dad drove up with all sorts of weird things on the back of his truck. We had rows and piles of weird things all around the house. The odd non-running vehicle. The basket ball hoop with no net and neatly laid on its side. The random pile of stove pipes beside the miscellaneous collection of broken tiles. A well drilling machine, a large white tool box, an unused satellite dish the size of a small country and then another satellite of equal size for good measure. Also a large pile of scrap wood, a large pile of scrap concrete and lastly a large pile of scrap cinder blocks. But the horse trough was of particular interest because for one, we no longer had any horses and for two, it was brand new. Brand new things rarely crossed the property line at the Hamby house. Nobody wore new clothes, nobody sat on new chairs, nobody drove new cars and neither we nor the pets ate from new dishes. So, what was the horse trough for?
My dad was wearing his crooked smile as he backed the truck up to the hole he had dug and promptly pushed the trough off the back of the truck and over the hole. My daddy had a certain look that he got whenever he was full of mischief. It was the look a child has when they know they should be in trouble but have just gotten away with something. I was a sucker for this look that my dad had. He always seemed happiest when he was on the verge of ‘getting away with it’. This was the look he had the day he built his ‘Jacuzzi’. While half my heart groaned with the loss of the cool hot tub of my dreams, the other half of my heart grinned for my dad. My daddy was good at being poor. An installed, lit up, multi jet, chemically balanced Jacuzzi would never have pleased my dad as well as his hand made tub.
My dad’s Jacuzzi was ‘designed’ on a very simple premise. Find a big pot, add water, add heat – enjoy! He simply used the trench that he cut under the trough to reach into the two foot hole and build a fire underneath the container. He added water, and it was ready!
And so it was, that most nights after work, before he even came into the house my dad lit the fire underneath his ‘Jacuzzi’ to get it heated for his later enjoyment. My dad would head out to his tub after dinner and while the rest of the family watched TV he would sit and relax alone. Often he would shout at us from outside telling us that we should join him. For the first couple weeks there were no takers. He would come inside all red and blotchy and wrapped in an old faded towel grinning. “Boy, that’s nice. You guys should try it.”
I began to feel bad for my dad sitting all alone in the dark in a horse trough every night. He was so happy with his invention that I felt I should make an effort to be excited about it too. So, one night I put on my black one piece bathing suit, grabbed a towel and some slippers and shuffled out to the tub where my daddy was already relaxing. He saw me coming and I could tell he was delighted. I liked to make my dad happy, even if it meant sitting in the front yard of our lopsided cabin in a giant metal tub of hot water with my crazy father over an open fire.
I came to the ‘Jacuzzi’ and started to get in. My dad put his hand up in gesture for me to wait and then began a speech that I like to call “Daddy’s Jacuzzi Safety Protocol”.
“Before you get in my Jacuzzi,” he said “you have to first remember that where the metal is thinnest it is also hottest so do not touch the thin sides of the tub. Grab onto the lip of the tub where it is thick so that you don’t get your hand burned.” He then began pointing to different 
sections of the tub as he spoke. “Do not put your hand here, here, here, here, or anywhere over here or right here. Also that whole left side over there has gotten too hot so just stay clear of that area.” I thought he was done and started to move forward, though with hesitation and regret for coming out, but then he continued, “Also, do not put your feet on the bottom or your feet will get burned.”
I stared at my dad. Some of the light from the house cast a glow on his face and it made his eyes glisten. Looking back now I wonder if his eyes shone because he was just happy, or if because even he realized in that moment just how fabulously crazy he was.
“Well dad how do I get in without putting my feet on the bottom?” I asked bewildered by all the instructions.
“You just sort of slide in and kick your feet to keep them up.” He told me in all seriousness.
I was getting put out as I often did at the age of sixteen. “Dad! How am I suppose to get back out if I can’t put my feet on the bottom!?”
“You just have to stay in until the fire dies down and it cools off a bit. The fire is just too big right now, that’s the only problem. Once it cools down you will be able to get back out”.
I did not get in the Jacuzzi that night. In fact I never got in it. I do not like to be burned. After awhile the novelty of his hot tub wore off as the water became littered with leaves, dust and algae. I do not remember what daddy did with the horse trough, but eventually it was moved. It was not until after my dad died and we were cleaning up around the house that we re-discovered an actual six man Jacuzzi sitting beneath a blue tarp beside one of the satellite dishes out back.
I think the dream of being cool might have been possible with this shinny unused hot tub. I could imagine the jets blowing their violent bubbles, while our coco sat in the built in cup holders. I could imagine pulling back the lid releasing steam and the smell of chlorine and Jacuzzi chemicals as my friends ooed and awed. I could see my girlfriends gossiping away as we slid into the teal and white swirls of the built in tub seats. This Jacuzzi was cool. As cool as anything can be when you are sixteen.
Now as a thirty something year old; is there anything cooler than living life completely true to 
yourself? Life did not own my dad, he owned his life. He bent it to do what he willed and he lived full because of it. He did not waste his precious short life thinking about how something looked or how it ‘should’ be done. Daddy just lived and as outrageous as it may have been, he was smart. He just wanted a place to sit and soak in hot water while he looked up at the stars, so he built it and enjoyed it. It is a gift to know what one wants in order to be satisfied, it takes a brave soul to reach out and claim it……
More excerpts to come! Don’t forget to sign up for this blog at the bottom of the page if you want to be alerted when a new one arrives. No spam, it’s just me here 🙂
G.R.
Geri Rene 