Pop

I call my dad Pop. My brother does too. When I think about the word “pop,” it suits him perfectly. This is how.

I was thirteen. You popped an idea at me.

“Do you want to go to a father-daughter dance with me?”

“Do I have to dress up?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“I guess so.”

I wore a gray knee-length dress, a white blouse that buttoned halfway up my neck, tan nylon stockings and little black flats. That was a big deal for me in my 1980s world.

We had a wonderful time. You showed me how to slow dance. I remember thinking I'd rather be wearing my pigtails and Oshkosh overalls, but I looked at the corsage on my wrist and thought it was pretty neat that I looked pretty by my pop's side.

“So, did you have fun tonight?” you asked me on the way home.

“Pop, it was a bit too fancy-fancy for me.”

I did come home and put my overalls on after all. With a sigh of relief. But, Pop, I got to be with you that night. I felt like a lady, and I think I started wearing more dresses after that. Because I wanted to. So, thanks for popping the fancy-fancy into my life, and I’m glad you were the one to have done so.

Pop, remember how you popped into my bedroom, popped into my cassette player the soundtrack to the movie Footloose and started dancing around my room, your feet popping and tapping on my floor, the whole house rattlin’ and rollin’? And me. Sitting on my bed in my sixteen-year-old slump, grumpy, trying to understand how I fit into the world, confused and humorless. But you kept dancing, popping and beebopping about, singing, and flailing your arms and having a grand time while your teenage daughter pouted and rolled her eyes and slumped a little more in the shoulders, maybe in shock, maybe totally impressed deep down yet clueless about how to admit that.

At the time, I was drowning in my own pit of adolescent moodiness, and you knew you could pop in and strut your stuff, and you probably knew you wouldn’t get the ideal reaction where I’d pop off the bed and join you in the footloose and fancy-free festival, but you did it anyway. You knew me well enough to know that that moment would be with me forever, inspiring the goofy, spontaneous side of me that emulated you in my own “dance footloose style smack dab in the middle of a lesson” moments in my classroom of 7th grade students and with my teenage stepchildren. I now laugh the laugh that was buried inside my sixteen-year-old self. The trickle effect of your footloose pop-in is no doubt a storytelling wildfire at dinner tables and in teenage bedrooms across the globe today. Thanks to you.

I didn’t say a word when you popped in to dance and sing that day. You didn’t either, as I recall. You danced and sang and when the song ended, you pulled the cassette from the player and left the room, even closing the door behind you so quietly, which now I interpret as a great signature of respect for the space I was in. You entered uninvited and exited uninvited, but the invitation you self-prescribed, entering and exiting my space, has been the greatest gift you’ve given me. A father who knows his daughter to the core knows how and when he can be in a shared space that will ignite perpetual and eternal pop-ins, all from love. All from love.

I do wish now I'd popped out of my slump to dance with you. Three years prior you'd taught me how to slow dance. Well by golly, we're due a mutual footloose showdown next time we see each other, okay? We've got this, Pop!

You have been a poppin’ pop-in Pop on many occasions. You only footloosed it that one time ('til we next meet, of course), but there were other times you popped into my room to give me a 20-second lesson about morals and values, whatever epiphany-blossoming insight you knew aligned with my at-the-time funk. Mom would come in with a 20-minute lecture approach, and I’d say, “Can you just send Pop in? He knows how to get through to me in less than 20 seconds.” Nothing against Mom. Her lectures were necessary at times (very necessary!), but the way your wisdom popped into my whole being worked. Pops of epiphanies and self-awareness, like fireworks celebrating me fitting into the world in my special ways. I can tell because at the time, even in my funkiness, I knew you understood me, and now, I can look back and know how very deeply you understood me because I understand myself so well right in this moment, and in all the moments that have led up to me writing this.

I remember how you popped into every one of my high school volleyball and softball games. You didn’t miss one. Thank you, Pop.

You popped over and surprised me on my doorstep this past May to celebrate your 75th and my 50th. I love imagining you and mom planning the whole pop-in process. Book flights, find a place to stay within walking distance, let Jess’ husband know so they’re sure to be home when we pop in. I had no idea. Good job popping in, Pop!

I think of this too - the ideas that pop into my head when you email me current event articles or book titles you think I’ll like. I love that you don’t try to pop certain ideas into my head, like “You must know this THIS way, so that …”, but rather you offer me the content and let my own understandings, impressions and innovations pop into my own head (and heart and spirit too). You pop stuff over my way so I can dance and sing my own footloose and fancy-free way.

Oh, I just remembered the "pop"corn bucket I made you in my high school woodshop class. I painted POPCORN on it. You always ate popcorn at night after dinner and I thought you needed a special bucket. It was the size of a basketball, and it'd sit on your lap as you popped every last kernel of popcorn into your mouth. I can remember the sound of you whisp-clapping your hands together - to rid of the salt, I assume. That whisp-clapping, that's when I knew you were done. And then you'd pop open a can of Diet Coke soda pop. Lots of pop going on there!

I remember you tapping into your pop culture groove, singing Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy." And you created your own spinoff "wewax and don't wo-wee" as a stress management mantra I could use when I went off to college. We still refer to that, don't we! And it works.

I remember the pop of thunder and lightning the year we rode our bikes on the causeway way out into Lake Champlain in Vermont. It was one of our annual rides. 24 miles. We were on our way back, and dark looming clouds barged in and we pedaled hard as the storm chased us, POP, POP, POP! I tucked into your draft and we indeed out-popped the storm. Your Pop-ness out-popped the storm's pop!

And I remember you popped a dynamic prank on my brother and me one day. Totally out of nowhere. I was fifteen.

“Hey guys, today’s your lucky day. You can trade your mother and me in for new parents.”

“What do you mean?” I asked with a titled noggin, crooked grin and raised brow, the kind teenagers give you when they think they know everything and you know nothing.

“Well, you can only do it today. You can trade us in for good. Your new parents may have new rules, perhaps ones you’ll like better than ours. Perhaps you’ll have more freedom, but maybe not.”

And I think you gave some other convincing examples that landed us right back in the hallway to debrief an hour later after having had time to contemplate the possibility.

“No, Pop, we’ll keep you guys.”

It’s funny how easy it was to believe you. I don’t think it was your poker face, but more my subconscious at play in this way: My parents have all these rules I don’t appreciate, but deep down I think I really do, because rules and structure are a sign of love. At least that feels right for me. No boundaries for an impulsive personality like me would equate to more groundings, and that would equate to more Footloose pop-ins perhaps. Which wouldn’t be so bad, but still embarrassing. Imagine if the world knew my father popped into my room all Kevin Bacon like that? I’d die. Hmmm. Ok, I’ll keep ya.

And here I am telling the world that my pop danced all Kevin Bacon like that as a gesture of love, despite my bratty daggers of "leave me alone." And I haven't died. I am glad I kept my parents, and I am glad I fell for that prank, because I think I shaped up my behavior and showed more appreciation for them after that. And now I am inviting my pop to dance to Footloose. Tickets are available. $100 a pop. Popcorn and soda pop included.

I love you, Pop!

I submitted this for the Dads Are No Joke Challenge. Thanks for reading, and for considering a clicked heart, comment, Pledge and Tip if you so choose. See more of my writing and info about me here: Jessica Amber Barnum