Qualities Of A Special Dad

How can you tell someone how special your dad is when he taught you how to fly?
My dad did just that.
On Shadycroft Avenue in Torrance, California, he taught me how to fly. With a cape around my neck, with my best dress on, he put me on the cinder-block wall and told me to jump while he took my picture, flying to the ground! I could fly! I was 5 years old and it was amazing to me.
He made everything fun. Placing sprinklers in the bushes, my sisters and I ran through the most amazing waterfall in our front yard. He placed sprinklers in the oak trees in the winter and we enjoyed an ice castle when it froze at night. What a beautiful thing to behold!
Dad took us to the beach, Redondo, Manhattan, Long Beach, we enjoyed it immensely.
He always made life fun.
My dad was raised in Alameda, California and was one of four boys. His parents divorced and his mother remarried when he was young. He spent time in a tuberculosis hospital and went into the army before he was old enough to enlist. He liked to play Revelie for us to wake us up and taps to help us settle down to sleep. No, he didn't own a bugle, but performed those pieces with his hands and mouth, sounding more like a bugle than the real thing!
He met my mother while they worked at McDonnell-Douglas. He made airlplane blueprints, she delivered them on roller skates throughout the building. She shot rubber bands into his blueprint machine to get his attention. He apparently was attracted to her because their first date was Valentine's day in 1952 and they married on March 22nd the same year. Love at first sight!
When I was 7 we moved from Southern California to Northern California. Mount Shasta was a great place to grow up. My dad was a teacher, then a principal and then the superintendent of schools. I was the kid who just barely got by. But my dad hung the moon, as they say here in Texas.
He's still my hero. He made my childhood fun. And he's still making me laugh!