Even at 41, I have had several occassions lately where I say, "I am Mike Driver's daughter." When I hear myself proclaiming this, it is a positive thing. My dad has an untarnished reputation. He has a good name. He keeps his promises and his word is as binding as a signed contract. I am proud to claim my relationship to him and with confidence and privelage I say, "Mike Driver? That's my Daddy."
We have a history together.
I have lived a life watching a human man, that has imperfections, model hard work, helping others no matter the cost, generosity, enjoying life, playing hard, learning new things, being consistent and doing what he says he will do.
There are many memories I have of my dad. Some of those memories are not exactly fun memories, either. Getting a spanking with his belt in Sears at the washer and dryer section is the reason I hate the color burgundy. That was the color of his polyester nineteen seventy something pair of pants. I remember. It's probably why I dislike Sears, too. And I just knew I would never recover in popularity my Junior year after he told me what time I had to be home after the prom.
I also remember completely severing communication with my dad for many months too long shortly after turning 30. I felt justified and wronged and wounded. I wanted an explanation and understanding and information that my dad could not give. I held it against him. That is a very bad memory. A memory I wish I could hit a rewind or undo button.
A few simple and profound memories are precious to me and will be seared in my mind forever. They touch me for a variety of reasons, but never the less, they touched me, and left an indelible imprint on my life.
The gift he gave me for graduation was so special. Gucci was quite popular in 1987 and all my friends had a purse with those famous 5 letters...except me. I guess my dad figured that out. He drove to the mall, out of town, and purchased his only daughter this much important teenager status symbol. It seemed rather a small thing, but it was quite large in my opinion.
In high school, both my parent's worked and we were not poor by any stretch of the imagination. However, because of another selfless, giving action of my dad, we were in a tight financial pattern. So, paying a ridiculous amount for a purse that would get stolen 6 months later, was just that, ridiculous, yet extravagant and endearing to me.
It was but a few years earlier that we had no financial woes. My mom stayed at home and my dad had an excellent job making very good money. The cost to his family wasn't even time away from him, he ate dinner with me and mom almost every single night of my growing up years. The cost was moving from place to place, sometimes every few months, sometimes every few years. As I was actively becoming a brace faced, pimple prone, typical teen...moving that often was wreaking havoc in my life.
When we moved to Texas...it reached a crisis that would have to be dealt with. I was no longer coping and I was outwardly rebelling against constant change in my life and I wanted some control and familiar.
Against logical and rational thinking, my dad quit his job of over 20 years and moved us back to the only "hometown" I really knew...Okeechobee. We had lived there the longest. I started 1st grade there and I stayed at the same school until 6th, when we started moving again. My grandparents lived there, and we had visited them almost every weekend for years when I was 4 and 5. Okeechobee felt like home to me.
When I got back to Okeechobee and started the local High School, I felt like Dorothy after she clicked her ruby red slippers and her feet touched the glorious Kansas soil. The humidity, palmetto bushes and smell of, yes, cow poop, felt like home to me.
The only job my dad could find initially was at a hardware store named Scotty's, drawing minimum wage. My mom had to go back to work and we bought a 2 bedroom house for the first time in my life. The financial picture was a lot different. It was a sacrifice and way of life our family had not lived for a very long time.
I don't think my dad realizes how desperately I needed him to make that decision, but he did, and I am ever grateful. It is one of the ways I KNOW he loves me.
As I explained, with a different income level, college was not something my parent's could finance. So, I had to get a job after high school and save, if I wanted to go. And this is where another memory will be permantly etched on my heart.
For those of you that don't know me...I am not a morning person, especially was not at 18! I also would rather drive on 70 heading to the beach than to an Orange grove. The summer following my Senior year was supposed to be for sleeping late, going to the beach and spending time with my friends before our lives changed forever in the fall.
Instead...
I spent the summer with my dad.
He would wake me up at 5 a.m.
I had to be in the truck before 6 a.m.
And even though we were headed to Ft. Pierce, via 70, we stopped before my eyes could catch a glimpse of the sand and water, only to see orange trees and drainage canals.
Not exactly my dream summer.
But a secretary was needed, the pay was awesome and I could go to college in the fall with the savings from this job.
Turned out, that those early mornings would somehow form a bond in us that would be priceless.
We didn't talk that much. I don't really talk in the mornings...it's the only time I don't really talk, but I don't. We listened to music. Sometimes it was 95.5, sometimes Country, sometimes Rock, sometimes Gospel, sometimes Bluegrass, sometimes Oldies...I love music and so does my dad. The sun rising, among the fog so many times, was breathtaking. Dodging deer, spotting armadilloes, racoons, alligators and roadkill was a type of "Florida Wildlife I Spy". The rugged ride on that dangerous road with pot holes and "Deadman's Curve" felt like I was on a safari when I opened the door, and climbed into my dad's truck with my diet coke each morning.
There was not much to do once I entered the grove. I wrote letters to friends, kept updated on my journal, made life plans and lists, read 3 books a week and occassionally watched a soap opera when the rabbit ears could grab a signal.
I saved every penny I earned that summer. It was enough to get me out of Okeechobee and into Orlando where I opened a checking account, rented an apartment and enrolled at Valencia Community College. It was the beginning of my new independent life. I was no longer living with my parents. My reality had shifted and the lessons I learned from a job in the middle of an orange grove, carpooling with my dad, would be lessons well learned, lessons that would serve me some 23 years later. Lessons that taught me that I could attach myself to my dad's good name.
Being Mike Driver's daughter landed me that job. Being Mike Driver's daughter gives me an automatic credibility with people that know my dad. It's good to have a dad with a good reputation and a good name. They know me at the gym as Mike's daughter. They know me at the place I get my oil changed as Mike's daughter. My neighbor's know me as Mike's daughter. So, when someone says to me, you're Mike's daughter? I say with a smile, and a nod "That's my Daddy."
