The Things That Stay 6/21/2026

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

It is always strange to me the things you remember about those people who, in the past played–or still today play–a really big role in your life. Of course, we remember the big things. There is that wonderful gift they gave you for a birthday or holiday or that really important assistance they once offered.  That kind of thing is easy to recall. But it is those strange little details that are indelibly stuck in our minds that are always so interesting to explore.  And on this Father’s day I want to open the books of the Daddies from my own family and run my finger along the lines of some of those less obvious fine points. Perhaps what I write will jog some long lost memory of a father or grandfather from ages ago and that memory will revive some precious moment you thought long obscured with the passage of time.

I shall start, as I suppose I should, with the many small details that always bring my own Daddy to mind.  I have written in the past that wood has always made me think of him as it is his favorite material to work with. I can usually identify with fairly surprising accuracy the species of wood some bit of furniture is made from just because of him. Whenever I was with him and he was around wood, he talked about it like a beloved friend.  While my mom is the one that helped me be able to know what tree is what in a forest, when it is a board or table, my Daddy is the one that taught me the name. And just for the record, not that you asked, we both are very fond of walnut.

One thing about his father that we were just discussing recently is his love of circus peanuts candy. Now if you are unfamiliar, these are peanut shaped, pastel orange chewy confections that I find rather unappealing, but my grandpa loved wholeheartedly. He has been gone for twenty-seven years this March so it is hard for me to remember as much as I would like but those candies always remind me of him. That and the prickly, whiskered face that ate them with such vigor.

Come to think of it, since the way to his house often traveled through fields of peanuts growing, I suppose the ones in the ground as well as the ones made out of sugar bring him to mind.

My mother’s father died when I was only two years old so I daresay most of my memories of him are what I have been told. One recollection about him that I have is very concrete.  I immediately think of overalls when I think of him.  I doubt I remember as a tiny tot him wearing them but apparently most of the photographs I have of him are in him in denim overalls.  So, I suppose it is likely safe to say that whenever the tiniest version of me was around him, that was likely his fashion choice.

Another tidbit I’ve been told by my mother is that he was an expert in “witching for water” when people in his area needed to find a good location to drill a well. Mom said that his method of using dousing rods always worked.  That would have been an interesting investigative conversation to have had.  I’d certainly like to know why my Grandpa was magic, and if it is hereditary.

I shall close with the Daddy that I have spent the most time with over the past decade.  I don’t know if my husband truly knew what he was getting himself into when it came ta Daddy, especially to a little girl.  I remember using the fluttering of eyelashes on my own father and it was very successful. I am not sure my daughter even has to go that far with her own Daddy.  He is a sucker for her, in the best sense of course.  They both love their Daddy-daughter nights when I have to go do other things. She knows he loves royal blue and that he loves being on the water. Every homemade card she makes for him incorporates the things she knows are right up his alley.  

I wonder what she’ll remember when she is grown with children of her own? I wonder what will come to her mind when she thinks of her Daddy? Will it be those days out on the lake?  Will it be them shooting dinosaurs together in the arcades?  Or perhaps it will be very much like myself when, at the ripe old age of forty-five, I think of my Daddy, it is all the little things that flood my mind and give me a warm hug that begins from the inside and thankfully, I am able to finish in his arms. God bless Daddies.  Their loving embraces can last generations.