Demolition Dad

I always thought I could draw, but it wasn’t until I got older that I found out that looking at a picture and recreating it did not make you an artist; it made you a thief.

My father is an artist. If you ever met him for the first time, he’d tell you he’s a cheese maker, a warehouse manager, or even a bull shitter, but, who my father really is is an artist.

Jenny and I would sprawl ourselves over the hood of another $100 junker, the size of a row boat, that my father had picked up from someone who got sick of repairing that car. It was perfect for the demolition derby that was held every year at the Fond du Lac Fair.

We’d watch him paint the car with familiar faces—cartoons, always cartoons—Goofy, Mickey, Donald, the classics. He’d sketch using pencil, then tuck the #2 behind his ear and outline the characters in black Magic Marker, working intently as if Picasso was peering over his shoulder. Jenny and I would have to move an arm here, a leg there as the marker got closer and closer to us. We couldn’t get close enough to “this” Dad.

Then came the color—reds, blues, and of course yellows since that what stood out from the stands. Color gave Goofy a soul, especially when Dad colored the pupils in black against the white. Nothing seemed more alive than when given eyes.

Dad always had the best dressed car in the pit. It was always a shame when after the run we couldn’t even tell that Goofy had ever been there—the hood crushed so far in that his body became accordion-like. Hours of creating gone in just minutes.

My “real” Dad can be seen through what he makes with his hands: demolition cars, ice shanties, tree stands, sand boxes, swing sets, hitches for Ford Focuses. . . . Some people may say, “that ain’t art.” And, I would tell them, you have never seen an artist at work then. It is not the product; it is the process—that feeling of what will happen next.