My Daddy

Three years ago today is the day my Father passed away...... Instead of being sad and posting about how much I miss him and how much life he is missing out on I am going to post a few of his classic "Don" stories....anyone who knew my dad knows that he could tell a story like no other.....he had this way of making everyone in the room crack up.....

The first story is a true Don classic, when my mom and dad were very first married my mom never wanted to have bad breath around my dad so she always chewed gum and she would even chew it when they went to bed, well one night in the middle of the night my dad woke my mom up moaning and telling her "Julie, I think I'm having a heart attack!", my mom asked him why he thought that and he told her that he couldn't lift up his arm and that that was a sign of a heart attack....well my mom quickly turned on the light and looked at his arm and she started dying laughing.....her big wad of gum had fallen out of her mouth and ended up in his armpit hair and that was the reason that he couldn't lift his arm....not a heart attack!! I think he told that at pretty much every family gathering and it never got old!

Another one is also when they were very first married and had very little money and certainly not enough for a vehicle, my dad would ride his bicycle to and from work everyday. He was the manager at a Burger King at the time and every night my mom would sit on the porch with me in her lap and wait for my dad to return home from work. My dad's bike had a light on the front of it to help him light up the street when he travelled at night. This particular night my mom saw my dad's bike light coming towards the house and then all of the sudden she didn't see it anymore well about five minutes went by and just as she was starting to get worried here comes my dad limping up to the house, his pants were ripped and his elbow was bleeding....he had hit a pothole and flipped off of his bike. The best part of the story is when my dad would tell everyone that my mom didn't even ask him if he was okay because she was laughing so hard!

When I left for college I would call home regurlarly and one night my dad called and he told me that I wasn't gonna believe what had happened to him that day. He told me that earlier in the day he had asked my brother Tim to go to Walgreens to pick up a prescription for my mom and he, being a teenager, told him that he didn't feel like it so my dad ended up going. He went to the back of the store and picked up the medicine and then went up front to pay....as he was walking up to the front of the store a woman who was wearing a big ribbon tied in a bow.....and nothing else.......came running through the aisles of Walgreens. The staff proceeded to chase her out and threatened to call the cops....they later found out that she was just pulling a prank.....but my dad just couldn't believe what he had just seen....when he was describing her to me he said, " she wasn't skanky or nothing!" I couldn't quit laughing and then in the background I hear my mom yelling, "if I hear you talk about that naked girl one more time!!!" I think that that naked woman was definitely the highlight of my dad's day :) Later that day he told my brother, "see, you should've went to Walgreens for me!"

Things like that would only happen to my dad. He was just a mess.

The last story I was actually present for and it makes me laugh everytime I think about it.

One day my dad came in the house and told us that someone had ran over a stray cat right in front of our driveway. Well, for days he called animal control to see if they would come and pick it up and no one ever came and pretty soon the cat had started to become pretty bloated so my dad decided that he would go out and take care of it himself. My mom and I just watched from the garage as he ventured out into the front yard to do whatever he thought he was going to do with this dead feline. He put on big rubber gloves and got a rake and proceeded to try and pick the cat up with the rake. My mom and I are laughing at him because he can't quite get the dead cat to stay on the rake. My mom tells him to just pick it up and quit being such a weanie. So, he puts the rake down and picks the cat up by its tail. Right when he gets the cat up by the trash can the tail of the cat falls off and the cat deflates like a balloon and the smell was so rancid that my dad started gagging and dry heaving and then that sets my mom off and she starts gagging as well! This again would only happen to Don Padgett!!!

These stories will give you a giggle I'm sure but nothing like the gut wrenching side holding laughter that would come from someone when my Dad told these stories. After my dad passed away I wrote a letter to his "family" at the Arlington and asked them to remember him as the funny, great man and mentor that he was and that is how I am going to remember him today as well. I love ya daddy and today I'm smiling for you.