Happy Father's Day, Darkwing!

To the Daddy who:  

lost me at the South Carolina State Fair when I was five years old (the weatherman found me and I ended up on tv...such a good story),  sat me on his shoulders whenever my legs were too tired to walk anymore, sent me to pre-school with my dresses on inside out - or backwards - or both, hoisted a petrified four-year-old me up onto the roof of our house when he threw the frisbee just a little too hard, sat me down when I was 10 to tell me "what boys really want", explained to me after our "what boys really want" conversation that he was 6'3'' and could kick all of their 10-year-old asses, pretended that we didn't hurt him when my little sister and I went a little too far during one of our regular games of "Wrestle", always made our favorite meal on Friday nights as an end-of-the-week celebration, made me wake up at 7 AM with a list of chores that he wanted done by noon (I swear if he let me sleep in til 10, I still would have gotten them finished by noon), listened to me tell him about my high school boyfriend problems and offered me the best advice he could give ("Babe, you're prettier than him, and they're all idiots, every last one of 'em.  Trust me on this."), took us out of school to play hooky from Sr. John Catherine's Sixth Grade class so that we could go horseback riding together at the local waterfalls, let me drive the golf cart whenever he went golfing, was always good for a secret stash of Root Beer flavored Jelly Belly's, visited every single weekend when we lived a state away during my Freshman year of high school, called me every day, twice a day, once my mom, sisters, and I moved to LA, was always there for me, without fail, to love and guide (and annoy the heck out of) me whenever I needed him.  

My dad's and my first picture together.

Happy Father's Day, Darkwing!