Just Dad's PP challenge

Just Dad

5-Year Member
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Sep 14, 2015
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Welcome to the Just Dad Challenge. The challenge is found below, but first some background.

Feb 2016 I flew back to USNA to spend a 3day weekend with DD. We spent two nights in DC and then back to The Yard on Monday. Over a quick dinner before she reported back Monday evening I mentioned that DD and I would not see each other for 7months. She looked doubtful so I counted down the 7 month between Feb and third block leave in August. DD’s face fell; she looked like I’d just made up this longest separation since her birth at that moment, like it hadn’t occurred to her at all.


“Dad can we please get together tomorrow? I can’t leave the Yard but if you can come and wait in the Mid Store at around 11AM, I will find a way that we can be together for awhile: OK?” I said sure, my plane didn’t leave until 5:30.


So at 11 am I am in the Mid Store looking for my 17thUSNA tee shirt (large and a nice soft cotton-rayon blend with a logo high on the chest to distract from slowly sagging pecks). The Mid Store is pretty quite during classes on a Tuesday in February. I might have been the only shopper there at the time.


I am minding my own business looking at shirts, thinking about how sad my DD looked the night before, and about not seeing her face for 7 months after we say goodbye that day. Then whoever was in control at the MidStore decides to put on their favorite country station. I am not a big Country Fan, in fact don’t listen to music much. I'm pretty verbal, and find music distracting. I can’t help but follow the words of a song (it’s never just background for me). So in this quite Mid Store this song I’ve never heard before comes over the sound system. ‘I Am My Fathers Daughter’ by Jewel.


In addition to not being a big music fan, I am not an experienced crier, (if I am tearing up over anything, I find a reason to leave the room). In this case Jewel KICKED MY EMOTIONAL ASS in the Chorus “I am the accumulation of dreams of generations and their stories live in me like holy water”. Now there’s a “cry line for a Proud Dad about to leave his DD at the USNA. By the second chorus my chest is heaving and I can’t stop it. I sit down in a chair tears streaming with my head down pretending to look at my phone getting control of my self. Like Plebe Summer, this song couldn’t go on forever. It ends and I stand up to look around the mid store some more. And Song #2 booms through the Store.


“Slow Down” by a singer I don’t know. Kind of a slow burn tune that I would normally label a “girls song” not for me (sorry). But I’d walked in weak, and I’d just taken a hit below the emotional waterline from Jewel. “Slow Down” just refused to end! My wife can't get through without crying, and that’s sitting at home, not at USNA waiting to part with DD for the longest separation we’d ever experienced. By the time this second punch to the gut is over, I am sitting down again, the constrictions of my chest outside of my control so I am working to hide them, head down agian pretending to look at my cell phone but with my sunglasses on this time.--------and----------the phone rings

“Dad, I am over at the library come on over we can spend about 45 mins in the coffee shop”. CAaRAP!!!(not the word I used). I get up resolved to gain control of my self on the walk between the mid store and the library. I do pretty well until I see DD standing alone in front of the Library in her blacks smiling when she sees me walking toward her;----BOOM I lose it again. I can talk to her normally but tears are just rolling down my face. I tell DD to head inside and I will be along in a minute. I sit down… again outside of the library. I was able to lock it down after a few minutes and walk into the library, but I’m sure I looked a little odd sitting there indoors talking to DD with my sunglasses on.

Actually, I think my struggle made saying goodbye that day easier for DD. She was laughing over how mortified I was that I couldn’t stop the tears, and how pissed I was at whoever tuned the MidStore sound system to their favorite country station.

That’s my ONE crying episode at USNA. Maybe “you had to be there”; maybe you have a similar story.

The Just Dad Challenge is addressed to Mid parents and interested parties over the age of 40. If you aren’t 40 yet, screw you; and the diaper you walked in wearing! Just listen to both songs and see if you “squirt a few” links are provided here (I hope)



I’m not gonna lie……………….. the idea of plebe Moms –n- Dads looking for Hankies pleases me. Hell, if I could, I’d arrange for these two songs to be played loudly on a loop at the Mid Store on Iday and PPW, (makes me smile thinking about it).

Of course the other message to plebe parents is that parts of this USNA stuff are hard on Moms Dads. Most of us have been there, and we are pulling for you now. Separation from a loved one is painful, but it gets better/easier. You might even come to miss writing old-fashioned plebe summer letters to each other like DD and I do. And, its so worth it when you see what they morph into at the USNA, knowing you did your part to help em earn the best start possible for their adult lives.

I hope I didn’t bore you with this. looking back it makes me chuckel, I can't sleep so I'm having some fun.

Mods feel free to move this to the parent board if it fits better there I just figured PPs are hanging here.
 
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I can’t listen to these right now. My husband and I are just getting our emotions in check after I day. We have company until tomorrow and I don’t want them to come back from their walk and wonder what happened while they were out! So we will listen tomorrow after company leaves and have ourselves a good old fashioned sob session I’m sure! Thanks for sharing!
 
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@Just Dad .... Thank you for sharing your personal experience. It's a very nice tribute to the emotional bond between Dads and Daughters everywhere .... Some memorable father daughter titles (a little farther back in album rack) ... Holly Dunn's "Daddy's Hands" and Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely".

I really like Loudon Wainwright III's (Iconic story teller and musician) cover of "Daughter".
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Please change the thread title - I have no interest in Dad's PP challenge!!!!

Awesome!

Sadly, I can't edit it. If I could I'd remove the 2AM spelling errors too. That said it is 'Just Dad', and my------- mind------ never went there.
 
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Please change the thread title - I have no interest in Dad's PP challenge!!!!

Awesome!

Sadly, I can't edit it. If I could I'd remove the 2AM spelling errors too. That said it is 'Just Dad', and my------- mind never went there.
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The unintended Pun past through me as well.
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I think it's cute now .... I would Let It Be.
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I am a huge country music fan but was surprised I had never heard either song. Both beautiful. This is why I love country music - real stories about real people, with a lot of soul. You should have mentioned the collaboration with living legend Dolly Parton!

thanks for your story.
 
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