My Last Summer of Fun in the Park by Norma Ibironke

            We didn’t have a television in our Detroit, Michigan, home; neither did we own a family car. Every other Sunday, during the summertime, my father, whom we called Daddy, and my Mother called Charlie, walked me and my four sisters to Sunday school class. Usually whenever my younger sister said, “Daddy, I’m tired of walking,” he would immediately pick her up and carry her. This summer she was 4 and I was 5 until school started in September, when I would turn six. My heart raced as we approached Roosevelt Park on the way home from church. This was my favorite reason for going to church every other Sunday. This is where I felt secure because our Daddy was there.

After turning the corner of Michigan Avenue and 17th Street, my sisters and I would walk that short block as fast as we could. We never got too far ahead of Daddy, though. He was a tall, World War II Army¹ veteran and had served overseas with the 15^th Air Force for 21 months in Italy and on Titian² in the South Pacific. He had long legs that helped him walk and run fast. When our short legs managed to get us close enough to the opening of the fenced in park, we would all stop, as if on cue, and wait for Daddy’s instructions. When we heard him say, “Okay let’s go inside and play,” my sisters and I would run to our favorite play equipment. I grabbed the two parallel bars on each side of the ladder and quickly ascended the 15 steps Daddy taught me to count. When I reached the top of the ladder, still holding on, I made sure my dress was underneath me before I sat down. I would then hold on to the sides of that giant grey metal slide to give myself a huge push off downward. I felt the brisk wind in my face until I reached the bottom. I was always smiling, happy, and I’d jump off the end, run around to the ladder and climb up again and again. I had forgotten the first time I experienced climbing to the top of that ladder. It seemed like it took forever to count to fifteen, and I felt like I had left my stomach on the bottom stair of that tall ladder. I didn’t have the same confidence I had when I first sat down with my Daddy and learned to count to ten. Today, I was having more fun than I could ever remember!

The swings swung high towards the sky. Daddy always made sure everyone had a chance to ride the see saw alone and together. He was always on the other end. We felt the highest part while he felt the lowest. His feet stayed on the ground while our feet seemed to never touch it.  Oftentimes, while up there, we could see the trains arriving at the train station. That moment made it more exciting. I would climb up and down on the monkey bars and sometimes swing around them until I was dizzy or one of my sisters started the game of tag³. She would surprisingly touch one of us and shout, “Tag, you’re it!” We chased each other throughout the park until we heard our Daddy say, “Okay, girls, it’s time to go home.” It was always sooner than we wanted.

As we walked under the dark viaduct,⁴ since Daddy was with us, I enjoyed thinking about arriving home to that irresistible smell of the succulent Sunday dinner Mother had prepared. The sensitive nerves in my nose detected it from the sidewalk, along with my sisters’ and Daddy’s. We all would say “Ummmmm, smells delicious!” My oldest sister entered first and everyone else followed. Daddy was always the last to enter. My sisters and I headed for the bathroom to wait our turn to wash our hands. Each person had a job to perform in setting the table at mealtime. We each did our job until we got old enough to move to the next important job. The two oldest girls put the (breakable) plates and glasses on the table. The youngest always placed the napkins, and the remaining sister and I followed by placing the silverware in the appropriate place.

Little did I know that the summer of 1955 would be my last summer of fun in the park with Daddy and four of my five sisters. In January, Daddy and Mother went out for a night together to the Fox Theatre to see Nat King Cole⁵ perform. They returned home after his show, got ready for bed, and said “Goodnight” to each other. My mother later told us she did not know that the last breath she heard him take that night was his last breath of his life.

 

Daddy taught me many things by allowing me to watch him. I remember learning how to apply shoe polish on my leather shoes, then brush and buff them to what I called, “a shiny shine.” There are many other favorite thoughts and interactions that I enjoy remembering about my Daddy. Mother told me Daddy taught our youngest sister how to walk over the summer of 1955. He left each of us, with a special gift, a memory, or an individual experience that we will never forget. The gift he gave me was teaching me to read. When he first started to teach me, he instructed me, “Dump, always get this before you start reading.” This was a huge book. It was neither 14 inches tall nor wide, but it was thick and heavy. It was always placed on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. When I read a book, I had to sit on the floor and almost drag it off the bottom shelf onto the floor. It was too heavy for me to lift onto the table. I sat there for hours, reading and looking up words in this family dictionary. He told me, “Dump, when you look up the meaning of a word that you don’t understand and the meaning has a word you don’t understand, keep looking up the words until you understand what you have read.”

By following my father’s advice and guidance, I have been able to read books with stories that have taken me to places, due to his early death, he was not able to take me, I have not physically travelled to and never knew existed. Throughout life, I have learned about the trials and tribulations, good times and unfortunate circumstances of others and understood the personalities of numerous characters through reading.    

 

Footnotes

 1 The Battle of Tinian was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Tinian in the Mariana Islands from 24 July 1944 to 1 August 1944. For 9 months, beginning in December 1944, Tinian was the largest and busiest airbase in the world  

 

2 Fifteenth Air Force was established on 1 November 1943 as part of the United States Army Air Forces in the World War II Mediterranean Theater of Operations as a strategic air force and commenced combat operations the day after it was formed. The Fifteenth was de-activated in Italy 15 September 1945.

 

3 A childhood game where once touched or tagged, you are IT and you begin quickly chasing the person closest to you. The first person you can catch up with and touch, you declare it by saying, “Tag, You’re It!” Then, they take your place at being “IT” and run to chase someone to tag.

 

4 A railway bridge with arched spans and consists of a series of short masonry or concrete arched spans supported on towers.

 

5 Nat King Cole became the first African-American performer to host a variety TV series in 1956. He's best known for his soft baritone voice and started his career as a jazz pianist.