The Sword, The Funyuns and The Trophy
I’ve talked about this a little bit before, especially in the context of holidays, but the amount of time my dad and I spent together over the course of my life was kind of V-shaped.
We did a lot together—relatively speaking—when I was just starting elementary school, and then toward high school, we would go years at a time without speaking, before finally talking pretty regularly when I was in my late 20s and early 30s.
Top of the V
In those early years, we did a lot of what I can only describe as adventures—or maybe even shenanigans. Dad owned a commercial garage full of tools, so pretty much every weekend we spent together involved building, dismantling, or working on something in some other way.
There was the weekend where he used an angle grinder and a welding torch to make me a sword out of a metal pipe, with a piece of PVC pipe and a seatbelt for a sheath that would let me wear it on my back.
There was even the weekend where he tried to take me hunting, but we stopped at the gas station for snacks and I insisted on getting Funyuns, which he reminded me well into my 30s was the "loudest, smelliest food in the gas station" and not conducive to hunting.
Justin Beat Dad
But one weekend, we went for a drive. I still have a horrible perception of time, but I feel like we were in the car for a long time. We eventually ended up at a restaurant that had a pool table. I couldn’t have been more than four or five, and we played in the way that a grown-up plays pool with a little kid—for, again, what felt like a really long time.
We got to the end of the game and Dad was congratulating me and telling me how good I did. I can’t remember how he did it or where he had been hiding it, but as he was congratulating me, he pulled out a pool trophy with a plaque that said “Justin beat Dad.”
At some point, Dad must’ve had this trophy made and planned this entire trip around us playing pool so that he could give it to me. Even as a little kid, I remember being so perplexed that the trophy was already there—and already had my name on it and everything.
A little bit of planning on my dad’s part resulted in something that felt like actual magic to a kid.
Bottom of the V
It wasn’t long after that that we moved out of my hometown for the second and final time—and naturally, the trophy got packed and moved with us. I remember moving into our new apartment with my mom and putting it on a shelf in my bedroom.
Once we moved, I think I saw Dad a couple of times at most over the next five years.
And in that special way only a teenager’s brain can, that distance turned to frustration, and anger, and eventually outright rage. I hadn’t spoken to my dad in years, and at that point, I hoped I never would.
And one day, cleaning up my room, my hand wandered to that trophy. My memory of how exactly this happened is a little bit fuzzy. Part of me thinks I may have been hanging out with my friends, but another part of me thinks I may have been with my mom.
The end result is the same, though.
I took that trophy, I smashed it on the ground, and I put the pieces in the trash.
Top of the V, Again
Fast-forward 20 years or so, and Dad and I made nice before he passed away. It’s at this point that the trophy resurfaces in my mind and suddenly becomes a very big deal in a way that it hadn’t been since I was maybe four years old.
For the last couple of years—since Dad died—this trophy has been weighing on me. Audra and I had a conversation a couple of months ago, and I finally admitted that destroying that trophy might be my only regret in my entire life. I’ve definitely done worse, but all of those things feel excusable in a way that the trophy did not.
I thought about this trophy way too much.
When Audra and I had that conversation, she asked me to describe the trophy and pulled up a picture on DuckDuckGo and said, “Like this?”—and she swiped through about a dozen pictures of pool trophies. We found one that looked exactly how I remembered it.
And naturally, she ordered it! It had never occurred to me to buy a replacement—not even once. I didn’t even have a picture of the original.
But now it sits on my desk, right where the original would have.
