The Blue Ball

Tiffany and I have an agreement about the dinner chores in our home - when one cooks, the other washes dishes. I'm not a bad cook. In fact, I do fairly well in the kitchen. The problem is I can only focus on one thing at a time, so if I were to make dinner, we'd have to eat each course as it was cooked or else it would all be cold. Or burnt. So, our arrangement has always been Tiff cooks and I do dishes.

Anyway...All that just to say, I realized a few days ago that a night washing dishes never passes that I don't think of my dad. I knew I was thinking of him, but I never realized that I did it every night. Actually, it's when I'm done washing the dishes and it's time to wring the water out of the rag.

My family had a cottage in Townshend, WI. For the most part, that's where our vacations were spent. The nearest beach was Bass Lake, located somewhere in the middle of the triangle formed by the towns of Lakewood, White Lake, and Mountain. We had an old squishy blue foam ball, kind of like a nerf ball but without the coated shell, that we took to the beach. The ball, so light because it was just foam, couldn't really be used for much. We played with it anyway. It soaked up so much that when you threw it it was like throwing a handful of water. If it was dry, it went nowhere. If it was wet, you just sprayed water when you threw it.

My dad was a carpenter until about the time I was born. His hands were strong. When we would go swimming at Bass Lake, he used to tell me to wring all the water out of the blue ball. I would twist the ball until I thought my fingers would snap. Proud of myself, I'd hand the ball to him. Somehow, though, he always managed to twist a few drops out of the ball that I had not been strong enough to extract. It never failed. I never could wring the blue ball dry.

Now, every night, when I finish washing dishes, I twist the dishrag 'til it just won't let out another drop. I'm sure, though, that my dad could squeeze out a bit more.

It's funny. After all these years, I finally realized why I do it.