When a Dad Takes His Daughter Longboarding
- Details
- by Mark Stephens on Tue Aug 30, 2011 - (3) Comments
Photo: Blas Brains (license)
There's a dad and daughter sitting on this patio across from me at the coffee shop. The girl might be 4 years old and has twin braids in her sand-brown hair. Blue shorts, yellow tank top, white velcro strap shoes with rainbows on the sides, and big chocolate-brown heart-melting eyes. She's a genuine cutie. She's eating Barnum's Animal Crackers and drinking iced water, too. Her dad looks young, and he's certainly not cut from a cookie cutter. He's wearing a pair of worn out Vans, faded denim shorts, a similarly faded flat cap and a chrome chain hangs from the wallet in his back pocket. He hasn't shaved in a day or two, and I can just make out two of the letters of a band tattoo around his bicep.
They arrived on a longboard. He was holding her in his arms and she clutched her box of animal crackers, and they just rolled up like that was that. Inside they ordered drinks, Dad offered the girl two or three choices, then came out to the patio. The girl picked a table, climbed into a chair, and Dad pulled out a coloring book for her. Moments later, their drinks were ready and he got up to go back inside. Then he stopped.
"Why don't you come with me? I'll get lost without you," he told her.
"I want to color."
"Please?"
"Oh. Okay," she said.
When they came back outside, she had some sweet looking frappe drink with whipped cream, he was holding a tall coffee. The girl stopped, she held up her treat and asked, "Want some?"
Her dad squatted down to take a tug through the straw. "Mmmm. That's good."
"Yeah!" And she ran back to her seat, picked up a crayon, and kept coloring. Her feet dangled from the chair as she swung them back and forth.
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