the daddy essays: my dad is cooler than your dad.

My parents were never the super-involved type. They came to PTO Open House and ballgames and things like that, but I never had the kind of parent who came to the school on my birthday and brought the whole class cupcakes and soft drinks. Classmates knew those parents by name and by sight, and the kids who had those parents automatically became well-liked, no matter how bad at Red Rover the kid was.

Kids like it when their parents come to their school. They like to show their school and their parents off to each other. And it’s important that the parent be met with approval. You didn’t want to be the kid with the fat mom or the dad who wore white shoes after Labor Day. Your dad could be wearing a white pantsuit in the dead of winter, but if he brought cupcakes for the whole class while he wore it, he came out looking like a hero.

My parents never did the cupcake thing. And I maybe I resented it a little. Maybe I envied the kids with parents like that as I ate those store-bought cupcakes with the waxy icing, especially with my birthday being so close to Halloween, when I figured the themed cupcake decoration possibilities were unlimited.

But one day, in the fall of my third grade year, Daddy came to school. He did not bring cupcakes. He did not bring two liter soft drinks. He brought an apple press and a bushel of apples.

My whole class spent the afternoon outside working the press and avoiding the bees. We stood in line to throw apples in and watch them get crushed and juiced. Then we drank the cider we made and all agreed that it tasted great, even though it had those weird apple pieces floating around in it.

And the Lenoir NewsTopic even came out and there was a picture in the paper of my daddy and my classmates pressing apples. The caption read something about Louis bringing his apple press to his daughter Sandra’s third grade class. That never happened for those silly cupcake kids, no matter how many cupcakes with themed decorations their moms brought.

Kids in my third grade class remembered that day years later, though I bet they’d be hard pressed to remember a single cupcake party unless it was their own birthday. And though my third grade popularity didn’t necessarily carry over all those years, everyone at least thought my dad was cool.