Holler at you, Dad.
- Katie Bianchini
- Dec 4, 2018
- 5 min read
A few hours before I’d race at the State track meet one year, my dad called.
“Holla atcha boy,” I said (my standard phone answer at the time because I was really cool and only the hippest lingo would do).
Dad and I proceeded to have one of our typical conversations in which we discuss the day whilst I intermix quotes from Max Keeble’s Big Move or Big Fat Liar (the classics) and make him guess the movie.
It goes like this:
He can’t remember either title, so he guesses a bunch of other movies which he’s fairly confident it’s not, but not confident enough not to guess them at all.
“Well it’s not School of Rock...” he says as more of a question than a statement, and then waits for me to confirm that it is indeed not School of Rock.
"And it’s not that one with Michael Scott as the spy where they jump out of the plane and he yells, ‘Easter Island, 99,’” and then I say, “why would two hardened KAOS agents risk THE CARBS,” confirming it is not that either.
The tumultuous guessing continues: I don several accents to make the quote clearer and Dad cackles up a storm each time. It’s one of those bursts of laughter that boosts your self-confidence to level 9000.
At long last, I say, “it rhymes with Shmax Shmeeble’s Shmig Shmove.” (*See note at bottom of post)
After that, Dad wishes me a good race—"alrighty, go get em”—and we hang up. He’ll be there later anyway, standing behind the fence at the finish line, clapping and fist pumping.
“Who was THAT?” a teammate asks me, confusion in her voice.
“My dad.”
“You can HOLLER at your DAD?!” she replies, incredulous.
Yes, yes I can. Just one of the many reasons I am lucky to have Dave Bianchini as my dad.
When I was little, I remember riding around in the truck with Dad all the time. He taught me how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide sitting on that fluffy licorice-red interior.
Once a year, I remember waking up “early, early,” peeling myself out of bed, (strapping on a stylish matching sweat suit), and loading up for Yakima. We’d pick up Nana and drive over for “You Pick” season; Dad would let me climb the ladders to snag the peaches and pears way at the top of the trees.
It’s a little-known fact that my dad served as a horse-race-announcer for several years. On the weekends after we all ate his homemade blueberry muffins, pancakes, or waffles, the garage transformed into our very own Emerald Downs. I’d saddle up Cheyenne the Bouncy Horse and Dad would introduce the competitors, making up jockey and horse titles based on the names of my elementary school teachers.
“It’s Mank’s Monsters coming around the first turn!!!” he’d shout through his fist-microphone. “But watch out, Vigor’s Vampires won’t give up. Just when you think Mank’s got it, it’s GOHEGAN’S GORILLAS coming up on the outside.”
I’d just about break Cheyenne’s springs trying to outdo “The Gorillas” and finally dad would exclaim, “BUT YET AGAIN, Mank’s Monsters pull out the win!”
The fiercest competitor himself—though he’ll make it seem like he’s as chill as Ron Swanson renovating the top floor of the city council building—Dad taught me to play hard in all arenas. Basketball, softball, a “jog” around the Two-Mile Loop, Scattergories, Guess Who, Mario Party 2, or a wrestling match in the family room—much to Mom’s chagrin—he’d never let me or my brother, Chris, win.
I remember the first time I bested him in HORSE: I felt like I'd shot a game-winning half-court-buzzer-beater in March Madness. “Never been beaten at this by a middle schooler,” he said, stomping his foot and snapping his fingers like a foiled Scooby Doo villain. “…’Til now.”
Of course, he only feigned anger; I’ve never actually seen him lose his temper.
Dad holds the uncontested record for the fastest First-Floor-of-the-House mile, sock-sliding through 103 laps of the kitchen, family room, dining room, and living room in a blazing 15:31.
One time, when Chris claimed that he could tell the difference between Quaker Cinnamon Life cereal and the “nasty-ass Cinnamon Live It Up Fred Meyer brand,” which sells for $1.25 less per box, Dad secretly conducted a test of Chris’s “exquisite” culinary judgment.
As soon as Chris finished the last of the Life, Dad retained the box and routinely purchased store-brand Live It Up over the next few months. At home, he'd sneak the store-brand cereal into the “real” Life box week after week, smirking to himself all the while like Dwight Schrute after he conned Andy into selling him the Xterra. And as you might've guessed, Chris did not notice, though he claimed he did...
*Insert Dad dabbing on Chris. We don’t call ‘em #DabbinDave for nothin’.
On top of that, Dad NEVER takes a bad photo.
“Probably the best picture I’ve ever taken,” he mutters after every single camera snap, casually combing his never-out-of-place hair “back into place” and breaking into a Bad-Luck-Brian-esque cheesy grin.
Though he coached my youth basketball teams, I never had the opportunity to observe him as a coach until recently. We’re coaching a 5th grade girls’ team together, and goodness, he captivates our players with “just-right” explanations of free throws, lay-ups, and athletic position.
He knows when to gently joke with the player who has feet for hands, bouncing the ball off her toes more times than the floor. But he also knows how to kindly instruct and correct the more adept players, too.
Dad’s top talent: packing lunches. Allow me to explain.
He packed lunches for Chris and me throughout our school years, K-12, and for mom on every day of substitute teaching. Sandwiches with the most homemade strawberry jam and peanut butter all the way out to the edge of the bread, Go Gurt, a sliced apple, pretzels or crackers, a cheese stick, and two delicious chocolate chip cookies…all the goods.
While I loved reaping the benefits of Dad’s fabulous lunch-packing, it’s not his preparing of food for my family that I admire most.
Dad didn’t just pack lunches for us. He’d hear about our friends at school or on our teams who didn’t have a parent packing lunches for them, and then send an extra one along with us.
“Do you think So-and-So likes turkey or PB & J better?” he’d ask, hoping not only to send food, but food they’d love.
When he saw the person face-to-face later, he’d ask about them—How is school? What are their plans for next year? How is their sport? What’s new?—as if they were his own kid.
As a principal, though he can’t pack lunches for every kid at his school every day, I know he extends that same heart of care and compassion to each student. (However, on a regular basis he does come home with receipts from Subway for Such-and-So-Student who “really needed it” that day.)
When I’ve visited his school, students run up to him excitedly:
“Mr. B! Mr. B! Come see this classroom we decorated for Christmas!”
Or “Mr. B!!! Are you coming to our basketball game tomorrow?”
*”Knucks” and high fives all around
Or years after they’ve graduated from middle school, a past-student will approach us at the grocery store, a smile spreading across their face, and they’ll say, “Mr. B! HOW ARE YA?!”
And Dad remembers their name.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t know my middle school principal well enough to say hello in the school hallways, let alone to enthusiastically approach her in public years later!
But Dad knows all the kids at his school—like really knows them. And the ones from 10 years ago…and the ones from 10 years before that.
That’s probably one of the reasons he was named Vice Principal of the Year of Washington in 2008, but he’d never tell you that himself 😉
So, holler at you, Daddio.
Happy 54th Birthday!!!
*Note: Chris originated the quote, "Schmax Schmeeble's Shmig Shmove." It is ony after he began hinting Dad in that manner that I did.
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