The Superpowers of Dads

But I digress...June, 2025

Cooking bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs on a charcoal grill is no easy feat. Yet my dad did it at least once every summer, even well into his seventies. Here you can see how he’d mastered the art of relaxation while managing the sometimes unpredictability of the charcoal-induced flames. If not turned frequently at the beginning of the cooking process, there was a significant risk of charred skin. Which most people don’t like and, more importantly, isn’t good for you.

The marinade was very 1970s: Wishbone Italian salad dressing and Lawry’s Salt with cracked black pepper. Not mixed together, mind you. He poured the salad dressing over the chicken and then shook the spices on top. I’ve followed this recipe since about 1988, when I got my own apartment in Alexandria, VA and splurged on a little grill that I could take outside and fire up in a permitted space.

There is something about this very specific taste that will always keep Dad close in my heart. When I was young and my grandmother came for dinner, we’d all hold our breath as she took her first bite. The thing with grilled chicken is that very fine line between underdone, done perfectly, and overdone and dried out. Charcoal cooking can be risky and, if I’m honest, I think Dad might have missed the mark a couple of times.

He missed the mark in other ways, too, but most importantly, he never stopped trying. That was one of his superpowers.

I tried my best to capture these superpowers in my book. In the very last chapter, I wrote about Father’s Day 2018. Dad was pretty weak and spent much of his day in a hospital bed provided by the hospice organization we’d been working with. Dad and I had a great visit that day, and I tried my best to let him know that he’d done alright by me. I’d just moved out to my new property and was on the cusp of a new chapter of my own life.

I let him know that I owed all my successes—more specifically, my perseverance—to him. From my perspective, a good father provides guidance and then knows when to let go. A good father keeps judgment close to the vest. A good father celebrates his child’s accomplishments and comforts the failures. My dad did all those things, and I know he’d be proud of me now.

As research for my new WIP (Work In Progress), I’ve been reading Pat Conroy, famous author of Beach Music, The Great Santini, Prince of Tides. and others. I was horrified to learn of the extent of his own father’s abuse, which he exposed in many of his books, and revealed in his biography, My Exaggerated Life.

All the things a father shouldn’t be.

It’s hard to believe Dad’s been gone almost seven years. In a little over a week, Crossing Fifty-One will celebrate its second birthday while currently on a virtual book tour! I’m always grateful to find new readers and opportunities to talk about it. And I’m sending. a huge thanks to all of you who have left a review, requested it from your local bookstore or library, or recommended it to a friend or your book club!

Until next month,

~ Debbie

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UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS

Next week, the dogs and I are headed with the camper to Park Rapids, MN for the 3rd Street Festival, hosted by Beagle and Wolf Books. After that, we’ll be visiting Itasca State Park! I’m excited to start this year’s camping season!

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JUNE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

FICTION: The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston

I loved this book about a down-and-out man who substitutes in for another who lived in a nice assisted living facility, before his unfortunate tumble into a river. In the end, it’s about finding family and mending fences.

NONFICTION: The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma

Confession: it’s on request from my library, so I can’t personally vouch for it, but I wanted to recommend a non-fiction book about fathers and daughters, and if the reviews are any indication, this hits home on lessons learned through reading and how one father created a special ritual for his daughter through books.