On Fathers (formal craft exercise)

We had to write a piece in class about someone who is really important in our life, and then we had to go back and edit it. This is what came out of me. I like it best. :)

My dad is the sort of person who will never be called Daddy. He is not my biological father, but he is my real dad, as far as I am concerned. He is the sort of person who will forever conceal the shape of his chin and the whiteness of his neck behind a curly mass of red beard. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I saw my dad without a beard; I was too young, or the beard is too prominent a figure to allow me to remember a recent shave. However, I do remember when my dad stopped smiling in photographs and began to scowl instead, proclaiming the civil war will come again. My dad—my real dad—is the sort of person who digs holes, miles of trenches; who installs sprinkler systems ; who lays sod. He is the sort of person who smells like fresh cut grass, dirt, and sweat when he comes home from work in the late afternoon. In the evening, the smell of hot water and soap wafts from skin and drips from his beard and the monotony of hours of landscaping dissipates with the steam being sucked into the bathroom fan. Even after hours of labor, although his engines are in need of rest, his work does not end. Somehow, he manages to make time to take a stroll around the block with his little son and vacuum the artillery of white hair from his couch and cook dinner for his girlfriend. Finally, without fail, he calls his daughter, if only for a moment, to tell her he’s proud of her and that he misses her. I would not surrender him for anything this world could offer.