20th
ONLY SUPERDAD WILL DO
In honor of Father’s Day, I have asked my husband to contribute to my blog, his thoughts about my father, Merrill B. Scott, who we lost unexpectedly on March 31, 1994. The following is his contribution:
Why is Superdad called that, instead of Grandpa or Grampy or Pa-Pa or any other nickname that a grandchild might call their grand dad? It happened this way. When Susan and I got married we were 18 years old and Merrill was still very young in his eyes. For him to be especially called a Grand Dad, he wanted nothing to do with, being called Gramps or any other name that denoted an old man. So the challenge was on to find a name for our son Josh to call him when he was born a year after Susan and I were married. We thought of everything you could think of and Merrill liked none of them. They all dated him and he was having none of it.
Finally someone came up with the name Superdad and that was it. We finally had a name befitting Merrill’s status as Josh’s Grand Dad, that did not date him but gave him great status and gravitas as the senior male in the household and the most honored for the children.
Superdad came alive when the grand kids started arriving to the family. He loved Josh and took great care in his up bringing when we were at his home. He was always interested in Josh and for Josh this was a special time. He was the only grand kid for several years and got Superdad all to himself for that time. When Sarah came along, he showed the same love and attention to her as he did Josh. But something special happened when David was born. From the very beginning, he and David had a special bond and David could do no wrong. Even when he got ahold of Superdad’s pen in his pocket and took it apart and got ink all over Superdad’s shirt. He would just take the pen back, put it together and David would start all over again taking it apart. I remember when we came over without the kids one time and Superdad answered the door and all he could say was, where were the kids and why had we not brought them with us. We understood where we were on the pecking order now. We just had to remember to bring the kids with us from now on so Superdad could see his Super kids.
My life with Merrill as a boyfriend to Susan and then a husband was a learning experience. Merrill was very shy and quiet around me and it was painful for me to get him to talk, until I discovered what he liked to talk about. As long as we talked about the economy, politics, science or his grandkids he would talk as long as I wanted. I learned so much from just sitting and listening to Merrill talk about any subject I could get him started on. Even today when I am in a group of people and we start talking economy or politics all I have to do is repeat what Superdad told me and every one looks at me like I really know what I am talking about. When in fact, I am just telling them what my teacher told me about all of these subjects. I just don’t tell them it was Superdad that taught me all these things. I ponder these things in my heart and treasure the time I got to spend with him, one on one, just picking his brain and soaking in everything I could at the time.
Superdad or Merrill was very kind and generous to all his family. He helped us get into our first home even though he knew that the home we were buying was in the wrong neighborhood and we would regret it later. He still let us learn our lesson, and never told me, “I told you so.”
Merrill was a great husband to Roberta. When I was able to work on their home during the several remodels that they did, he always found a way to get Roberta or Bertie (what he called Roberta) what she wanted. Yet at times he would complain bitterly about the cost of her not waiting until 5:00 p.m. to make her calls to Maine because the rates changed at 5:00 and she would start her call at 4:50 p.m. To Bertie the time did not matter, only the importance of speaking to her mother in Maine. Or Merrill might complain about everyone leaving the lights on and running up the electrical bill. This might sound like a frugal thing to do, but when I would watch him spend thousands of dollars on a remodel or a new thing for her garden or what ever his wife wanted it just made me laugh that he would get so worked up over the cost of a phone call or a light bulb in the face of all the other things he was spending money on. It was just Merrill.
The other thing that I noticed right away when I met the Scott family was that Merrill was not the typical doctor in the sense that he did not care what any one thought of him. He was not going to put on airs for anyone. When I saw the car he drove to work every day, I about fainted. It was the ugliest, oldest piece of junk I had ever seen anyone drive. This Chevy had seen it’s day 20 years before I saw it, but Merrill loved that car. The only reason he got rid of it, was that someone threw a lit cigarette into the back seat and burned the poor thing up. Good riddance. But what did he do when he went to replace it? He bought a diesel Rabbit, another piece of junk! To Merrill he was getting back at those guys who were selling us the oil from over there. He was not going to give them a penny more that he had to no matter what he had to drive.
Merrill was loved by his daughters and his wife. No man has ever been so loved as Merrill by his family. In that sense he was the richest of men and I loved him for it. I knew that I had finally made it into the family after ten years as Susan’s husband, when I finally got a pat on the back one day when I came into his home to visit him. Until that point he had never touched me except to shake my hand. That pat on the back was like the ‘key’s to the kingdom’, and I would not trade that pat for anything.
Love you, Superdad
Your Son, Jeff
