the godfather

After sitting through the Sex & Sexuality Talk at church with my parents I got to thinking about when I was a young, boy crazy girl trying to date under my parent’s roof. It brought up many good memories of my parents. My Mother was a lady of the 70's that never wanted to spare any detail from us (kids) and told us more than we ever cared to know. My father was a proper man of the 60's that acted like he was producing the show To catch a predator. This is a peek into one of the funnier moments my father's overprotective nature resulted in. 

My Dad is Italian so his disposition is that of a hot headed, red faced, loudmouthed, arm waving, crazy man. In truth, he is as soft as pudding inside and would give us the world if he could, but as a teenage girl I mostly saw him as an overprotective ogre. We actually nicknamed him "the ogre" and he gladly accepted it with a chuckle.
He was the kind of father that would send us back upstairs to change when he saw what we were trying to wear out of the house. He wanted to see swimsuits tried on before he would purchase them. He would confiscate albums that were purchased with our own hard earned baby-sitting money because the lyrics were not appropriate. We were allowed 1 night a week out and it couldn't be Saturday because we would need to be awake and ready for church on Sunday morning.
With three girls in the house my Father had to take a strict stance on dating.

The rules were:
No dances or dates until we were over 16.
He had to meet the boy before we could go out and it could not be right before we left the house with said boy.
He had to know exactly where and what we were doing. "Hanging out" or "Cruising" was not allowed.

Once a boy I was crazy about stopped by with his friend. My dad opened the door, took one look at his 19 year old moustache and said, "No, she is not available." and shut the door in his face. I was humiliated and spent that entire night bawling into my pink, rose covered bedspread. I held a grudge for weeks over that, but knew that there was no changing my Dad's opinion, so I moved on.

Some kind of joke started going around about my Dad being in the Mafia, I think this was the moment that started:
I was going to homecoming with a "friend". (Who was actually really cute and I liked him and was hoping for homecoming to change things for us.) As per the rules, he had to come over and spend some time letting my father grill him. He came over on a Saturday afternoon. We had lunch together as a family. Finally when it was over, the young man had soccer practice that my Dad was going to drop him off at. Somehow, I ended up sitting in the backseat of the station wagon and the poor boy was sitting up front with my dad. My dad is talking the entire way....saying things about the dance...when he would expect me home...ect. We pull up to the practice field and my dad leans in and grabs the back of this boys neck with his huge ogre Italian hand and pulls his head closer, and says quietly, "I love my daughter more than you ever will." long pause "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?" The boy says, "Yes, I do."
My face is beet red. I stammer, "Bye" and jump into the front seat.
When we get home, I run into the house the moment we pull into the drive to tell on my Father to my Mom. I gave my father the "You don't understand high school!" cold shoulder for the next couple weeks, but he really didn't seem to notice.
I went to the dance with the boy and we stayed "friends".
A couple weeks later, I was flirting with another boy and mentioned that he would have to stop by and meet my parents before I could go out with him and he says, "I heard your Dad is in the Mafia or something?"

Ha, Ha. Very funny Dad.

My father has mellowed so much with age. I understand now, as a parent, he was doing his best to protect his girls from the dangers of 17 year old boys. (I could say a lot of inappropriate things about 17 year old boys here, but am going to use a little restraint so that I don't get myself arrested. You know you're thinking it too, so don't look at me like that!)

Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day young lovers!