A Letter to Daddy

My only picture I have of Mr. Johnson
taken Christmas 1966 on my Polaroid camera.

Happy Father’s Day to all.  I would like to take a minute to acknowledge a man who may not have been my father by blood, but was a great paternal influence in my life:  Mr. James Johnson… For the years he was in my life, what he left me was eternal.

My parents divorced when I was about  5 or 6 years old and I saw very little of my father, although we talked often. I didn't see more of him until I was in college. I guess the term you would use today is, "it's complicated." 

In 1964, when I was 8 years old my mother introduced me to  Mr. Johnson.  She called him "Jimmy" and he drove a 1963 powder blue Chrysler New Yorker. Every time I see an old New Yorker, I think of him. 

Mr. Johnson courted my mother for many years. He was a gentleman who nurtured me like a dad through my formative years.  I thought he was the smartest man I had ever met when I was a kid, and in my adulthood, he still remains on an intellectual pedestal. He was a chemist who worked at Howard University. I don’t think that there was anything that he couldn't do.

This man nurtured my thirst for technology and through him, the world became bigger than I could ever imagine. I had a little portable Smith-Corona typewriter and he taught me how to type. Learning that skill enlarged my world even more. Once I had gotten proficient in my typing, he brought home a used IBM Selectric that I now would guess was a cast-off from the school, but for me was my jewel.

I used that Selectric like it was my lifeline. It was for me the most fluid way for me to communicate my thoughts. By  7th grade I was writing science fiction short stories on it  and working on what I thought  would be the great American science fiction novel. 

One day Mr. Johnson brought over an old reel to reel tape machine. I say old because it was around the time the cassette machine had come on the scene shortly after I first met him. He played some tapes of a woman singing. It was my mother! This spurred my interest in recorded music. 

I loved sound and how good sound could sound. Mr. Johnson would take me to the stereo shows  for a few years and I would collect mounds of spec sheets and product information, bounding from one exhibit to the next. He gave and gave of his knowledge and he never had a doubt that I was incapable of anything because I was female. So when some guys say to me, “You know a lot about this technology for a female”, I owe it all to Mr. Johnson.

I started playing piano by the time I was 10 years old. Within a week of taking my first lesson, I was playing complete songs..By the time I was 12, I was writing my own music and recording the songs on my little cassette machine. Mr. Johnson was there for those moments and for all intents and purposes he was my dad.

I tried to find Mr. Johnson after I reached adulthood. After the courtship  with my mother ended, Mr. Johnson and my mom remained friends. He later left DC and married and moved to the south and I never got to talk with him again. I know he's gone now. So this platform in writing is my only way to connect with him and show my appreciation and love for what he gave me. 

He taught me everything he knew and I wish with all of my heart that he were still around so that I could thank him for the wonderful contributions he made to my life and my world.  Mr. Johnson, I will always love and appreciate you for everything. You nurtured my interests and helped me turn them into realities. Thanks to you, I was able to type 80 wpm. Just from the simple typing lesson you gave me so many years ago!

What is my blessing on this Father’s Day? I had the benefit of two dads in my life, both inextricably complementing the other in what they gave to my world.