My Dad is a Mythical Creature....

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Arlington National Cemetery, dad, family, Ft. Meade Renault Tank, happiness, history, life, love, mural, personal

“You know that doesn’t make any sense right? You do know what a myth is, right?” Kyle responded.

“Um, yes, but seriously. He’s some sort of freak fairy tale. He’s comparable to the jolly green giant. He has done everything. He has experienced everything. He’s the main character of the worlds longest and most interesting story. I’m going to be twenty five years old next month, and every time I talk to him I find out something new. And not only new, but something amazing and unrealistic. Something crazy and fantastic. He’s a superhero. There isn’t a ‘proper’ term to explain. So, I’ll stick with mythical.”

….

I had a great day yesterday. I booked a three night stay in a fantastic hotel for Andrea and I when we go to DC in March. I found and bought pretty awesome gifts for both Kyle and my mom for their upcoming birthdays, and I found out my ultimate bestie Andrea Jean is coming to visit me next month. I was beaming. I couldn’t contain my happiness last night. I called up my dad to excitedly discuss my awesome day.

Dad: “Oh, DC eh? Did you know I was stationed there when I was a marine?”
Me: “No, I’m not sure you ever mentioned that”

Dad: “Well, you know how I feel about talking about those days, so, I’m not going to get into. However you should check out this mural that I’m in.”

Me: “Mural? mmhmm sure dad.”

Dad: “When I was there, with Pete, they needed an image for their mural, so they took photos of us in action poses and then used them for the mural, seriously. Google it.”

So, later that night I googled it. I started with ‘mural at Arlington National Cemetery’, and there are apparently a thousand murals there, but considering I had no idea how to make my search more limited, I started just flipping through the pictures. I actually got pretty caught up in looking at them and probably forgot what I was even looking for, and them BAM on page 16 there’s my dad’s face. Right there in front of me. He was much younger, but I knew it was him. He looked just like my brother, spitting image, and I’ve seen enough pictures of him when he was younger to know. Plus, he’s my dad. You just know when you see your dad’s face on a mural that it’s him.

The man furthest to the left is my dad.

The longer I looked at the picture, amazed, the more I realized I’d seen that picture before. The more I thought about it the more I knew, yes, for sure, that picture is at my parents house somewhere. In an old photo album or something, I’m sure I’d seen it. Not a picture of the mural, but the original photograph. I called my dad back.

“HEY! HEY! I found that mural with your face on it!” I exclaimed.

“The one at Ft. Meade?”

….

“What? No. the one at Arlington National Cemetery. I thought you said it was at the cemetery.” I replied.

“No, I said it was at Ft. Meade, NEAR the cemetery. What mural did you find of me at the cemetery? I didn’t know there was one there.”

I explained what it looked like and how sure I was that it was him in the picture, and that I’d seen the picture before. He recognized it too. I’m not crazy.  He told me to look up the Ft. Meade picture too, to make sure he wasn’t crazy. I looked it up, and bam, sure enough, immediately behind the Renault Tank is a war scene photo, with my dad right in the center. Holy smokes.

By this time I’m uncontrollable. I’m laughing like a maniac. Best day ever followed by this craziness? My dad is on not one, but TWO murals? How incredibly random and awesome is that?

Let me zoom in for you:

That’s totally my dad. Wow.

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