My Dad's Favorite Story

While I'm reminiscing about my father, I just have to tell this story. This may be the single funniest thing my father has ever said or done, and it's even funnier if you know him. My father has a very dry sense of humor, but he's not a guy who tells a lot of jokes or generally tries to make people laugh. I was a little boy when this happened, but didn't know about it at the time. I heard the story from Greg Bird, one of my dad's closest friends since my childhood. They met when Greg bought a home in our neighborhood, which had recently been destroyed by a flood (this was in 1975). This home was flood-damaged beyond belief and Greg was standing in the street looking at it when my dad wandered down the road. He said, "If you buy that place, you're crazy." Greg said, "Well I just bought it, so I guess I'm crazy." They became fast friends.

Greg Bird is a huge bear of a man, one of the strongest men I've ever met. He's well into his 50s now, but if I ever got into a barfight, I want him on my side. Also a real intellectual, so he and my dad really bonded on many levels. Anyway, one time they were working on a sewer project together in front of Greg's house and my dad was running the backhoe, digging out the ditch for this pipe while Greg was down in the ditch getting the big stones moved out of the way. He comes across this huge stone, must have weighed 120 pounds or more, and almost perfectly round. All of a sudden, my dad shuts down this backhoe and jumps out of the seat. He yells to Greg, "Hey, bring that stone up here."

Greg says, "What for?"

"It's valuable, seriously, haul it up here."

Greg knew that my dad had a minor in geology when he was in college, so he figured he must know what he's talking about. He started lugging this enormous rock up the steep incline of this ditch, and as strong as he was he was really struggling. It took several minutes to get this thing up to the top and he was really huffing and puffing by the time he was done. He dropped it on the ground and was kneeling next to it and my dad said, "Wipe it off, quickly." Greg began to wipe it off and he's starting to get excited, thinking maybe they'd really found something cool here. He finally stands up and says, "What is it?"

"It's a Michigan sex stone."

Blank look.

"What's a Michigan sex stone?", he asked.

My dad said, "Ah, it's just another fucking rock" and he pushed it back down into the ditch with his foot.