Things Dad Says: Share Your Favorite ‘Dad-Ism’ For Father’s Day 2024

ACROSS AMERICA — When you were a kid, what was that one thing your dad said that has always stuck with you?

Was it a great piece of advice that has never failed you, a classic “dad-ism” such as “don’t make me turn this car around” or something so goofy it’s endearing?

A Patch editor still scratches her head over her dad’s “sticks and boards and things” rant when he’d enlisted his children to clean up a mess he had made. “Sticks and boards and things. There’s enough sticks and boards and things to last a guy 10 years,” he bellowed, flinging one board with such fury that it knocked a hole in the side of his shiny new pickup. It hurts to squelch laughter for that long.

But he was a sweet, dear man who had spared her 7-year-old self’s feelings when — his heart no longer able to take his little girl’s plaintive cries for the missing Powder Puff every night after school — he sat her on his lap and said the big pink tomcat had defended his mother in a fight and had died a valiant death. Decades later, the truth came out. Some road-hunting hooligan had caught his eyes in a spotlight and shot him, her dad blurted out, forgetting the original story.

What’s your best dad-ism? Fill out the form below, and we may feature it in an upcoming story on Patch.

Editor’s Note: This form is no longer accepting responses, effective June 13.