Something is Killing the Children #25 variant cover

This story is about a most important dad tool few people grew up knowing about.

My brother was always a year older than me. I had to let him have that, but anything else was a competition, always a way to prove something. We were both six foot giants as kids and never played on the same team in anything. That kinda made things fair for all the other kids in the neighborhood. Living in the city there was never a basketball court or a ball field too far away. My mom figured out the hard way it was NOT worth keeping us in the house for any amount of time...chaos was on a timer. In a simpler time, without the invention of cell phones or GPS trackers, my dad figured out how to find us at any given time...the DAD WHISTLE. And it was loud! No other dad did this growing up, and anyone you would ask would think it weird at the time, but whenever we heard my dad whistle my brother and I would pick up our stuff and go.

My dad worked long hours when I was young, which meant he never saw much of our shenanigans. So when the day turned dark and the streetlights got warm, my dad would sometimes drive out to get us. We were easy to find for the most part. If our bat and gloves were gone, the basketball or soccer ball...each a clue as to were we'd be. My dad would show up in the street or in the parking lot...he'd roll down the window and whistle. He did love showing it off. At Christmas parties, we'd go to visit family and in his randomness, would whistle from the dinning room. A few heartbeats later my brother and I would be standing behind him without a second thought, the rest of the family would giggle about it. It never once bothered me, because just like my dad knew how to wrangle us in, I would always know where my dad was when he needed me. And just when I thought he was never around for our shenanigans, I knew that if he whistled from the parking lot, it meant that he was sitting back and watch us play for a bit before he called us in...and I'd have to wait another day to show up my brother.

So here, a special place in my gallery...in memoriam of my dad.