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Show in my father's house/ 167 fuss about my 'missing' birth certificate. But all went well and I settled into the new school.routine after a few bouts with ordinary bashfulness. Then the teacher broached the topic of 'occupations.' "Just to show how many different jobs can be found in a small town like ours, let's go around the room and each child can say what his or her father does for a living." Mrs. Wilson folded her hands over her paunch and nodded at the first child in the first row. I was panic-stricken. I didn't want to say that my father was a traveling-salesman, having heard my brothers talk about the rash of traveling-salesman jokes that went around school when they told our little lie. I had a vague suspicion Mrs. Wilson had cooked up this question to make me squirm, or that she was trying to uncover secret information for the principal. Perhaps I should say that he was a grasscutter, as it said in the Idaho phone book. But it didn't seem right: R.C. Allred - Grasscutter. What it should have said was: R.C. Allred - Doctor. Or R.C. Allred - Priesthood Leader. I wanted to tell my classmates that my father delivered babies and stitched up wounds, that when people came to him cryiag or angry he helped them and made them feel better. I desperately wanted to look them straight in the eyes and tell them the truth. Mrs. Wilson called on me. I swallowed and my face grew hot. The children around me tittered softly. "He's...he's...he's a...." I swallowed again. "He works in a service station," I gasped. In that instant, my father |