A Freak Accident Brought Me Closer to My Domineering Dad
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Over the summer, we launched The Personals, a new series of essays about smaller — but still largely impactful — moments. This latest one from writer and comedian Ivy Eisenberg is an absolute delight. We felt like we were right beside Ivy as she tried to dodge her father and vie for his approval all at once. Check it out or listen to Ivy read it aloud in her own voice by clicking play below and on our podcast Narratively Out Loud (where you can listen to lots of our past stories read aloud!).
Decades before GPS, my dad had the uncanny ability to hunt me down in his forest green Chevy wagon at the precise moment I was doing something questionable. I’d be engaged in some angsty teen behavior, like smoking a cigarette on my friend’s stoop or making out with a guy down the street. I’d look up and see the high beams of the wagon and my dad’s big head jutting out over the steering wheel, his shoulders hunched forward and his eyes squinting as he surveilled the surroundings like a police officer on the beat.
“Uh-oh, Ivy — here comes Lefty Louie,” one of my friends would say. My dad had a thick New York accent, which made him sound like a gangster from the 1940s, and he was especially gruff when he talked to my male friends, usually just grunting rather than engaging in intelligible conversation. From the time I had my first boyfriend at 15 years old, my dad would challenge every boy I brought home to a game of chess. Louis Eisenberg didn’t want any mollycoddle who couldn’t hold his own on a chessboard — or a basketball court for that matter — near any one of his four daughters. We all idolized Dad, constantly vying for his attention and approval. In response to any story we told, he would say “You shoulda done this” or, “Ya did the right thing.” We were always either 100 percent right or 100 percent wrong, and Dad’s adjudication was final.
One summer evening when I was 16 or so, I was fooling around in the back seat of one of my guy friends’ car with another of our crew. There was no way I would be going all the way with him. It was just
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