As a kid, most of my memories are with my dad, and I’m glad they are because he taught me a lot growing up. An example of our relationship would be the song “Watching You” by Rodney Atkins. Everything I am is because of my dad; even my weird personality comes from the old man.

He encouraged me to express myself as much as I can. I have this bad habit where I tap dance everywhere I go because I have a problem with standing still for long periods of time.

When we went grocery shopping, I would end up tap dancing down the grocery aisle (I was a dancer for 13 years.) He wouldn’t tell me to stop being weird. He encouraged me to keep doing it, even when people were watching with their judgmental eyes. To him, I was practicing.

He never cared what people thought about him, and he wanted to make sure I thought the same.

Heck, I once judged him for eating alone in public because I thought he looked creepy. His response: I’m OK with myself. If you know my dad, that wasn’t the end of that saying. It became a never-ending dad joke to him. Now, I get weekly snapchats of him sitting alone in a public place eating whatever meal he had and the text read: I’m OK with myself.

Lesson learned: Don’t judge the old man or he’ll hit you with his dad moves. Regardless, I learned to not care what people thought about my actions over time. His dorky dad move helped me learn that.

When we’d run errands, we would listen to music and throw mini concerts in the car. The only thing is my dad never learned the lyrics to songs. He always made up his own lyrics, and lately I realized I do that sometimes too. The best memory I have of this is when Macklemore’s song “Thrift Shop” was a big hit, or as my old man liked to call it, “Grandpa’s Clothes.”

The amount of times my dad has asked me to play “Grandpa’s Clothes” is impossible to count. I have even tried telling him it’s called “Thrift Shop,” and he ignored me just so he could irritate me.

And I hate to admit it, but that was our song. We came up with a dance move we do every time it plays. The best thing about it, neither of us are embarrassed or care what people think if they see.

Being older now, I realized we have a lot more in common than I thought. He puts pepper on everything, and so do I. I even choose spicy foods over sweet like he does; I can’t handle overbearing spices like he can, though.

Once he called me while I was eating popcorn, and he asked why I kept sneezing. I told him I put pepper on my popcorn. His response: I’m so glad you’re like me because no one else can (be like me).

He taught me how to have a sense of humor. We both tend to be jokesters, mostly toward my mom. We have a bad habit of teaming up against her, and sometimes my siblings, and mess with her/them jokingly.

He’s the reason I’m exceptionally average at basketball because he’s exceptionally average at basketball. Our endless games of P-I-G and H-O-R-S-E paid off. He even taught me the “Tim Duncan,” which is what he likes to call the corner shot on the free-throw line.

I wouldn’t be an average basketball player, a practical jokester or have a dorky personality if it wasn’t for my old man. We’re quite the father-daughter duo, and I don’t know who I’d be without him.

Shelbie Goulding is a columnist. Contact her at [email protected].