“Did you know that Coppell’s mascot used to be the Tigers but changed to the Cowboys after the Dallas Cowboys built their practice facility in Valley Ranch?”
My fun fact is met with blank stares and awkward silence from my friends who probably couldn’t be more bored with the fact I just told them. They roll their eyes and move on from the conversation, but I know I’m going to tell them another one in a few minutes.
When we pass historical markers in either Old Town Coppell or Main Street in Grapevine, I know I’m going to annoy my impatient friends by stopping to read the marker.
I can’t help it, though.
It’s like the marker is calling out to me to come read itself. Maybe this is because of my dad, Tom Dwyer. After all, he’s the one who taught me to find fascination in the little historical things I find in everyday life.
The bookshelves in my house are filled with history books and literature classics, most of which have been read by my father. My dad had spent my entire childhood telling me the most random history facts he could think of.
I was not even aware that this experience is not common. When I would tell the most peculiar fact to my friends in elementary school and they had no idea what I was talking about, I realized that I just have a history nerd for a dad.
Growing up, my dad told me stories of when he was in high school, and on Fridays, his history class would quiz him and another student on their random history knowledge to see if they would d get it wrong. According to him, my dad never got a question wrong. But I’m not sure how much I believe that.
But it wasn’t my dad who started the fascination of history on his side of the family. My dad is the youngest of three, with an older sister, Virginia Dwyer, and older brother, John Dwyer. His brother, my uncle, graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder with a doctorate in history. When my uncle found that my brother, Aidan, was majoring in business, he had a moment of sarcastic disappointment. My dad reassured him that I was likely going to continue the family line of majoring in history in college.
I have now become the person in my friend groups who my friends come to when they do not understand something about history.
I have learned to appreciate the little things that have been here for decades or centuries thanks to my dad and his brother. Every piece of ground has been walked on for centuries. No matter where you go, someone has been there before you and has a story to tell. I wouldn’t have known or cared about that without the two history buff brothers in my family.
When I was little, the history that I once thought was shoved down my throat, I now greatly appreciate. When I am at work, I am able to one-up the facts told by the customers of my dad’s age.
“I bet you didn’t know what that is,” is now typically followed by “I do, actually.”
Or when I say something, whether it be old music or old movies, I’m normally asked “how do you know what that is?” And every time, I always smile proudly and answer with: “my dad.”
Follow Ainsley (@ainsleydwyer) and @CHSCampusNews on X.
