FORT DODGE, Iowa — “What do you call a fish without an eye?” Keenan Schuur asked his children. “A Fsh.”
If this joke is run of the mill, then just know Schuur has a lot more where that came from.
Maybe it’s not cool for 15-year-old Analiese Schuur to admit her dad is hilarious, but deep down, there’s always one joke that sticks out the most.
“Probably the math book one,” she said. “I used to hear that a lot when I was younger.”
That math book one is now a page in a book of Schuur's own compilation of dad jokes.
He wrote “My Dad's Jokes,” and a local artist near him in Fort Dodge illustrated the book, which is now for sale at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
“Originally, it was something I was just going to do for the kids. Get one or two copies made for them. And I thought, 'You know, let’s just see where it can go.' It’s something that’s so far out of my comfort zone. Everything happening right now is so far out of my comfort zone,” Schuur said.
He confided in his wife, Lydia, while he worked on the book. But to his relief, the kids flipped out when they saw it.
“Were you going to surprise us? Thank you!” his son Liam told him.
That’s the most meaningful validation for Schuur.
He said his kids are the reason he wrote the book in the first place. That’s why some pieces of it are personal, like the character inspired by Analiese.
“I adopted her when she was 8, and she came into my life when she was 4 when Lydia and I were dating. We’ve built this really kind of special bond because I kind of came from the same background as she did,” he said.
They’ve all bonded through the dad jokes, but in the end, the humor is just an introduction to this love letter for his kids.
“However their lives play out, just having that be something that they remember of me of: how much I wanted to make them smile and laugh and how much I love them,” he said.
Maybe they’re run-of-the-mill jokes, but Schuur added a dad’s touch to let his kids know how special they are.
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