“Happy Father’s Day, Dad. It’s Rachael.” Holding the phone, I’d picture his ornery grin.

“Rachael who?”

“Your daughter, Rachael. Your own flesh and blood,” I’d retort, and the fight was on.

If we’d been polite, each would have suspected the other was up to no good.

A pastor for nearly six decades, Dad radiated his own style. Even his conversion sprouted in atypical soil.

A Depression child, he scavenged Louisiana pinewoods to supplement his meager diet. Dad hid outside churches where African-American worshippers sang joyous music.

Their lives were even harder than his. How could they celebrate Jesus? Dad couldn’t stay away.

Eventually, he graduated from a Bible institute, where he’d met my mother. They married and worked at a Navajo mission in New Mexico. Throughout decades, they planted/pastored small, independent churches in Mexico, Indiana and Oregon. Sometimes they lived in for-real parsonages. Sometimes in churches’ back rooms, a grass hut, and a mountainside, snow-covered log shack.

Even if churches paid him — a rarity — Dad worked construction to support five children. We counted off in the station wagon to ensure nobody was left asleep on a pew. I was number two.

Ahead of trends, Dad shrugged off ties and other unnecessary protocol. Having taught himself to play guitar, he led singing with his three-blocks-away bass voice.

Dad ministered as much outside church walls as inside. He drank coffee with troubled diners at Denny’s and introduced them to Jesus. He made Cracker Barrel servers giggle and hugged lonely Hispanic and Chinese restaurant owners, far from home. When someone was in need, he opened his thin wallet.

Once, in Oregon, he picked up movie-mad English hitchhikers who asked if Indians were on the warpath. Dad promptly arranged with local ranchers to stage a cowboy-Indian fight, complete with flaming arrows.

Even more dangerous: Dad used a fishing pole to cast a jelly doughnut among his church members’ weight-loss group.

I said, “In Heaven, you’ll be perfect. What will you do then?”

He looked genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know.”

At 91, Dad did go to Heaven. His family — and his guardian angel — all stopped chewing our nails.

But we miss him. So much.

Someday, I’ll stand at Heaven’s entrance, too. Jesus will know my name and give me a huge hug.

Dad? He’ll wiggle his mustache and say, “Rachael who?”

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How was your father unique?