Jun. 16, 2007 - 20:24 MDT

THINKING OF DAD

Thinking of my Dad this evening, on the eve of Father�s Day.

There is no way I can do him justice, I wish I had the words.

My Dad came to Denver with a man and wife from New Jersey when he was in his early teens. He thought the man was one of his brothers, but it turns out in later life he found out that his �brother� was truly his uncle.

A very occasional letter would find its way to Dad from back home, which from what I gather was just catching him up on what was happening back there.

To my mind he was the most upstanding, righteous person I ever knew, seems he patterned himself after the man who he thought was his brother.

Dad worked hard and was conscientious at his work. He insisted that I do my chores correctly and on time. He despised it when I lied to him.

He was though, a world different from Mom, she was a hugging, touching person and he wasn�t.

Somehow it came across to me that giving my Dad a hug made him uncomfortable, I never knew why, but lived with it.

During the Depression Dad saw to it that Mom and I were amused, he taught me the basic layout of Solitaire and how to play it. I learned 500 Rummy from Dad and Mom and soon became good enough to win a hand now and then.

These were the years of the Lucky Strike �Hit Parade,� where on Saturday night the top of the heap was revealed, and he would send me to the drugstore to buy a Hit Parade record, a temporary thing, but would last until the next Saturday. Once in a great while he would have me stop by the creamery for a pint of ice cream and the record, always instructing me to get the change in Indian Head pennies.

He devised several word games for us to play as a break from 500 Rummy. Heh, I didn�t need a break from that fascinating game but I guess that it palled on them. So with pencil and paper we drew up the categories and the letters and set to work to fill the squares in.

Of course between those games and my fascination with Mom and Grandma and their crosswords I was well equipped to amuse myself. Often I would take one of the scraps of paper from a previous game and use different letters and try to fit things in those new letters.

I remember Dad telling me that at the end of the Depression, he and Mother were not making as much as Mom did before the crash. But through the depression there as always food, clothing and shelter along with the necessary school fees (which weren�t very much back then), all accomplished without fanfares or showers of sparks. His words I remember well, �Well, yes, things are tough right now, but many folks are so much worse off than we are.� I wonder how many sleepless nights they spent worrying about the �Other Shoe.� ?

After he died and some of the folks talked about Dad when he was young they depicted a person who was excruciatingly shy. Which might explain why I thought he was so distant.

One thing I do remember was that Mom had to work on Saturdays and he was off. Saturdays went much like this, me washing dishes, Dad doing his stock market graphs and charts and maybe answering letters. Then, me sweeping and scrubbing the floor, later dusting.

Little conversation, but the togetherness was thick. Seems to me it was early afternoon when the Texaco Opera came on, and the host or whatever he was called had such a gentle distinguished voice that set the stage for what was going to happen in the opera. Often during the summer I would check out a book on the opera that would be on the next Saturday.

Dad would have coffee and I would have milked down coffee and we would chat shortly, mostly him answering my questions

Next came the radio show of The Elder Lightfoot Solomon Mischaux, announced as coming from the Banks of the Wabash. A program of spirituals, very well done. He and I enjoyed that program too.

And then Mom would come home and the late afternoon and evening belonged to us all.

Dad was a strong presence in my life, somewhat worshipped from afar but I tried to pattern myself after him as much as my pitiful psyche would allow.

I am ever so thankful our boys never were the type that I was, and looking back makes me wonder why his hair wasn�t pure white or if there would have been an expanse of baldness because of my rebellious ways.

When Heather and I with our daughter moved to his house and brought him from the nursing home, he was so remarkable in his reaction to the situation. He bore whatever he needed to without a word of complaint, no moans, groans or epithets. He tried so hard to do what his doctor wanted him to do and took his meds religiously.

Very late in his game a short time before he died, I was helping him do his range of motion exercises and he murmured, �You turned out to be a pretty good kid.� From him that was praise from on high, very seldom he said anything related to something like that.

In his last years we did catch up on chatting together and he took great interest in Heather and our daughter.

Doug Sr. is gone, but lovingly remembered, tonight I am THINKING OF DAD . . . . . . . . . . . .

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