As Father's Day 2018 nears, I am reminded that my
dad would have turned 110 years old this year. Though he died more than 30
years ago, he remains so present in my life that I can almost smell the blend
of Old Spice and cigarettes that surrounded him most of my life. When I enjoy fresh tomatoes or asparagus, I
remember how he loved puttering in his gardens and fussing when we wanted to
take the tomatoes before they ripened so that we could indulge our love of fried
green tomatoes. There are so many
memories to be cherished.
My
father was a contrarian through and through.
He formed his opinions through his own filters, reading voraciously,
listening to what was being said around him and making his own unique
judgments. He had opinions about almost
anything one could name and was never shy about sharing his perspectives. He would often position himself in
conversations as the devil's advocate, forcing others to defend their
positions. Their defenses would be
tested, because he could wear a saint down before yielding.
` Some
of my earliest memories are of listening to the radio, not just for the dramas
and comedies of the day, but for the news as well. Daddy never censored what we heard there nor
did he do so when we got a television. Of course, we were children in the 50s
so there weren't many "racy" offerings, but he didn't worry about
whether we heard something in the news that might distress us. He wanted us to be informed. He expected us to ask questions if we had
them and he had answers.
He
was not just a contrarian in words, but in the way he lived his life. Unable to finish college because of an
illness and the financial demands of the Depression, he went to work and tried
many jobs, from a brief stint as a jack-of-all-trades at a newspaper to time
overseeing a road gang to the one that lasted, a postal service worker moving
the mail via the railroad.
He
was a bachelor until he met my mother and married her when he was in his early
30s. From the beginning of their
marriage, theirs was a partnership in which roles were exchanged according to
time available. She was a working woman
most of their years together, gone from
home during the day. His day often began
in the wee morning hours and ended early as well. Thus, he was the one home when we came in
from school.
He
also cooked and cleaned as needed. There
were few expectations in our home that were based solely on gender. We were given chores to do and learned the
ropes from both parents as both took them on.
Perhaps the only thing I never saw my father do was to iron clothes, but
I might just have missed that. Mama was
the more inventive cook, but he enjoyed cooking on the grill and could muster
up breakfast, lunch or supper when needed.
He took his cooking skills into his work with the Boy Scouts, always
ready to cook over a fire when camping.
For
all his bluster - and there was plenty of that - he was a softie. He cared about and for people, animals and
plants, not because it was expected, but because there was abundant love in his
soul. Like most of us he was not always
comfortable with change, not at all sure that societal and cultural changes were good,
especially those of the 60s, those that were affecting the way his children's
opinions began diverging from his own.
But he accepted, grudgingly, that he had raised us to think for
ourselves. Even when family bonds were
strained by our differences, his love for us was steadfast.
On
this Father's Day as on all those before, I am grateful for the man I called
Daddy. At least once a day I think of
something I would like to ask him or share with him. And every day I feel the comfort of having
him forever in my heart.
