When I was very young my father called me Whitey…yes, I was a tow headed child…(funny how the circle is a wheel)…I remember my dad best in a worn baseball cap and work clothes…he was so innovative and capable…he didn’t graduate from high school but received a GED in the 50s, having been born in 1913, worked in CC camps as a medic during the depression, later worked on the fire department where he was injured and got TB during the great flood of 1937 in the Ohio River Valley (emigrating to Arizona after release from the sanitorium in 1940s)…he could fix anything…he had a plumbing business on the side (B&B plumbing), especially in those early years he was working as a Greyhound bus driver…on the extra board…with no seniority. He wouldn’t step foot into my mother’s church except to fix the plumbing…and then it would be as a donation…he often would fix elderly folks plumbing for free, as well…
One day, upon his return from a ‘run’ with Greyhound we all came out into the yard to greet him…he pulled a gift from his uniform coat pocket…it was a miniature dachshund which fit in the palm of his hand…he was named “Duke of Moreland Manor”…we lived in a humble home on Moreland Street in Phoenix…a few years later he brought me a gift of a fairly sophisticated transistor shortwave radio in a leather case…I’d listen to world stations during the night when I was supposed to be sleeping. Piqued my curiosity about world events…
His hands are mine now…his skills somehow were passed onto me…his curiosity still rests in my being…
When I became an adolescent we were often at loggerheads. I realize more and more it was because we were so much alike in so many ways.
He came to visit when I was living in Oregon…I had some friends over and we all sat around a campfire making music and drinking beer…it was the first and last time I heard him sing…and the songs he sang were ones none of us had ever heard before in our lives…songs from his youth…a very valuable insight.
I missed so much by pulling away from family in my teen and adult years…but I was so happy I had that chance to make a final connection. Happy Father’s Day, Dad…you’ve been stardust since 1980.
