at left:(Picture of me at 18 months. ) This past weekend was my dad's birthday. He would have been 84. When you remember these things, your minds always seems to bring up memories.
I remember Dad as a happy- go- lucky sort of character. He never knew a stranger. He would greet the store clerks and call them honey. Part of that was the southern (WV) way and I think he was basically a flirt too. To the chagrin of mom. It always got under her skin!
Dad was always a kid at heart. Some would say maybe a little immature. Maybe so, but I think he just enjoyed life and wanted to find some fun in it. Winter months he would pile up snow and take a kitchen knife and carve a dog standing on all fours out of the pile. It will stand till the weather warmed up! Funny..the kids in the neighborhood back then, didn't even consider knocking it down! Wonder why? Maybe they were disciplined then? Maybe they knew they'd get in trouble? but that's another subject...
I remember one winter when we had really deep snow, which we seemed to have alot of when growing up, he built us an igloo. Made blocks of hard snow, using water to help it freeze solid, and stack them, line the inside with cardboard boxes, and tall enough that we could crawl inside and sit! Of course there was always a fort wall for the infamous snowball battles!
Then there was the 6 man tobaggan! He built it. He would take that sled up the hill followed by us, and about half the neighborhood kids. He would sit on the front to steer, and let the kids take turn riding behind him..and down the hill they would go!
Summer meant croquet in the yard, or badmitten. Saturdays when he didn't work and sometimes Sunday afternoon, he would load up the boys from the neighborhood, my brothers and I in the back of the pickup..You could do that then... and off to the ball park we would go!
I remember playing outfield ..without a mitt... and catching a ball that was hit by some guy that was out to get me I think! whack!! I dropped it as fast as I caught it! My hand stung for days! Dad always warned me to wear a mitt..but it just didn't feel comfortable~!
One memory that will last... the kids in the nieghborhood coming to the door and asking.. can your dad come out and play ball?
Dad seemed to have boundless energy too. turning somersaults in the yard was his favorite activity! it was even funnier when everything fell out of his pockets! He would even be found jumping on the trampoline, turning flips!
I remember one summer when my Brother, Glenn, was in his teens, a neighbor lady hired him to cut up a tree in her yard that was felled. He had an axe and was working away on it. The women's grandsons were playing in the yard and running around near Glenn. He was watching them as he swung the axe, and one swing he missed the tree and placed the axe in his knee. Dad had just come by with some lunch or to check on him and how he was doing...not sure what now. He was back to the car when he heard Glenn holler! Dad saw him and ran down the hill, picked my brother up and carried him up the hill to the car and off to the hospital. Glenn was around 6 ft tall by then, so that was no easy task for Dad. But you know ..the adrenaline kicks in, and the love for you child, and you have strength you don't know!
Dad's nickname at work was "Mother": because he loved to cook and take meals in for the guys.
he would cook all day at home and then cart the stuff to work. The guys would feast on break, donate some cash to pay for it, and Dad would be the hit at work! When he died many of those guys were at the viewing and shared their memories of "Mother".
Dad had his shortcomings too, but those things always seem to be less noticed as time goes by.
I hope when I'm gone the memories I leave behind will be happy ones. You know that sometimes we all have bad days and days when things don't go so well or we don't feel up to par. But I hope I have made some good memories for my girls and my granddaughters that will bring a smile to their faces when I am gone years from now.
