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Joe, Vera and Kathy
Early Years
The Wild Blue Yonder
The Man I Knew
The Man I Knew
The last time I saw my Dad, alive, was on Thanksgiving Day, 2006. He always came over for a bit on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was about as social as he ever got, at least in his later years.
We had some differences, but we had so much more in common, as I learn more and more every day, it seems. One of the things that we had in common and shared was that we were both fans of the Dallas Cowboys. (Now, stop groaning and be nice, I'm telling a story about my Dad here.)
On that particular Thanksgiving Day the Cowboys happened to be playing my favorite team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That being said, it wasn't hard for me to be neutral that day; I don't get too passionate about sports since there are more important things in life. I took a very diplomatic approach by stating that I didn't care who won, as long as it was a good game. It wasn't.
By halftime the Cowboys had a 21-10 lead and they would pour it on in the second half, finishing with a score of 38-10. Well, Dad had had enough food and football by halftime and headed home. As he went out the front door he left us with his usual "Keep a smile on!" Six days later he was gone. Bummer.
Family Days
I did not have much of a chance to get to know my dad when I was younger. He was already in the Air Force when he married my mom and he was in Thailand, during the Vietnam War, when I was born. Even when he was in the States, during my first five years, I don't recall very much. We have some pictures from some birthdays, Christmases and trips to West Palm Beach, but I have no recollection of those events.
One thing I do have very vague memories of was an incident that occurred when we lived in Ft. Worth; I must have been about five at the time. One of our neighbor's dogs, maybe a St. Bernard, had gotten loose and was lost somewhere in our neighborhood. He and I hopped on our bikes and went out looking for the dog. I remember going to places further away than I had ever been from our duplex. I don't recall if we ever found the dog.
Lost Years
After the divorce he was more of a legend to me than a father. He was off in foreign lands, forever serving in the Air Force. I had developed an affinity for aircraft and by the time I got into high school I had a good collection of model airplanes that I had made. Up until about the 10th grade I had tentative plans of going into the Air Force, no doubt following in my father's footsteps.
From the time we left Ft. Worth (1974?) until 1982 I don't recall seeing my father at all. Apparently he got re-married in 1975, but that was quickly annulled. He only mentioned that situation once to me, during his drinking days. Something about some colonel and the whore of the whole base.
He spent quite a bit of time overseas during those years, being based in Germany for a fair portion of it. I seem to remember getting a few phone calls during birthdays or the holidays. Couldn't tell you anything that was said though. It was way too long ago.
The BB Guns
I do remember that he got us BB guns for Christmas, somewhere around our 12th birthdays, if I recall. That showed a bit of his sense of humor and, perhaps, some sly and funny vindictiveness. He knew our mom did not like guns. Here you go boys! Shoot up!
My mom took it all in stride; there was no way she was going to let him get under her skin, or even show any lip-biting anger to us. She set us up with a nice target and put it on a chair at one end of the hallway. Shoot up, boys! I can only imagine that, at that time, she would have loved to put a picture of him on the target.
Reconnecting
in West Palm Beach, late 80s.
We finally got to spend some real time with him during the summer of 1982, just prior to our entry into high school. He flew us out to Colorado to spend an entire month with him. Talk about a memorable time. It was my first flight, though certainly not Rod's. He'd already had way too many flights on Military Airlift Command jets jumping him half way across the country for treatments for his hemophilia.
We arrived in Denver at the old Stapleton Airport. Rod and I made the trip down to Colorado Springs in the back of his famed Ford F100 pickup truck, White One. I distinctly remember seeing lights in the sky above the western horizon and realizing that they were actually on the sides of the mountains to which we were traveling parallel. I also remember the sudden changes in the temperature as we drove along Interstate 25 and the climbs and dips in altitude.
That was such a memorable month. Working on dad's fence in his backyard in Security, a little suburb just south of the Springs. King and Lady, dad's two German Shepherds. Finding the cat skeleton in the crawlspace under the house. One night, staying up all night with Ricky (a kid) and Jay (dad's AF buddy) playing PayDay, overdosing on soda and watching Flash Gordon over and over and over. My first experience with a microwave oven and the taste of overcooked bologna and cheese. Hamburgers cooked down to the size and density of charcoal briquettes. Nighttime thunderstorms with lighting that looked so much thicker than the stuff I was used to in Florida. A trip on the back of his motorcycle up to Cheyenne Mountain and NORAD, where he was stationed. The semi-private tour of the facility and a look at the power generators that he was, in some way, responsible for.
I guess the strangest thing about that whole trip is that I have no memory at all of the trip back up to Denver or the flight home. Weird. Also weird: for the last decade I have lived in a house no more than two miles away from the house I stayed in during that summer of 1982.
After 1982 I began to see him a little more regularly. A few years later Rod and I took a road trip with him down to West Palm Beach where we stayed with his mom (our grandmother) and helped fix up her house a bit. Again, we made the trip in White One. I even have a picture of him adjusting the mirror at one of the rest stops on the Florida Turnpike (right).
He wasn't around when we graduated from high school. It never occurred to me until now, but I assume he was out of the country (Turkey, I think) or unable to make it for some other reason.
Getting To Know You
He invited me out to his retirement ceremony at Luke Air Force Base just outside of Phoenix, AZ in 1990. I was able to get out there for a few days. This was the first time I think I started to realize who he was. When I was younger, he was just Dad; not around for most of my life, and when he was he just kind of went about his business.
While visiting for his retirement I got to hear a lot of people say a lot of good things about him. And I got to hear some of his friends say some honest and funny things about him. He didn't have a lot of friends, but he did have a certain kind of camaraderie and loyalty to the ones he did have. It always struck me as strange, later in his life, that he didn't seem to keep in contact with those friends terribly well. Then again, he didn't exactly have Facebook either.
There is one thing that I do specifically recall about his retirement ceremony. As we were sitting there under the sweltering early morning sun, he kept his speech very brief. He thanked everyone and encouraged us all to be involved in volunteering in our communities. That memory faded quickly for me but came rushing back a few years ago, just after his death, when I started serving on the local school board.
A year after he retired, he moved back to Colorado Springs, for good this time. He invited Christine and me out in 1992. While there I proposed to her, on the top of Pikes Peak (ladies, you may swoon now). Thank goodness for the lack of oxygen up there; she accepted.
The next opportunity to spend time with him came when his mother died in 1993. Strange story with this one. He had told us, at the time, that he got to the hospital right before she died and that as she died he saw a look of relief on her face. Nice story, right? Years later, during one of his patented drinking weekends, he told me that it was lie. She was already dead by the time he had gotten to the hospital and he had made up that story to make the rest of his family feel better. I was utterly puzzled. I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I still don't. Maybe it was just a thing.
Neighbors
"out east" of Colorado Springs, 2001.
Christine and I moved out to Colorado in 1995 and that was when I finally got to know my father, a bit, at least. He turned 50 that year and, apparently, had not received any birthday presents in quite some time. He was so happy with the stupid little presents we got him. He really had a hard time containing himself. It was a display of emotion that I had never seen before, not even at his mother's funeral.
I will always remember our trips to the dump and I will never forget the sound of the two-by-eight bouncing off his head after Christine dropped it while we were working on the front deck of his house.
Anyone that knew my dad also knew that he could throw the drinks down. And he smoked like a chimney. All that changed about the time Steven was born. Granted, losing his license for about 6 months for driving under the influence may have had some effect on him, but there is no doubt in my mind that he was ready to clean up and enjoy life with his grandkids.
Of one thing I am absolutely sure. He loved his grandkids. The hardest part for me, going through his house the night he died, was seeing the pictures of the kids that he had in his house. Hell, it's still tough to think about now. He would do anything for those kids. I'm so sorry that he didn't get the chance to see them graduate. I always thought he would be the one that would teach Steven how to drive.
In just over 11 years we got to know him a bit. He was a pretty private guy and I'm not sure anyone could really get to know him well. No doubt he had built up a thick skin over his life. Even at that, he was pretty much what he was, without pretense.
Let's see if I can sum him up:
International Raceway, August, 2004.