Father’s Day

This photo was taken around Father’s Day 1961. I always thought of my dad as old, but looking back he was only 26 in this picture. We were living in Spirit Lake, Iowa where Dad worked in a fishing rod and reel factory. One of my fuzzy memories of that time was him putting a cardboard box in that little red wagon and pulling me down to the dock where he fished for dinner.

In those days, Dad was a poet. After the Korean War he went to college on the GI Bill, studying English, but my birth put an end to those aspirations. To support us, he worked construction, pumped gas, drove a milk route and worked in a pre-fab building yard. We moved in and out of my maternal grandmother’s house when he was between jobs, but I felt secure. He built me a playhouse out of refrigerator boxes and took it with us on each move.

That was in the days before he got sick, as we called it, those intermittent bouts of deep depression and rage followed by honeymoons of apologies and incredible energy. I inherited my bi-polar from him, though we didn’t call it that then. Finally he took up long haul trucking, which gave him the solitude he needed and afforded us some relief from the chaos. He didn’t get treatment until I was 19 and gone from the house, so my memories are tainted by those days.

By the time he was the age I am now, he was a grandfather, still spending 10 days at a time on the road. We worked out a fragile relationship based on football, pinochle and my first daughter. Then I moved away and took her with me. It took him years to forgive me for that.

Dad has worked hard his whole life, only retiring last year at 70. It’s only been recently that I’ve thought of how many dreams he gave up to take care of us the best he could. The years of physical labor have taken a toll on his health, making his days now a round of drugs and bottled oxygen. He still struggles with depression but age has mellowed him and he handles it better than when he was younger.

He taught me so many things. I learned to change a tire and rebuilt a carburetor, how to work hard and never give up, and how to make do when times are tough. He gave me a family, not just my siblings but an extended circle of aunts, uncles and cousins to the nth degree. I know that when everything else falls apart, you can count on blood. He taught me that your name is the one thing they can never take away from you and that when someone is in need, you just add more water to the soup. He made me a survivor.

Yesterday I sent him flowers for Father’s Day and he cried on the phone. No one had ever given him flowers before. In the grand scheme of things, it cost so little to give him that much joy.

I should have done it years ago.

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