Pics of Dad...just a couple.

Thinking of Dad tonight, so I thought I'd post a few pics I found recently.

 I believe this was at Aunt Joanne's house on the 4th of July weekend back in 1992.  Dad was always pretty happy whenever we visited his family.

This is in the backyard at Mom and Dad's house in Elkhart, Indiana, early/mid 90's.  This is really how I remember him best.  The man wore...well...THIS.  All the time.  If it was cold, he'd wear a denim jacket.  Seriously, his closet was filled with nothing but jeans and these shirts.  He either wore cowboy boots or velcro tennis shoes.  That's just how he rolled.  Those of you who knew him are nodding 'yes' right now, yes you are.

Miss you, Dad!

Strike!!

My parents were avid bowlers.  I remember being very young and spending a lot of time at the bowling alley in Angleton, reading comic books while they bowled.  We had one of those old, massive tv sets in our front room, and it was covered with trophies, both from his kart racing days and from all the bowling tournaments he and mom had won over the years.  As Dad got older, he continued to play whenever the opportunity arose, and he always did pretty well.

Sometimes, when we would fly up to Indiana to visit them, we would go bowling.  And he would kick our butts.  It was crazy.  He continued doing well even when his sight started to fail due to the side effects of some medication.  This mystified me, but I had learned over the years to expect Dad to find ways to overcome most obstacles.  I asked him about it after he just finished beating me.  Again.

"Well, you know I can't see the pins no more, but I never looked at the pins no ways.  You see them little arrows on the floor over there?" he gestured at the lane, and I looked over and saw what he meant.  "They tell you where the ball's gonna go, so I just use them.  Now, I can't see them neither, but I know where they are."  In his late 70's, the man was blind as a bat and was still a better bowler than me.

A Simple Solution

I was sitting at the table, eating breakfast, and my Dad was reading the newspaper in his usual seat.  It was a quiet, ordinary morning.  I'm pretty sure I was eating Froot Loops at the time.  Mom had already been up, made breakfast for herself and Dad, and then disappeared into the bedroom to do whatever Mom did back there in the morning.  It was a nice, quiet time.  Some minutes later, my Mom came walking slowly down the hall with an odd look on her face, her right arm held out like a German salute, her left hand probing her right shoulder.  She started rotating that arm in little circles.  Apparently, something in that shoulder was bothering her.

"Dad?" she asked, a certain amount of concern in her voice.

"Mm-hmm?" he replied without looking away from his paper.  When she didn't respond right away, he let his paper drop and looked up at her, only to see her standing there, still moving her outstretched arm in little circles.

"It hurts when I do that," she said, a pained expression on her face.

Dad paused for a few seconds and then looked at me.  I could see in his face that he'd been waiting for this moment for a looooong time.  He turned back to her.

"Well, don't do that," he replied, just as straight-faced as he could manage. 

Mom glared at him and then turned to walk back to the bedroom, still moving her arm in those little circles.

That's when he busted out laughing.  He laughed so hard that his face turned purple and I thought I might have to resuscitate him, which would have been difficult since I was laughing as well.  Dad was always one for finding the simplest way to solve a problem.

Ok, so maybe you had to be there, but Dad and I thought this was hilarious.  Mom did not.

"Well, there's your problem..."

From an early age, my Dad learned how to be a decent mechanic.   He didn't have just a ton of money growing up, so it was always cheaper to fix things himself, and he really seemed to enjoy it.  He ran a lawnmower repair shop as a young man, raced go-karts, and preferred to make repairs on all of his own vehicles, so he was pretty well-versed in how to keep engines running.  Having only one hand made the process a bit slower sometimes, but he never complained about that, other than to holler at me on occasion to hold something in place while he did something else to it.  As I came of an age to have my own car, he insisted on showing me how to change the tires, change the oil, check the other fluids, and do basic maintenance on it. 

Back in the early 90's, we both worked at BASF Corporation in Freeport, Tx.  I had bought his old truck, a 1988 Jeep Comanche.  He had once run it off the road and spun out into a barbed wire fence during a rainstorm, so it was already scratched and beat up all to heck and back before I ever got it, but the engine worked just fine.  I had gone to lunch one afternoon and as I made the turn off of the highway to head towards the plant, my truck died.  Just up and died.  I coasted to the side of the road and tried to restart it without success.  I was stumped.  Battery cables attached just fine, and the lights all worked.  Gas was nearly empty, but I'd driven it far beyond that point before.  There were no odd noises, it just wouldn't start.  I pulled out my giant cellphone and called Dad.

Dad was there in just a few minutes, and pulled his Dodge Dakota in behind me.  I saw him step out of the truck, and walk up to my window, which I had already rolled down.  He twirled his finger at me, telling me to try to start the engine, and he poked his head in to listen and to look at the dashboard while I did so.  I tried to start it...no luck.  Dad pulled his head back out of my truck and looked at me with this odd expression.  Then he looked skyward for a moment, took a deep breath, and turned and walked back to his truck, got in, and drove away.  I was left completely bewildered by his wordless departure.

Just a few minutes later, he pulled back in behind me.  He leisurely got out, and brought a brand new gas can with him.  Without a word, he flipped open my gas tank cover, unscrewed the lid, and proceeded to pour gas into my tank.  While he did this, he continued to look at the sky.  I'm pretty sure he was concentrating on taking slow, deep breaths at that point.  When the gas can was empty, he closed everything up, strolled back up to me and twirled his finger again.

It started right up.

Apparently, I had been mistaken in regards to just how empty my tank had really been.  He gave me that odd look again, shook his head, and walked back to his truck.  Not a word had been said the entire time, and I was left feeling like the world's biggest idiot.

I laugh so hard when I think of that day.  Since then, I've never run out of gas again...every time the needle gets close to the E, I remember Dad, looking at the sky as he held the gas can up to my truck.  I always chuckle and pull over to gas up right then.  Thanks for the lesson, Dad...you taught it well.

One-Handed Water Skiing

My Dad always loved water skiing. He had a blue boat (the 'Powercat') that we'd take out to Bastrop Bayou, and Mom and Dad, family and friends would ski until everyone was exhausted, or until it got too dark to ski anymore. There are a handful of incidents that bear retelling...

First, it should be known that my father lost his left hand in an industrial accident while in his late thirties. There was quite a bit of stress and pain, many sleepless nights as a result, but after several surgeries to alleviate the pain from the injury, Dad never looked back. He went right back to doing all the things he used to do.

There was one time when he had his left forearm bandaged from surgery, and he had been told not to get it wet. Well, apparently, he took the advice quite seriously. He figured he'd better be extra-careful while water skiing!

My Mom remembers telling him constantly, "Hey, the doctor said for you not to get those bandages wet!" To which he replied, "They're not getting wet! See?" And he'd wave his bandaged stump at her from behind the boat, where he skied happily along.

At one point, the bandages came unraveled and fluttered off to land in the water, and Mom nearly lost her mind. Dad responded by saying "Mary...the doctor said not to get my stitches wet...the bandages don't matter." And he showed off his perfectly dry stitches.

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Another time, he was skiing along, and apparently thought that he would be the coolest of the cool if he could let go of the tow rope, ski up the bank, and sit in his lawnchair among the assembled family and friends. Mom could do it, so he figured that he could certainly pull it off as well. The plan was working fine until he neared the bank, and his ski got caught by something underwater, bringing it to an abrupt, dead stop. Dad, of course, did not stop, but did his best imitation of Superman as a result.

He told me, "It's funny how time slows down during something like that. I realized that I was headed straight for a bed of sharp oyster shells. I thought to myself, 'Dummy...you're about to put your nose down among them shells!' So I rolled over in the air and just got my back all scratched up. It hurt."

He decided not to try that particular stunt again. There were other stunts instead, but those are entirely different stories.

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And then there was the mullet. The fish, not the hairstyle. They can apparently be quite excitable. My Mom was driving the boat, and Dad was having tons of fun skiing on both skis for a change. Suddenly, a fish jumped out of the water, and smacked Dad right in the breadbasket. I can only imagine the sound he made. The wind had been completely knocked out of him, so he crouched down on his skiis like a downhill snowskier, and rode like that for awhile. Once he got his breath back, he stood up again, and skied on as though nothing had happened.

"Why didn't you just let go of the rope when it hit you?" I asked.

"Are you kidding? That dumb fish knocked the wind right out of me! I figured if I let go, I'd have drowned myself!"

Well, he didn't drown himself. As usual, he took the hit, endured, and just kept on rolling. Seems like he was always like that. Nothing fazed him much. Whatever happened, he would find a way to just keep moving forward.

So if a giant fish jumps out of the water and smacks the wind right out of you, just hunker down, hang on, and wait until you can stand up again. Thanks for the lesson, Dad.

Pics from the Past

Wow. Mom's finally pointed me to box after box of old pics, mementos, and old documents. I'm speechless. For now, I'm posting only a couple of pics of Dad that I've uncovered. More, and the stories that accompany them, will eventually follow.



Dad's Platoon. Below is what he marked on the back of the photo.



And here's what I assume to be Dad's first Dow employee badge. I hear that these things are worth some money. Thanks anyway, but I'm keeping this thing.



And here's my when he married my mom.



There's more to come. Thanks for checking in.

Pics of Dad

We're here at Mom's house for the holidays, and I've discovered that she not only has a scanner, but has tons of family pics. Many of these are hidden in frames behind other pics. You see, she never actually takes them out of the frames...she just adds newer ones in front of the old ones.

Anyway, here are some pics I've recently found. I'll do my best to put them in order from oldest to newest. If anyone knows his age or anything else about these pics, feel free to let me know.



Dad and sister Bessie. He's a teenager here.



Dad lied about his age to enter the military. He's about 17 in this shot, on the left.



Here's all of his brothers and sisters. From the left, Bessie, Joann, Ollie Mae, Sissy, William, Buddy, and Johnny.



Not sure how old Dad is here...probably early 20's.

Since I'm here with the family, I'll be collecting more stories and pictures. As always, if you have any you'd like to share, send 'em my way!