What Makes A Father: Personifications and Ruminations and the Flavor of My Viewpoint
Posted: Wednesday, June 15, 2011
by Al Case
http://www.alcasebooks.com/
I looked in the mirror the other day, and I saw my father.
White hair, lines, and the eyes. Ah, yes...the eyes. They say the soul is in those things, but...hmm. What makes a father?
A wife makes a father, as do sons and daughters, but what is that, really? Each person flavors the world with his viewpoint, and so little is seen. So little is understood.
He was born in 1903, came west on a train in 1910. Took a week. A week of seeing untended country, vast forests, ravines and rivers, blue skies that never seemed to end.
He carried a rifle when he was eleven--to and from school. If he saw game he was expected to bring it home. He had five brothers and sisters and they were hungry. His own father, you see, was a drunk.
Went to the library every day, brought home a half a dozen books a night, scoured them. Became expert in electronics. Drew exquisite flowers. He dropped out of the school after nine grades. Somebody had to work.
One day he came home and found pa beating on ma, so he and one the other brothers took pa out and beat on him. That was the way you handled wife beaters in those days. Pa disappeared from those parts.
When his brothers agreed to stay home and take care of ma, he joined the Coast Guard. He was a mustanger, went through World War Deuce, was proud of the fact that he went through the greatest war in history and never killed a man.
Towards the end of his thirty year stint he started his own family: a wife, two sons, and a daughter. It was a nuclear family, Leave It to Beaver, and he became an engineer.
He was an engineer because he educated himself, and the United States government selected him to make ball bearings. Don’t laugh. You’ll find them in one of those United States Departments having to do with Weights and Measures. They had to be perfect you see.
Made some other doodads, they ended up going up in one of the first space missions, but I didn’t care about that. I cared about the neat thing he brought home called a tape recorder. He was an engineer at this company that just started up called Ampex. He finally quit that company and went to work for another little start up company named Memorex
We used to go out on the driveway at night and look at the stars. We’d look through one of the nifty telescopes he made. The one I remember the best was a twelve inch reflector, and he had stood in the garage every night for six months grinding the mirror by hand. Where do you find a telescope mirror grinder? Back in the fifties you made it by hand. We could look right down inside the very craters of the moon with that thing. Brought the universe a little closer.
He chopped the branches off our apricot tree. We all stood around and stared at it. It was just a trunk with a bunch of ugly stumps on it. He stuck some twigs into the stumps, and a year later we had peaches.
Ma died, and he got lonely. He didn’t quit, had the family to take care of, so he did what he had to do. When the last chicken had flown the coop, however, he moved on. Did it quietly. He said he always wanted to play a good game of golf, then sit down and die. We found him in his easy chair, his golf shoes still on, fresh grass in the cleats and tees in his pocket. I trust he had a good game.
In all the years that I knew him, I can honestly say that I didn’t know him. I never asked him about life and the war and the depression and what it was to be a world class engineer. I was just a little too busy flavoring life with my viewpoint
Over the years, however, in spite of my viewpoint, I feel that I came to know him, and maybe even understand him.
What is a father? It’s in the eyes, man. It’s in the eyes.
Politics got you down? Country in a mess? Change your viewpoint at thedailyneutron.com
White hair, lines, and the eyes. Ah, yes...the eyes. They say the soul is in those things, but...hmm. What makes a father?
A wife makes a father, as do sons and daughters, but what is that, really? Each person flavors the world with his viewpoint, and so little is seen. So little is understood.
He carried a rifle when he was eleven--to and from school. If he saw game he was expected to bring it home. He had five brothers and sisters and they were hungry. His own father, you see, was a drunk.
Went to the library every day, brought home a half a dozen books a night, scoured them. Became expert in electronics. Drew exquisite flowers. He dropped out of the school after nine grades. Somebody had to work.
One day he came home and found pa beating on ma, so he and one the other brothers took pa out and beat on him. That was the way you handled wife beaters in those days. Pa disappeared from those parts.
When his brothers agreed to stay home and take care of ma, he joined the Coast Guard. He was a mustanger, went through World War Deuce, was proud of the fact that he went through the greatest war in history and never killed a man.
Towards the end of his thirty year stint he started his own family: a wife, two sons, and a daughter. It was a nuclear family, Leave It to Beaver, and he became an engineer.
He was an engineer because he educated himself, and the United States government selected him to make ball bearings. Don’t laugh. You’ll find them in one of those United States Departments having to do with Weights and Measures. They had to be perfect you see.
Made some other doodads, they ended up going up in one of the first space missions, but I didn’t care about that. I cared about the neat thing he brought home called a tape recorder. He was an engineer at this company that just started up called Ampex. He finally quit that company and went to work for another little start up company named Memorex
We used to go out on the driveway at night and look at the stars. We’d look through one of the nifty telescopes he made. The one I remember the best was a twelve inch reflector, and he had stood in the garage every night for six months grinding the mirror by hand. Where do you find a telescope mirror grinder? Back in the fifties you made it by hand. We could look right down inside the very craters of the moon with that thing. Brought the universe a little closer.
He chopped the branches off our apricot tree. We all stood around and stared at it. It was just a trunk with a bunch of ugly stumps on it. He stuck some twigs into the stumps, and a year later we had peaches.
Ma died, and he got lonely. He didn’t quit, had the family to take care of, so he did what he had to do. When the last chicken had flown the coop, however, he moved on. Did it quietly. He said he always wanted to play a good game of golf, then sit down and die. We found him in his easy chair, his golf shoes still on, fresh grass in the cleats and tees in his pocket. I trust he had a good game.
In all the years that I knew him, I can honestly say that I didn’t know him. I never asked him about life and the war and the depression and what it was to be a world class engineer. I was just a little too busy flavoring life with my viewpoint
Over the years, however, in spite of my viewpoint, I feel that I came to know him, and maybe even understand him.
What is a father? It’s in the eyes, man. It’s in the eyes.
Politics got you down? Country in a mess? Change your viewpoint at thedailyneutron.com
This Article has been viewed 1,031 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Nice one, AI. Honestly or ironically , even I myself felt this way that I thought I knew my father well enough yet, I didn't really know him good enough.Thanks Hilda. In an odd but out of the blue aside, I just found out I'm going to be a grandfather. Blessings to all!Congratulations to you, AI on being promoted one level up. Many blessings !
Funny how you can be around someone all your life and feel you never really knew him. I understand that. Sounds odd, but I love the way your dad checked out, or the way you wrote it. By the way Al, congratulations on becoming a grandfather in the near future. Nice!Hi Brianna, thanks for the kind words. People should always go out on a high. I think I'll do a Tai Chi work out...then pass. But not for twenty years or so. Grin. Take care. Al
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.