This is a picture of my dad...taken back in the day, who knows when. My cousin Ted (hey Ted!) started a family group on Face Book and relatives are coming out of the woodwork...so now I am wallowing in memories with no end in sight.
My Dad was a great guy who would give you the shirt off his back literally. He was slow to anger and quick with a joke. He could hold a grudge better than anybody I know and would never ever forget a kindness. He had the typical 8th grade education but the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen for a man. He loved tennis.
He hated to travel and would avoid it at all costs. He wouldn't drink a coke on a bet and finally told me that during the war he was on a troop ship heading to the Aleutian islands and then got re-routed to Japan and the only thing that gave the men to shave and bathe with was coke...
He was ridiculously strong. Once a car fell on him and he pushed it up with his shoulder to crawl out...yet would feed baby kittens with an eye dropper with his baseball mitt size hands. He never ever had a pair of gloves to fit.
He was a proud man, and when I was in high school, his company was on strike for over a year...money was tight, so I never ever asked for a class ring. When he found out...(and they always find out) he was so mad at me and insisted on me having one. I picked the cheapest one I could but never told him that.
He could fix anything, even if it was with duct tape and bailing wire. He insisted the girls learn how to change the oil and tires of the car and made sure we knew how to respect guns. He couldn't cook worth a damn, but I loved his fried corn and burned hamburger balls.
He lost the hearing in one ear during the war but could hear us kids cutting up when we should have been sleeping. And he thought he was 'pretty'...just ask him and he would tell you!
But mostly he was my dad and I miss him.
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