Some Thoughts on My Daddy

Time for another Daddy story, I think.

While not tremendously huge, Daddy was a big man. He grew up from large stock. Every male in his mother's family was at least six feet tall. Don't know much about Daddy's daddy. He never married Daddy's mother. In 1924 that was a BIG deal. Daddy suffered for it all through his youth. But Daddy stood 6'2" tall, and by the time he was in his forties weighed around two hundred pounds. Only Daddy had been driving truck for a good many of those years. That was not two hundred pounds of fat. Daddy was solid.

As I have mentioned before, Daddy's relatives were cruel people. They tortured him - until he became large enough to put a stop to it. Once Daddy reached teenager size, the men left him alone. In that family that was saying something. They were mean, and they liked to fight.

They tried to break up Daddy's marriage. They didn't like my mother. This resulted in us not seeing them for more than eight years. Finally, Daddy's mother came to him and apologized. Something else that family was not noted for doing. But love will win out eventually. How long can a woman avoid her only child because she hates his wife? Grandma came to accept my mother - in her fashion. My mother reciprocated.

One of Daddy's strongest traits was his loyalty. He stood with people he knew were in the wrong for no other reason than that they had stood with him in the past when he was in need. He would never forget a favor. Eventually, he forgave wrongs. Something else his mother's family was not noted for doing.

For a while we lived next door to one of Daddy's aunts. It happened to be his favorite aunt: Julia. Julia had been the one person who had sought to protect Daddy from the torture inflicted on him by his uncles. She was the smallest of the nine children, and so it wasn't easy for her. Daddy never forgot it.

The family hated Julia's choice of husband.

Harold was just a little guy. Not much bigger than Julia herself. And he was nothing like his brothers-in-law. I remember Harold as being funny and fun.

The story is still told how one day one of Julia's brothers came to Harold's door in order to "rough him up". What my great-uncle (what a terrible use of the word "great") didn't know was that Daddy was at Harold's house that afternoon. When Harold opened the door, it blocked Daddy from view.

The brother-in-law became abuse and threatening. However, before he could exact any of his threats, Daddy had come around the door, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifted him off the ground, and told him there would be no fighting this day - unless it were between the two of them. When he set his uncle back on the ground the uncle ran to his car and did not come back.

Daddy was no-nonsense. He would have made a horrible diplomat. Arouse his anger at your own risk. He grew up in hard times with a hard life. I remember when the local drunk threatened to come to our place and kill our dogs (because they wouldn't let him out of the car to try and get at my mother) Daddy came home from the bar (yes, he spent more time there than was good for anyone) and stood in the yard with a deer rifle. When the police arrived they told him to make sure he threw the guy INto the house after killing him. Then shoot him again. That way he was legally protecting his family. But the man didn't return. Not when Daddy was around. Did come when it was just Mother and a few of us kids. Unfortunately for the drunk, Mother was no less inhibited about using firearms than Daddy. When he saw me rushing the shotgun to her, drunk man left and never came back.

Daddy also attended one parent-teacher meeting in his life. It was the meeting which took place shortly after a teacher had tortured me. Daddy went to the meeting and waited until it was time for parent questions. His hand went up first. He stood and announced why he was there and threatened to kill the teacher. I was never tortured again.

I suppose to modern sensibilities, these are horrible stories. But life was different forty, fifty, eighty years ago. People in the country were truly on their own. There was no police force to come and help. It could be two hours or more before they could arrive. (It took six hours for them to arrive the night of the drunk. And that was after they had been told about an incident involving a gun. There just wasn't enough police to cover such a huge area.) When our house caught fire it was already a loss before we even heard the sirens. There was no help in the country. None. Sometimes the nearest neighbor was miles away. We were on our own. And we learned to live that way.

I guess it's part of what made loyalty such a great prize. It was hard to be loyal. For anyone. So when anyone was, you knew you had a friend you could count on. Was it uncivilized? Absolutely. But there was no civilization to speak of.

For myself, I admire my Daddy more than any other man - or woman - I have ever known in my life. He was not a perfect man by any means. Not yours. Not mine. Not his own. But if I could even be like him I would know I would be twice the man I am. Just a little bigger. What I wouldn't give to know he was proud of me. I'll have to wait until I see him again.

I will, you know. Some day.