I didn’t know my father despite the fact I was his only son and I lived under the same roof with him for nearly two decades.
As children all we know is what is in our immediate field of view. You have what you have and that's the measure of most things. With some age we begin to take notice of more than parents and home. When I visited with school friends I sensed something different. My friends seemed connected to their dads in more relaxed ways than I was accustomed to with my father.
How I saw things
During his 30s and through his 50s he was a big man, six foot two, maybe 250 pounds, no fat; just muscle and he moved almost silently when he walked.
He had a high school education and said he had been offered a college football scholarship but turned it down because he needed to financially assist his parents and his siblings. He was the only one of three brothers to not work in coalmines. Instead, he served in the Air Force, eventually mustering out as a master sergeant. As a civilian, he worked for the Air Force until his retirement.
Fishing, playing his harmonica, reading a newspaper and ‘puttering” in his workshop, those were the things he enjoyed. He took pride in repairing broken appliances, lawnmowers and other common objects.
He occasionally read magazines, such as Popular Mechanics, but he didn’t read books, didn’t go to movies, the theater or museums. Too infrequently there were trips to Candlestick Park and watching the Giants and even less frequently we went to 49ers games. We didn't go to many games because my parents said sports tickets were too expensive. Yet, I believe business associates gifted the Giants and 49ers tickets to him.
Owning a new car was important to him. Every two years he’d spar for hours with car salesmen and then come home with a new Chevy. He never bought the top model or the plainest; he always bought the four-door model just below the snazzy ones.
He rarely drank liquors and contrary to our proximity to Nevada, he rarely went to Tahoe's state line or the casinos in Reno. When he did gamble he used the one-armed bandits, the 25-cent slot machines.
He never watched me play sports, never attended my Little League games or high school events. I could tell he feigned interest when I talked of my other school events. Contrary to this indifference he repeatedly stressed the importance of college - but said nothing about the how or where of college.
When I said I wanted to be an artist he said, ‘no’ and then had people he knew drop by for visits specifically so they could tell me being an artist was a poor career choice. Because of the pressure I conceded. He told me to be an engineer.
His daily schedule was very predictable. Up early, waking me up because he kept his work clothes in my bedroom closet, then to work, home again, a few home chores, reading the paper while in his favorite chair, TV with dinner, TV after dinner and bed. Rarely was their conversation and I don’t remember many questions about my schoolwork except at report card time.
Weekends, principally during every spring and summer, we did what he decided we would do - generally it was camping or the annual car trips to visit east coast relatives.
During these visits he would hang out with his brothers, sisters and old friends. Big picnics, with lots of beer and food, were common and his favorite activity was playing horseshoes.
He was an avid fisherman. As with everything else in our house, he was frugal and had minimal fishing gear - a small tackle box, two poles and two reels, one for large fish and one for small fish. I tagged along with him because that’s what young sons were supposed to do. He would sit quietly for hours and do nothing but watch the fishing line while I scampered on riverbanks, climbed trees and did other aimless adventures and I suspect he was disappointed that I didn’t fish. He had two favorite fishing excursions: Going for striped bass in the Sacramento River and trout fishing in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Once in a while he went deer or pheasant hunting but he never killed anything. I suspected he did the hunting thing because it got him out of the house. From appearances I guessed what he enjoyed most was walking the fields and woods and bantering with his hunting buddies. I have no idea what they were talking about when at the campsites but they did seem to laugh quite a bit.
What I finally realized was he enjoyed fishing for other reasons. Fishing was something he had done in his youth with his brothers and the past had a strong grip on his make-up and beliefs. Despite decades in California, he talked mostly of his earlier life in Pennsylvania. In fact, he was more animated and happy when recalling his youth and life before California than he was concerning whatever our current life was.
Fishing also meant time away from my mother. She wasn’t always the nicest person with my dad. She complained and nagged him about this and that and her intense temper tantrums would often flair to such a degree I hid wherever I could. For his part, despite his size and despite her diminutive statue, he seemed to silently roll with her moods and temper. I don’t recall a single angry word ever coming from his lips. I wondered on more than a few occasions why they didn’t get a divorce - and I recall always hoping they would.
When I left for college he had only one piece of advice, “Don’t let a girl get her hooks into you.” That was it and it was up to me to interpret the depth of this comment.
With his retirement they bought a modest sized trailer and spent months a year traveling through the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Their most frequent trips were back to where he grew up, and they often stayed for months.
In his teen years he had worked at some type of shop that made items from leather. When he retired he bought a few tools for leather crafting and, from memory, began making braided leather things ... bullwhips, black jacks, key fobs, purses and such. He sold a few things and got some media notice for his complex braiding. From this publicity a few people found him and asked him to teach them what was essentially a lost skill. He always said no, stating that he didn’t want to be bothered and he didn’t feel these people were serious enough.
He smoked unfiltered Camels most of his life. Feeling ill, he visited a doctor who told him to quit smoking or to expect more misery and early death. He did quit but it was too late, smoking killed him.
Epilog
Parents and children are akin to arrows passing each other, going in different directions. Rarely do children understand their parents, partly because parents tend to muffle their personal stories and partly because when parents are at their mental and physical peaks their children are too young to comprehend the subtly of their parents.
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