My Father...

I wasn't going to write anything about dad for Father's Day. He died in 1996 at the age of 92. The photo of my dad and his family was taken in the late Twenties. He's the second from the right on the back row. Dad was born in 1903. He had two brothers and five sisters. Mom always said that his mom and sisters spoiled him before she ever got hold of him.

We always told mom that she had a whole bunch of stars in her crown for putting up with him. Dad was ornery as dirt, loved cornball jokes and puns. He was a church-going man and would, upon occasion when we were back in Tennessee for family reunions, give a Sunday sermon at a little old backwoods church. He taught Sunday school for many years and was a member of Methodist Men's Club for longer than I can remember.

Dad and two partners were Phillips 66 jobbers since the mid-Thirties. Dad and mom got married in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1930. He and mom then made their home in Okla. City, Oklahoma,and started their family with the birth of my oldest brother in 1931. He went to college at John Brown College in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and that was where he and mom met. He was four years and a couple of months older than mom and he was so full of mischief, always cutting up and teasing whenever he was out of class. He worked at the dairy at the school to help pay for his education in accounting.

Dad was also a stubborn, quick-tempered butthead. He and I clashed more than once from my teen years on. This man that would read the Sunday funny papers to us kids to try to keep us clean until mom got dressed and we headed for church would tan our heinies if we stepped out of line on one of his bad days. I have the patience of Job compared to my dad. Mom said we locked horns because we were so much alike. Man, I hated that! But I will confess to fighting a hair trigger temper all my life. I don't ever want to hurt somebody with an angry torrent of words.
That hurt more and stayed with me longer than any whipping I ever had, and I had more than one and all were well earned.

My dad loved taking us kids to the wrestlin' matches at the Stockyards Colisuem in south west Okla. City. He enjoyed taking us and grandkids to the Okla. City Zoo. Dad was not athletic, but he and mom both encouraged me and my younger brother in whatever sports we chose to persue. He never griped at us for digging a hole in the yard to make a kicking tee for a football and he would play catch with us some when we were little and it just fascinated us that he could throw right and left handed.

The only two times I ever heard my daddy swear was once at me and the other time was because of me. It was hard for me to go to sleep and consequently it was difficult for me to get up. Both times had to do with me not getting up and ready to go to school on time.

All this has been an exercise for me to try to put down mostly the good things that I remember about my dad instead of goin' on about the things that still make me angry. In a lot of ways he was a good example for us kids and others growing up. He loved my mom and was faithful to her for 62 and a half years before she died. He loved all us kids and very much enjoyed having a large family. He and mom mourned my oldest sister's death for 40+ years after she died when she was 23 years old from a brain hemorrage. He was totally fair with us kids when time came to divide up our inheritance, including an equal portion for my oldest sister's 3 children she and her husband had before she died.

So here's to you, dad. It was the best I could come up with this year. Maybe next year I'll have buried a little more of the anger because I really don't want to carry it around anymore. I'll just leave this with a little poem that daddy taught me when I was small...

Roses on my shoulders,
Slippers on my feet.
I'm my daddy's darlin',
Don't you think I'm sweet.

After which mom noted in my baby book I'd always say, "Uh Huh!"

Deaths, Funeralizing And Daddy...

If you all have read my blog for any time at all, you know several things about me, among which is the fact that I don't deal well with death and I am somewhat irreverent. That being said... besides Butch passing, when I called my little brother I found out that my sister in law's best friend's brother died suddenly that same morning and then my sister called me a couple of hours after I had talked to her about Carol and Butch to tell me that one of our cousins in Arkansas had passed away on Saturday, also. She had been in a nursing home for several years and had been pretty bad off from what the cousin that called my sis had said.

I told Sue, my sister, that I guess the good Lord had gone green along with so many of us, that he was taking 'em to heaven by the bus load. My sweet Baptist sister got a good laugh out of that and said it sure seemed like it. I asked her if it was the full moon or what... she, being a nurse, knew exactly what I was talking about, because it seems things happen on the full moon and the new moon. I told her that I didn't think I wanted to answer the phone any more that day.

Then we got to talking about when we'd get a call from Tennessee that some of daddy's sisters or some of the other kin had died, our daddy would always go get the oil changed in the car and check the air pressure in the tires. And always before we left on the trip back to bury whichever one had gone to see Jesus, daddy took a bath, whether it was Saturday or not.

Our dad was from the older generation that took a bath on Saturday, whether you needed it or not, unless you had to go on a trip... then you took a bath before you left the house. Fortunately, he worked inside, bookkeeping, rather than being an outside laborer. I don't ever recall him being sweaty smelling. He'd get outside at home and mow the lawn and pull weeds and johnson grass out of the lawn, and when he was younger, he'd trim the hedges, but mostly he spent his time indoors.

I just thought I'd share this little tidbit with you all, because my brothers, my sister and our cousin have all had a good time talking about these idiosyncrisities the last few days, and I don't want to continue with all this funeralizing talk. We just try to talk about all the good memories and give each other lots of hugs and support.

After all, that is what family is all about...

The Big "50"...

I've been thinking about what I wanted to share with you on this special blog and I think I want to talk about my family for a bit. My father was born in 1903 in Tennessee. Dad loved fun and joking and all us kids teased him and told him he had one leg shorter than the other from walking around the hilly country side in the backwoods of Tennessee.

My mom was born in 1909 in the rip-roaring state of Texas. Her mom and dad had a ranch out in the Texas panhandle around Canadian. When mom was getting up to highschool age, the family moved to Gentry, Arkansas. My father had moved to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and was going to school at John Brown College. Mother enrolled for two years to earn her teaching certificate. And that's where they met and where a life time love was born.

They married in 1930 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, drove to Oklahoma City and lived in that city the rest of their lives. They had six kids over 17 years, 3 boys and 3 girls, and were married for 62 1/2 years when mom died at 85 years of age. My dad followed her home 2 years later at the age of 92. We always told mom, who was a stay-at-home-mom all her life, that she had a bunch of stars in her crown for putting up with dad. Dad always loved a good joke or a pun, loved to play Rook and was a bookkeeper all of his working life.

Now that you know that I wasn't found out in the field under a Prince Albert can, let's get to the good stuff. I wanted to mark my 50th post with something fun. The necklace and earrings pictured above will be given to one of my many (maybe) readers. You know, one of those bribes we all give to try to reap heaps of comments, praise, salutations and/or adulations.... The beads are pressed glass, iridized to give them a little extra pizazz. I picked the color and strung them in a more informal style because it's fall and also it's almost Halloween.

Simply comment telling me how your folks met, or you and your other half, or you and your dog...you get the idea. Tell me about the beginning of a special relationship in your life. All commentors names will be put in a hat with a little peanut butter smeared on one end of the paper and my sweet Chloe will draw the name of the winner.

Comments will be closed at 12 noon CST on Sunday, October 19, 2008, and the winner will be posted Sunday afternoon, or maybe later if I have to chase Chloe down before she eats the name... Did that sound professional?