My father (June 19, 1911-January 30, 1998). Auto Mechanic Extraordinaire and Best Dad in the World, today is your 111th birthday!
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| Dad in his twenties |
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| Dad, in his sixties, is on the left. |
Dad's personal appearance changed little at all since he reached0 his sixties, never mind that he lived to be over 86 years old. And because Mom died over 10 years before Dad did, I got to know my father so well. Overall, those 10 years were wonderful years.
I miss you, Dad — even though these words so apply to our relationship:
"Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still -- real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever" (from How Green Was My Valley).
I don't know what Dad's favorite song was, but I do know that the award-winning 1941 movie How Green Was My Valley was his favorite film. When Dad and Mom were dating, this film was the one movie which he took her to see at the cinema when the film was re-released to theaters in 1950:
111? . Were my dad still with us, he'd be 94 (born 11/28/27). When I graduated from the Academy in '79 and got married, I returned with my bride to California and stayed in his Apartment with my younger brother as he spent all his time starting up his art gallery across the mountains near the beach, He was also courting several women (as my mother had died in early '77).
ReplyDeleteI think I lost most of my former respect for him during this time. I had to intervene in several of his relationships on behalf of the women he courted, and bail him out after a drunk driving arrest. My younger brother moved in with us, as my dad had bought a trailer home in a trailer park near the beach and his failing art gallery and was no longer using the apartment in San Jose.
Eventually he met my step mom, married her, closed the art gallery and moved to Hawaii. He became his former self, after that, and I regained most of my lost respect for him. He died a few years ago, and I now miss him, too.
Dad didn't marry until he was 39 years old. He was quite the man about town in his bachelorhood. Once he married, however, he stopped being the man about town.
DeleteDad was 76 when Mom died -- and still didn't return to being the man about town. Although at least two widows tried to give chase. LOL.
Yes, remarriages can be tough. The "in-between" is a time of profound vulnerability. I'm so glad that for both you and Warren, that "perilous gap' has been successfully crossed. Happy Father's Day!
Delete-FJ
FJ,
DeleteWarren and I are so lucky to have found each other at this stage of our lives! And I know that Dad would have approved! Warren and Dad are alike in many ways.
A very nice remembrance..
ReplyDeleteBunkerville,
DeleteThank you.
Yes, indeed. I love the opening hymn of the miners returning from work. The Welsh were a singing nation.
ReplyDeleteBAYSIDER
Baysider,
DeleteI love the old hymns! Maybe it's my Welsh blood (Mom's side of the family).
God bless our Heavenly Father, our own fathers, and all fathers. I miss my dad everyday and think of him everyday. I still forget and pick up the phone sometimes to call him, then I remember ...
ReplyDeleteL,
DeleteEnough time has gone by for me to stop reaching for the phone.
It's coming up on three years since my father passed away. I miss arguing the divide between paleoconservatives and libertarians with him. Now all I have is his library, which doubled in size when we cleaned out his father's library. Anybody want a dusty old book on just about any historical, philosophical, political, religious, or hard science subject ever printed? There's a good chance I have a copy lol.
ReplyDeleteThe smell of old books... that's my dad.
I should add that my dad wrote comments in the margins of many of the books he owned, sometimes insightful glimpses of what he thought about what he was reading. In many ways, Dad is still with me. He didn't document those thoughts for himself...
DeleteTC,
DeleteI wish that I had something like that from my Dad.
TC,
DeleteI wish that I had something like that from my Dad.
Addendum: I do have a book that Dad's mother gave to him nearly a century ago: Paleface and Redskins by F. Antsey. It's a book of short stories.
DeleteAccording to the blub at Amazon:
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it....