Dad, My Rock

Just like the little old woman who couldn’t feed her large brood, Dad’s mom couldn’t provide for her many children, but, unlike the woman in the shoe, his mom knew exactly what to do. She sent him and his two brothers from Maine to Mooseheart, Illinois—a town, home and school for orphaned children of Moose members, and a place for children of those members who no longer could afford to raise their children. Dad was part of this latter group.
After graduation from Mooseheart, he met and married Veronica, and they began their journey together through the Great Depression and World War II. He enlisted in the Army, but was turned due to poor vision, classified 4-F—some called him four-eyes. Still, he forged ahead with his ingrained ethics and worked in a nearby town running a printing press.
After work, he helped around the house. He treated Mom like a queen, often cooking, even helping her tuck in the clean bed sheets. (More like the fathers of today than yesterday.) He also fixed leaky faucets and radios of neighbors for extra pocket change, and he was always available to dump the buckets of hot water into the old galvanized tub for his family’s weekly baths.
When he married Mom, she had been deserted by her previous husband and left with two young daughters. At one point, the ex-husband stole the two girls away. Dad set out hunting for them and wouldn’t quit until he found them in another state—left alone, huddled together, soiled, hungry and cold. He grabbed them up and returned them to their frantic mother.
Ten years into their marriage, I came along. Before school age, Dad took me fishing. We dug for worms in the back yard, and then walked downtown to a spot behind the library. He taught me to thread a worm on a hook just as the sun glistened on the water. After we caught enough, he cooked the fish and ate our delectable dish, just as the little town bustled to life.
Dad and I ventured into the woods as the leaves crunched under our feet, and gathered green walnuts. He used an ice pick and hammer to cut holes in an old Mason jar lid, so I could catch fireflies. He repaired the plumbing to our cast-iron, claw-footed tub by squeezing through a trap door in the bathroom’s floor.
However, when he left to fetch another tool, I came tearing through the house into the bathroom and fell straight through the gaping hole, scraping my sides from the waist to my underarms. After tending to my wounds, Dad continued to apologize afterwards for weeks.
Dad fixed appliances, painted the house and planted vegetables. His green thumb produced gorgeous irises and blazing colored tulips. He proudly added a little white picket fence around his chock-full, blooming beds.
When my school was about to hold a spring dance, I begged Dad for a new dress. He sat me down and showed me where all the money had to go and why there wasn’t enough. But later, he and Mom scrimped on meals, pulled together all their loose change, and he even slipped a little extra into my allowance. All so I could prance off to the dance in a new dress.
Dad toted an adolescent to football games, potlucks and concerts. He took turns standing in the pouring rain, so his adult daughter could receive unemployment, and he trudged out in sub-zero weather to start her stalled car. When his divorced daughter needed assistance, he fixed a broken furnace and vacuum, and then slipped her a $20 bill to feed her kids. “Don’t tell Mom,” he said.
I thought he’d taught me all he could, until I found a scrap of paper with a little poem that he’d written long before I became a twinkle in his eyes. My darling, my life, You’ve agreed to be my wife… Up until that moment, I didn’t know he shared my love of writing. He gave so much—his knowledge, patience, compassion, dignity, and good old fashioned morals. Dad was my rock—the mountain I built my life on. He will be missed forever.

REMEMBERING MOM

Mom scrubbed the dirty clothes on the metal rungs of a washboard causing her knuckles to turn red and even raw. Then, when I turned ten, we purchased an electric wringer washer and Mom taught me how to stick the garment between the two rollers and wait for the garment to slowly make its way through the wringer, sqooshing out all the dirty water.
When I filled the basket with clean damp clothes, I carried them outside making sure to pin the shirts and dresses upside down, like Mom said, “…so no mark is left in the shoulders.” Then, I lifted the clothesline high in the sky with the six-foot pole so the garments could catch the spring breeze. One thing’s for sure, all of today’s fragrance-filled dryer sheets can’t compete with yesterday’s fresh, clean scent of clothes hung outside.
One time, while operating the electric wringer, I caught my hand in it. My scream could be heard for blocks. (I had a really good set of lungs.) Mother came running down the stairs and hit the escape bar, freeing my hand. Then she prepared a wet towel filled with ice cubes and folded it around my hand.
Because of my mother’s love and care, I received no permanent damage. But, she wasn’t always kind. One day, I sassed her, and she slapped my face. Even Dad would punish me if he heard me talk back to her. But a lesson was learned: Hold my tongue where she was concerned, and do as Dad said, “Give her the respect she deserves.”
When I remember those golden days, I think of Mom’s cooking—the aroma of a roast simmering for hours in the pressure cooker or the cooked liver with fried onions. My tummy could hardly wait to savor Sunday dinner. When Mom prepared liver, I actually ate it. However, I’ve never come across it prepared to my liking since then.
I also don’t like Ovaltine. Although, when Mom offered me the drink as a child, I thought I’d just been lifted into heaven. I loved chocolate, and Mom said I could have the crystals mixed in my milk every day! “It’s good for you,” she said. Now, I can’t for the life of me understand how I drank that stuff with all those little chunks, invariably left in the bottom of the glass.
Since money was tight, Mom would often take my older sisters’ outgrown clothes and sew them into a new blouse or skirt for me. In a picture, I’m wearing a plaid taffeta blouse and velvet vest that Mom made from hand-me-downs. Mom could make a castaway look like a brand new, store-bought garment.
When I was three, Dad and I walked to town on Monday evening and met Mom as she left the retail shop where she worked. Then, the three of us strolled home, admiring the flickering stars and well-dressed mannequins in store windows. My parents nodded at others strolling past, a seemingly lost art today. I trotted briskly between the two holding their hands. I felt safe and protected.
When we came to an unusually high curb, I lifted my feet off the ground and swung out, while clenching my parents’ hands. Mom held on, but slipped off the foot-high curb. She broke her ankle. Later in life, she needed a cane to support it. She never blamed me, though. “It was an accident,” she often reminded me.
As a toddler, I shed my clothes in front of the neighbor kids. Mom came running and grabbed me up in a blanket, and then dashed me inside. And, I can still see her darting outside with a flaming wastebasket in her arms. (I’d ‘accidentally’ struck a match, and dropped the hot stick in the basket.)
I pulled plenty of shenanigans during my young years. Perhaps, I even set some kind of record. However, no matter how much mischief I got into, she always forgave and protected me. Mom was like her warm, straight from the oven, home-baked apple pie—always and forever the best.