Fathers and Sons

I can't remember when I was told that my father wasn't really my father. I know it was early in my life, because I can hardly remember a time when I was not aware of it. I have a faint recollection of a phone call from my real father when I was very young, and I seem to recall hearing his voice on the other end of the line, but I have no memory of what was said. My mother apparently did not like his calling me. And after that I don't recall that he ever again tried to get in touch with me. Many years later she told me that she had heard that he had died. He was still a relatively young man, in his fifties. Strangely, none of this had much meaning for me. And even now I have no feelings or emotions attached to these memories. I have never even been that curious to know more about him, this real father I never knew. Now that I am nearly sixty years old myself, I find I am only curious to know more about his health and why he died so relatively young.

I suppose much of this has to do with the man that I think of as my real father. He was the only father I ever knew, and like most sons I took him pretty much for granted. He was just always there. I can remember him coming home from work, sometimes playing with me and my brothers, sometimes just sitting down to watch television. He was a working man, and I would have to say a hard working man. On occasion he worked two jobs, all day driving trucks at Kelly Field, one of San Antonio's military bases, and driving a Checker Cab most of the night. Once I remember he worked at Buddies, a root beer stand and high school hang out. He was also a church-going man. All through my childhood and youth we went to church nearly every Sunday, the whole family. Sometimes we went early and stayed for Sunday school, and sometimes we went to Sunday school and stayed for services afterward. My Dad was an elder in the church and took an active role in church activities and leadership.

In fact, that's what I remember most about him, and one of the things I took for granted when I was growing up. My Dad was always willing to take on responsibility. Although I knew that he had never finished high school, had dropped out after the eighth grade to go to work, as many other young men of his generation had done, he was someone that other people depended on and looked to for help and leadership. When I joined the scouts, he became a scout leader, staying on through my time, helping me get my Eagle Scout badge, and then staying on with my younger brothers, moving from one scout troop to another, and eventually starting a troop at our church. He was also an adult leader in the Alamo Area Council; many summers he spent some of his vacation time working at the council's summer camp. And when I wanted to play baseball, he volunteered to coach a YMCA boy's team, eventually staying on to umpire games in the evenings long after I and my brothers had stopped playing. But as I said, I took all of this for granted. He never made us feel that he was making any sacrifice for us. On the contrary, he obviously enjoyed these things very much. I sometimes wondered if he was getting back some of the boyhood he had given up by leaving school and going to work at such an early age.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my Dad. Having taken him for granted for so long, it never occurred to me that someday he would not be there. But that's probably the way many sons feel about their fathers. Our relationship was always good, so good that I never doubted that he loved me as much as he loved my brothers, his own real sons. He was my Dad, the only Dad I knew, and I always assumed he was quite ordinary. It seemed perfectly natural to me that he could do anything and everything that really mattered. He taught my brothers and me to fish and hunt, to build things and make things with our hands, to do hard physical work with little complaining. He knew how to string electric wires, and had those climbing cleats to go up telephone poles, something my mother always worried about. He could also wire an entire house, if it was needed, and he could build it too, or just add on a room. He could put up the frame of two-by-fours, and then do the finishing work with plywood or sheetrock. He could plaster and paint, and put on a roof. My Dad always seemed to have the right tools for any job, and he kept his tools in perfect order. When my brothers and I became interested in cars, he taught us how to work on them, to tear them down and put them back together. And he taught us to have confidence in our own ability to do all of these things, to do whatever needed to be done.

Not that he was perfect. In fact, he sometimes messed up and had to do something over. But he taught us not to be put off by our mistakes. He showed us that you learned from your mistakes and did a better job the next time. And there were also some things that he never did get the hang of. For example, he loved cameras and taking pictures, but he was always cutting off bits of our anatomy, frustrating my mother, who did not see why he couldn't get everyone in the picture. And his home movies were hilarious, especially to the family. Dad had a very avant-garde style of filmmaking, with long panning shots of scenery and water, and quick cuts from one thing to another, from one place to another. Once he somehow managed to take about five minutes inside the camera bag. And then sometimes he broke things, either not meaning to, or in abortive attempts to make repairs. But none of this deterred him or dampened his self-confidence.

The strange thing about most of this is how little impression it made on me at the time. As I have said, I took my Dad for granted. I loved him, and respected him. I listened to him, up to a point. I took his advice on building a camp fire or throwing a baseball. I turned to him for help with rebuilding a carburetor or installing a muffler. From time to time he also passed along some words of wisdom. Once when I was complaining about my junior high school coach, he told me, "Some men can be hard on you and make you love them, but others can do the same thing and make you hate them." He did not explain any further, but I knew what he meant, and he was right. When I moved away to college I assumed he would help me move and do a lot of the heavy lifting. And when I got my first job, he rented a trailer, helped us load it, then drove it five hundred miles, filled with all our possessions, and helped us unload it. Not that it was all one way. Every once in a while my brothers and I pitched in and helped my father and mother with something. That was what we expected. That is what families were supposed to do.

But time passes and sons grow up and move away and start their own families. My Dad taught me many things, but my interests, even at an early age, tended to take me away from him, sometimes in an opposite direction. As I said, when I finally decided to leave scouting behind, my Dad was still at it, scoutmaster for the church's scout troop. Long after I and my younger brothers abandoned playing baseball, my Dad was umpiring and playing on the church's men's softball team. Once in a while we would go to a game and watch him play or umpire. He obviously enjoyed the games. But as I said, I was by then growing away from my Dad. Without realizing how much he was now a part of me, I began my own life, a very different sort of life from the one he had led. I very early learned that I had academic abilities and interests that Dad did not share. He was not much of a reader of books. He read -- the newspapers, magazines, things that interested him. But I rarely saw him reading for pleasure. He was either out doing something or, if not, then relaxing with television. He loved his TV. We were one of the first ones in our neighborhood to get a set, and it seemed that once it was turned on, it was never off, at least not when Dad was around. And yet our house was always filled with books. My mother liked to read, and she had bought all the many sets of children's books that were recommended. We had reading books, craft books, children's encyclopedias, junior classics. And from an early age we were given books for birthdays and on other occasions.

Once I discovered books, it seemed I set off in my own direction. And although my Dad had never finished high school, and my mother had not gone much beyond high school, there was never any doubt that I would go to college. At first, I had a very practical goal. I had done well in art and excelled in mechanical drawing, and so at some point I decided that architecture was a good career choice. I enrolled in the local community college and began taking all of the appropriate classes. For nearly a year I took courses in drawing and design, mathematics and science, and the required courses in English and history. Then something fateful happened. I found that college English was very different from what I had been used to in high school. I was now being taught by grown men who took reading and literature very seriously, and I began to think that here was something I could enjoy doing for the rest of my life. And so I changed my major and transferred to the University of Texas and set out on a career path that took me further and further from my family and my Dad.

I doubt my father ever really understood what I was up to after I went away to college. It wasn't so much that he could not understand, he just never showed much interest in what I was studying. School was just school to him. He hoped one day I would eventually finish and get a job, but he paid little attention to what I was actually doing while in school. To him, I suppose, it was only a means to an end, not a thing in itself. Both he and my mother wondered why I needed to stay in school for such a long time. They helped me through my undergraduate years, after which I worked briefly, for one year, as a high school Latin teacher. But when I decided to return to college to go to graduate school, they were somewhat perplexed. But by then I was on my own, or to be truthful, I was by then depending on my wife Joy. Eventually, my parents began telling both family and friends that I had become a professional student, and they doubted I would ever finish school. There was some justification for this. I changed my major from English to history to classics and back to English again before I was finished. By that time I was thirty years old and had picked up along the way three undergraduate majors, two masters degrees, and a Ph.D. So far as my parents were concerned, it was as though I had gone to live on another planet.

During that time my Dad and I became strangers to one another. I lived in other towns and cities, and eventually moved away to other states. We saw one another a few times a year on holidays or summer visits. Meanwhile, Dad was growing older, and began having some physical and health problems. He had been seriously wounded during World War II, taking shrapnel in his left leg. He got an infection that nearly cost him the leg, but somehow (some would say miraculously) he pulled through, although only after losing a considerable amount of flesh and muscle and suffering damage to his ankle as well. His leg and foot were so bad that he always walked with a limp and had to wear orthopedic shoes that were specially made for him and paid for by the government. He was awarded a partial disability, but with time the leg bothered him more and more and his other leg seemed to suffer from the additional pressure he put on it. All of this was exacerbated by his weight. He was always a big man, only five eight, he usually weighed more than two hundred pounds. Eventually, he took a medical retirement from the civil service. He was only fifty-two.

Such changes, however, are always gradual. I had noticed his limp growing worse. I knew that he had to wear a brace. But he did not at first seem all that changed to me. And after his retirement, he seemed to find new interests in life. He had earlier joined a Masonic lodge and now he threw himself into that as he had done with the church and scouting and baseball. When he and my mother moved to a retirement community on Lake Buchanan in central Texas, he joined the American Legion and the DAV (Disabled American Veterans), and threw himself into those activities. And still he worked, rebuilding a rock retaining wall on the lakefront and doing work around the house. He played golf with his friends, and occasionally fished and hunted. He had his boat fitted out with fish-finding sonar, and he rode around the little neighborhood where they lived on his converted golf cart, mixing with his neighbors, and getting involved in the community.

And just as Dad remained much the same to me and my brothers, now all grown and living lives of our own, so we must have remained to him his boys. I recall one occasion when he took the three of us out in his boat, I think it was probably the last time. As we were pulling away from the dock, one of his neighbors waved at and said "Hey, John, what's going on?" And he replied with no apparent trace of irony, "Oh, just taking the boy's out for a ride." Not one of us was under forty years old at the time, and two were on either side of fifty. But to Dad we would always be his boys. And he would always be the one driving the boat.

It came as a blow to me that night I got the call from my mother. It was after midnight, and when the phone rang I knew it was a wrong number or bad news. My mother told me very abruptly that Dad had died. He'd had a heart attack. Later I learned that he'd been feeling bad, and that he went quickly, but not in an instant. It seemed right to me. I knew that he'd had a heart attack some years earlier, but had just borne the pain and never went to the hospital. They only learned about it later, when he was having a physical examination, and the doctors discovered the damage to his heart. He'd also had a bout with prostate cancer, but got through that as well. But all of these things were signs and were not lost on us. In his last years, he had great difficulty getting around, and had to use a walker. He had lost some weight, but he was still a big man. He was always big boned. My mother had her work cut out for her taking care of him, eventually having to bathe him and shave him. Before he died we all knew that the day could come when she wouldn't be able to handle it on her own, but thankfully it never came to that.

Dad, however, was not one to slow down or even acknowledge his aging. It must have been obvious to him, but he didn't dwell on it. Each time he fell, for example, was just a momentary setback. Eventually, he was no longer able to play an entire round of golf, and then he stopped playing altogether. And yet he insisted, somewhat to my mother's dismay, on keeping his golf clubs, just as he kept all of his other paraphernalia for hunting and fishing and all of his many tools. Dad had always believed in having a tool for everything, and always kept at the ready a tool belt with all the essentials -- screwdrivers, pliers, knives, tape, etc. They had several sheds at the lake that housed his various tools and equipment. And these were always kept in good order and locked. Whenever I visited and wanted to do some chore for my parents, I had to get the right keys from my Dad, and then find the proper tools. Afterwards, everything had to be cleaned and returned to its place in the appropriate storeroom and locked securely away. Of course, after he died, Mom soon sold all the tools and other paraphernalia, saving only a few small items for me to keep as mementos. Most of the hunting and fishing gear went to my Uncle George, who was probably the one who would appreciate that the most.

Dad also continued driving, probably longer than he should have. They lived so far from everything that driving was almost a daily essential. And Dad, like so many other rural Texans, preferred to drive a rather large pickup truck. Of course, he'd driven trucks most of his life, and it would never occur to him that anyone else should take the wheel. Eventually, Mom would insist that they trade the truck in on a sedan, something she could drive and he could get in and out of a little more easily. But that was only after a few incidents with the pickup. The funniest was one we heard about on a number of occasions, but it could have been much more serious. The DAV had a little thrift store on one of the main highways near Kingsland where they sold donated items. One evening they were having a meeting there, and after everyone had gathered, someone asked where John and Lorraine were. Just then there was a huge crash and the front end of a pickup came busting through the side wall. My Uncle George said "That looks like John right now." Then he looked down at the license plate on the front bumper and said, "Yep, that's him." Apparently, Dad had gunned the engine to jump over a little curb and had given it just a little too much gas. Of course, after that my Mom was more insistent that they get a car that she could drive.

The last time we saw him, Dad was doing okay, but was still a long way from the man he had been. We went out to eat with him and Mom, and I went to the men's restroom with him before we left for home. For the first time I realized how frail he had become. But I was also struck by how independent he remained. He didn't ask for help, and he didn't want it. And later that day, or maybe it was the next, he stumbled and fell as he was walking across the living room. His legs just seemed to go limp and he fell over. Mom said that had been happening more and more. I helped him to his feet, and again was struck by how much weight he had lost. For the first time in my life it occurred to me that I was actually bigger and stronger than my Dad. I almost wept at the thought. I could see that he was fading, but still I could not imagine him gone.

Dad died on the fourth of July in 2001; he was 79 years old. My wife Joy and I went back to Texas for the funeral. It was not as sad as I had feared it would be. I suppose we had all known what was inevitable, even if we had never spoken of it. And my mother was very strong and composed. Everything had been arranged, and their little funeral home did an excellent job. The funeral service was at the funeral home's chapel near where Mom and Dad lived. All their friends were able to come, and all the family gathered -- my brothers and I and our wives and Randy's children, and our aunt and uncle and some of our cousins and their kids. The minister from Mom and Dad's church conducted the service and said a few words about my Dad. I was struck by how well he captured him in his brief eulogy. He remarked on Dad's willingness to help out when others asked, and his good nature. My Dad very rarely got angry. Oh, he was no saint. He sometimes let his temper show, and we all knew where to draw the line, but he kept it in check most of the time. And he was very generous to others. He always expected the best from those he knew, and never seemed to judge them when they came up short. My mother sometimes marveled at his apparent gullibility as he seemed to take everyone at face value, but looking back now I am only impressed at his indomitable good nature. He rarely judged others or even spoke ill of them. And when he did, I knew that person must have crossed a line with him in some serious way.

Now when I look back on my Dad, my only real father, I am almost overcome with admiration and respect. Like most sons, I imagine, I wish I had told him how much I admire him. But I doubt he would have known what to say. He knew I loved him. And I knew he was proud of me, not for any of my accomplishments, but because I had grown up to be the kind of man he could respect. In fact, I know in my own heart that in many important respects I will never be quite the man my father was. But he gave me an example to follow and taught me what it means to be a good man. His goodness and generosity were just there; they were inside him, part of what he was made of, and what made him such a good father. And when I look deep inside myself, I wonder if I would have been able to do as well. It's a question I will never be able to answer, because I have no children. And anyway, it's a question only children can really answer. In my father's case, the answer only became obvious to me when I was old enough to recognize what a remarkable man he was. When I look around, I don't see that many like him. There are some, but not many. And that is one of the saddest commentaries I can think of about the fate of this world. There is a lot of talk about heroes and greatness these days, probably because those are qualities in such short supply. But what we will miss even more than those things, I suspect, is that solid bedrock of goodness, good will and good nature, that my Dad provided for his family.

© 2005 by Michael L. Hall