My first memory of my father was at my third birthday party in a small, hot backyard. He wore cut off Levi’s shorts, a tee shirt with a pack of Winston’s under his rolled up shirt sleeve, a cold Dewball can in a koozie, early seventies sideburns and a lot of hair. He and his brothers had filled the birthday balloons with acetylene gas and then they enjoyed drinking their Dewballs and exploding the acetylene balloons with the lighted ends of their cigarettes. I was at that age where Dad seemed like an anomaly that ran through my normal, peaceful, Sesame Street life like an escaped zoo animal. He was wild haired-dangerous and he was fun. He was more fun than I ever was for my daughter. He took off after adventures like other people took off after an ice cream. That wild haired-dangerous and fun man could also be violent. My second memory of my father was when I stepped behind the tractor and he almost ran over me. He dragged me to my room which overlooked the bare patch of orange-brown earth where he worked and he shook me and bare assed spanked me and yelled at me and loved me in that wild haired-dangerous way he lived. I never felt like I lived up to his expectations. I took advice as disapproval and he had lots of advice to dispense. Almost exactly four years before he was killed he almost bought the farm. Hurricane Ike blew through the Ohio Valley and a limb propelled at eighty mile and hour struck him in the back and drove his head into a camper bumper. He was knocked unconscious, split his head open, collapsed his lung, broke his neck in two places and he literally lost his marbles when the inside of his ear was knocked loose and he was unable to maintain his balance for some time. I called unsuccessfully for an ambulance. Ike had made it a busy day in the Ohio Valley. My wife and father-in-law set my bleeding, wild haired-dangerous but older and injured father in my pick-up truck and we were gone on another adventure. I ran through corn and bean fields to circumvent downed trees as the corn stalks flew horizontally through the air. Dad’s bleeding head bounced off the passenger side window with every bump. He woke on the ride into Boonville and said, “Son, why’re you drivin’ so damned fast?” “You’re hurt, Dad. Keep that shirt on your head.” He, of course, removed the blood soaked shirt because he didn’t believe me. He examined the shirt, put it back on his head and said, “What’d you do?” I said through gritted teeth, “You fell or something. You’re hurt pretty bad. We’re on our way to the hospital.” He passed out again and woke closer to town. He asked, “Were we drinking?” I love him. I got him to the hospital where my sister met me and she took over the emergency room. I headed back to the river to clean up the damage which included my sunken boat. I got in trouble by him for cleaning up incorrectly but he did thank me for saving his life. I don’t think I saved his life but I wish like nothing else I would have been with him on that hot highway shoulder so I could have tried to save his life then. I miss everyday his advice and his complaints and his arguments and his mis-planned and avoidable, emergency adventures and the anomaly he was that ran through my normal, peaceful, Frontline and Nova life like an escaped zoo animal. This Father’s day my daughter is off to Brazil seeking adventure like her wild haired-dangerous grandfather and I hope that somehow I have found an equilibrium that works for us between wild and scholarly and loving and guiding. I lack the intensity of my father and I am not nearly as much as fun but I hope I have balanced that with less interruption to her sense of normalcy.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:46:00 +0000