"WHEN FUN AND DUTY CLASH. . .

LET DUTY GO TO SMASH!”

It’s hard for me to imagine that quote being associated with my dad in his 1932 high school yearbook.  Maybe it was tinged with sarcasm because he was such a quiet, unassuming man, or maybe school was where he could really unwind.  At any rate, I had a lot of fun discovering the existence of that yearbook.  I learned much more about my father than I ever imagined. 

The painfully shy man from Loyal, Wisconsin was an actor in two high school comedies—The Touchdown (as a professor) and Skidding, a three-act comedy about a family on the skids.  He played the role of a judge.  He also participated in basketball, track and field (in shot put and discus), and was on the newspaper staff.  He became sophomore class president.  Loyal was a very small school, so I was surprised to see that they had track and field events like shot put and discus. That must have been a lot of fun for my dad.  Life on his parent’s farm didn’t allow much free time.

Reading the yearbook was good fun; it was so innocent.  The class will said:  “Lowell D. ( Tiny) leaves his agility at snatching “forty winks” while the teacher isn’t looking to Edna H.”  I know that he rose very early to do chores so I’m not surprised that he was trying to catch up on his sleep during class. And it sounds like he wasn’t the only one struggling through physics, judging by this poem:

“We know our brains are dense;

We know he knows they are;

We know he has great patience

To stand and watch us stare.

Three cheers for Mr. Thomas

It’s good that he is here;

Or we would never really know

Our physics lessons clear.”

My father was born August 28, 1913.  Today, August 21, it’s nearly 100 years since he was born.  Any hour or day now my daughter will give birth to a little boy.  I don’t know his name or his arrival time, but I secretly wish that my daughter’s due date, August 25, could be pushed back a few days.  That might well be selfish, but I think it would be wonderful to have her little boy share something with the great-grandpa he’ll never know.  My dad loved kids and I know that he would have been excited about this little boy.

My father never had the opportunity to go to college, unlike my mother.  He would have loved to, but there was no way that he could have afforded it.  My mother only had that opportunity because her siblings helped pay for it.  Dad valued education immensely and offered to pay my way through college.  I didn’t have to go; he would have supported me if I’d gotten a job right out of high school.  But he didn’t want me to miss the opportunity if that was what I wanted. 

My parents married in 1938 and were very dedicated to one another.  They both came from poor families and yet they built very successful businesses and raised three children.  My mother kept a book about my parents where she chronicled their life together.  She was immensely happy and often wrote about it.  On their sixth wedding anniversary she said, “This year has been as happy and full as each year since we married each other.  We couldn’t be more happy together than we are—it isn’t possible.”

As a young man Dad worked in a state conservation tower near Fairchild, Wisconsin, checking for possible fires in the area.  My mother was a business teacher in a local high school.  Within eight years they scraped together enough money to buy the Coast-to-Coast hardware store in my hometown in Abbotsford, Wisconsin.  My mother wrote, “We moved to Abbotsford, the town I was born in.  It has been a very successful year and we like it, though at first I was lonesome and unhappy here.”

My mother was worried that my father would be sent off to war in 1941, but my oldest brother was born in April of that year and my father became exempt from the war. 

By the early 1950’s my parents were able to buy land near Mead Lake, about 30 miles from Abbotsford.  They wanted to build a small cabin for weekend getaways.  One of my dad’s favorite ways to relax was to head off to the cabin.  Dad was very proud of our simple rustic cabin which he helped build with a friend, who also built our house.  It was one of only two lots on that side of the lake.  We often drove out there on Saturday night after he finished work.  I think he was especially happy that he’d found a cozy retreat near the farm where he’d grown up.  In later years he loved taking us water skiing on the lake.  One day he surprised us and bought a beautiful blue fiberglass boat with a 35-horsepower motor.  It seemed incredibly fast to us. It was a real speedboat for that time. He pulled countless skiers behind that boat and never seemed to tire of it.  That was his way of relaxing and making kids happy. I remember him once taking me skiing through the upper channel of the lake.  My mother was quite upset because she couldn’t see the boat and she imagined that I had gone down in the middle of the lake.  My dad was always good at reassuring her, but once he had to discipline me on his own.  We had a family reunion and I was eager to show off a little.  I wanted to go racing across the waves with the boat pulling me; I’d done it often and it was exhilarating.  But there was one thing I forgot—MY LIFEJACKET.  It might not have been noticed except that I fell--in the middle of the lake.  That was the end of my skiing for the day; my dad made sure of that.  No amount of arguing would change his mind.

Dad loved having his own business and worked extremely hard.  The Coast-to-Coast store he opened in 1946 sold hardware items, auto supplies, housewares, farm equipment, sporting goods, electrical supplies, appliances, and furniture.  At Christmas time Dad made sure to use his extra store room to stock plenty of toys.  He loved to see families come in to pick out gifts for their kids.  The most memorable Christmas I ever had growing up was receiving a gift my mother and dad had saved for me to open until I’d opened a number of smaller gifts.  I remember the disappointment I felt at receiving socks and other everyday items; I wondered if my parents were poorer this year than I had imagined.  Then Dad brought out a big package that looked like a suitcase.  I thought, “Why do I need a suitcase?  Do they have plans for me that I don’t know about?”  I opened up the “suitcase” and discovered a beautiful gold saxophone inside, lying on a red velvet surface.  I was ecstatic.  I played that wonderful saxophone all the way through high school. 

I remember working in the store and waiting on customers, being a little self-conscious wrapping packages at Christmas time.  Dad, along with the customers, always tried to help me feel at ease.  Working at the store was the best place in the world to learn to make change.  I’m glad I had that opportunity.  Today many young people I’ve observed in stores fumble around if they have to make change on their own.

I remember some Amish men who drove their buggies into town and would park them behind our store.  They would often come in for simple, inexpensive things and they loved chatting with my dad.  They had a lot of things in common.

Eventually my father opened a furniture store, in addition to the hardware store.  It meant longer hours and even occasional Sundays, but he always had time to take us on vacations. He wanted us to have experiences that he never had as a child.    He and my mother loved to travel and they did plenty of it.  They made friends everywhere.  They bought a small tent trailer and took us to Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Yellowstone, the World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington, Arizona, and all over Canada. When we returned home we could re-live our vacation because Dad put together a slide show, complete with popcorn, supplied by my mother. It was better than going to the movies because we were part of the action.

What I’ll always remember about my dad was his endless patience, his love of reading, and his tender heart. I struggled with basic math, including Algebra and Geometry, and he never made fun of me or told me that I should be doing better.  He just explained over and over again.  The math problems are long forgotten, but not the way I was treated. Centuries ago Saint Augustine said, “Patience is the companion of wisdom.”  My father was a reflection of that.

Dad was a true role model for reading and staying curious about life;  I can remember coming home from school at lunch time and seeing him reading in his easy chair.  We got subscriptions to all kinds of different newspapers and magazines.  He often had his nose in a book, as did my mother.  I attribute my love of reading to their role modeling.

My dad was a rare man who frequently displayed emotions.  I remember going to church with him and my mother on Christmas Eve and seeing tears in his eyes as he listened to a vocalist sing O Holy Night.  He didn’t sing, but music moved him deeply.  When I hear that song now I think of him and a flood of tears comes. 

My dad had a tender heart in other ways as well.  It was incredibly hard for him to put his mother in a nursing home.  My mother and dad could no longer take care of her and he was very sad.  We often went to the nursing home to see her, even though she never had any response to our attempts to converse with her.  My father talked with tenderness about her and never abandoned her.

I was lucky to have had a lot of one-on-one opportunities with my dad.  We sometimes went fishing in our little rowboat and usually talked about much more than fishing.  Another thing we loved doing was picking blackberries from the woods near our cabin.  They were absolutely delicious and my mother turned them into delectable pies.  It was our reward for persevering—fighting the thick brush in the woods and the mosquitos.  It was true teamwork!

My parents were involved in their small local church.  Although I belonged to the youth group, I knew that I didn’t want to become a member of the church.  I tried going to the classes, but I just wasn’t committed in my heart.  It was an embarrassment for my mother, but my dad gave me the freedom to say no.  Dad always wanted me to think for myself.

My dad, although quiet, had a great sense of humor and loved getting together and playing cards and games with friends.  I would often hear them laughing and sometimes they let me join them when they played  Tripoli for pennies.  I was ecstatic when I occasionally won the jackpot.

My dad was an occasional drinker and often kept a bottle of Southern Comfort in the top cabinet in the kitchen.  I had watched him mix drinks a few times and I learned how to make a Tom Collins.  Occasionally when I knew my parents had gone out with friends for a few hours, I’d invite my neighbor and friend over to raid the cupboard and test the latest drink.  Years later I told my dad and he had a good laugh.

One thing that I had a hard time accepting about my dad was his enjoyment of going hunting in the fall.  I dreaded the thought of anyone going deer hunting and was secretly glad when he came home empty handed.  I know that for him it was much more about the camaraderie and his love of nature.  George Carver once said, “Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise.”  My dad often expressed that sentiment and I understand it even more today.

In the late 60’s my father learned that he had colon cancer.  My mother had a hard time coping with the news.  She had always lived in fear that someone in her family would get cancer.  But it seemed like my dad had beaten the odds.  His five-year check-up was good and we thought that he was cancer-free.  Within a couple of years, however, the cancer was back.  My mother wrote on what would have been her thirty-sixth wedding anniversary, in 1974:  “What heartache this year has brought—the dreadful suffering and yet the incredible bravery of my darling in his last month of life.  Though his pain was terrible, his smile was bright—no complaints, just quiet endurance—insisted on his trip to Arizona where after three weeks of suffering, he died March 1.  No braver man—no more wonderful husband, father, or friend ever lived.  I had the great privilege of being chosen as his loving wife.  So ends a book of a devoted marriage and a grieving wife with wonderful memories.” 

Nearly forty years after his death I still think of my dad almost every day and realize how much I miss him.  I recognize and celebrate how unique he was—a kindhearted man with immense patience and compassion.  He cared deeply about his family and friends and others less fortunate.  My mother often said that his biggest fault was that he was too generous and people didn’t appreciate it.  He never demanded or expected that they would.  He just gave simply, from his heart.

The Talmud writes that “there are people whose remembrance gives light to the world, long after they pass away.” I will always honor and remember my father’s gentle spirit.