My Dad

 My Dad

From the Korean, Manjok un haengbok ida. “Man is rich enough that wants nothing.”

My Dad was a good man, a family man, enriched by love from his family. Of my Mom he said she was the best thing that ever happened to him. He loved her, and he loved us kids. A man of the working class, he did it - hard - to support us. He wanted us to have the best education. He shared with us his heart, his humor, and his love for the outdoors. 

Some of my best childhood memories were camping and fishing with him. The night before a fishing trip, he would take me out on the lawn, lantern in hand, to catch nightcrawlers. The next day we’d go to an out-of-the-way lake down a two-rut road somewhere. There he’d rent an ancient rowboat for a dollar or two. On the lake, he’d show me how to fish. You had to make sure, he’d say, that you covered the end of hook with the worm or the big ones wouldn’t bite. And, if none were biting, small or big, you had to spit on the hooked worm to ensure success. When you actually caught one, that proved the spit theory of fishing for all time.

In summer my Dad took us on weekend camping trips to the mythical “up North.” There we’d leave the city for a couple days and nights to spend in nature, swimming, hiking, and fishing.  Many a story was told, and many a toasted marshmallow consumed, around the campfire. We would, of course, need to endure the inevitable rainstorm. With our help, he would set up an old umbrella tent for the five of us. Forever in my memory, my Dad is holding up the tent’s center pole in the middle of a stormy night to keep it up with wind lashing the canvas and thunderbolts crashing all around.

By no estimation was my Dad a rich man. His richness, in terms of material things, came from his ingenuity in creating something from nothing. He was a do-it-yourselfer par excellence, whether repairing or remodeling the house, or pursuing other creative ideas. He liked to carve and emboss leather, and showed us how to make wallets, using special hand tools. He purchased and refurbished antiques - a large, round coffee table made from a wagon wheel, round plate glass, and legs made from welded horseshoes comes to mind. And he even built a black powder rifle which he took deer hunting. He was also a cook, something he learned on his first job as a short order cook, and as a mess sergeant overseas in WWII. He liked to make donuts, Christmas fudge, and a surprise treat, sugar on slices of tomatoes. His barbecue sauce, a closely held secret, was legendary. He barbecued chicken with that indescribably good sauce every Sunday. Even in the cold of winter, there he’d be, on the driveway, roasting chicken in his rotisserie grill that he had made from an old barrel, basting it with that signature sauce. 

My Dad had a wanderlust. He grew up in the Great Depression of the 1930’s, and his Dad, who passed on before I was born, had to move around from one small Wisconsin town to another in order to make a living. My Dad had that wandering pattern imprinted on him, and continued it all his life. In my childhood we moved no fewer than seven times, mostly around Milwaukee, and briefly as far away as California. Wherever we moved, Dad and Mom refused for long to pay rent, and ended up buying and selling four homes. 

The trip to California was a ten-year-old’s dream. To make the trip, my Dad bought us a brand-new, two-tone, powder blue and white 1956 Chevy. We hooked up a tiny trailer with all our worldly possessions inside, and hit the road. I remember making a kind of a scrapbook/logbook of our experiences on the road - the endless Great Plains, the first view of the Rocky Mountains, and palm trees and cacti in the desert. We ended up in the San Diego area and got our first view of the Pacific. My Dad had lined up work prior to making the trip, and promptly, per their custom, my folks bought a house. What a summer it was! It was then that I learned to swim, and swim we did. My Mom and Dad took us to the famous San Diego Zoo, an airshow, and a trip across the border to Tijuana. There, at an open air market, my Dad bought me a reddish-brown leather jacket with fringes, just like my hero Davy Crockett wore. Around that time, my Dad introduced me to a series of books about  Native Americans by Joseph Altsheler, which I read fervently. 

The California sojourn was short-lived for various reasons. My Dad got into a car accident, the job he had pre-arranged did not pan out , and my Mom missed her family. So back to Milwaukee we went. There we reconnected with family and old friends. My Dad had friends - not many, but close ones - and he loved getting together with them in the summer at the beach, and in the winter for dinner and cards. Of course, in all seasons, his barbecue skills were well appreciated.

In retirement my Dad worked with those less fortunate through the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and Meals on Wheels. In later years also, he had a pick-up camper. He loved taking his grandsons camping and traveled out West with his grandson Keith. He loved northern Wisconsin, and never gave up his interest in traveling out West. When Mom was alive, he traveled with her to see his daughter and grandson in both Colorado and Florida, and when Mother died, he headed out West again to help my sister with her kids. He loved poking around the deserts and mountains with gold panning gear and metal detector. Always in early spring, he got the wanderlust, and would hit the trail. He loved Wisconsin, but he also loved being anywhere along a long road West. He loved his grandchildren, a succession of little dogs, and his freedom to roam. When ill health forced him to recuperate in a nursing home, he was always trying to pay someone to drive him somewhere, and once called a used car lot from the nursing home so he could buy himself another vehicle to hit the road again. They loved him in the nursing home with his cowboy hat on, always flirting with the ladies, and cracking jokes. He died there in peace, after saying goodbye to his daughter.

When I was young and cool and thought I knew everything about life, I spent some amount of time trying to be someone different from my father. Now mostly I know better - really that I’m the spittin’ image of him - and hopefully will continue to learn something of his love, his generosity, his sense of humor, and his dedication to family and to God.

Thanks, Dad. Happy trails!