My Father

This is my father, in about 1950 before he married, looking more dapper than I ever saw him, complete with flower on the lapel of his double-breasted suit. I don't know the story behind the photo, and there's no one left to ask. He was an only child, of strong Oklahoma stock transplanted to California in the Depression. Does anyone have a clue about the make/model of the car?

Christmas 1954: I am but a wee thing lying on my mother's knee. I like the way I'm watching my dad with my older brother, wanting to be in his arms.

For the first two years of wedded bliss, my dad was a "sheet metal man" by trade and a member of the National Guard on weekends. Always the class clown, he met some kindred souls and made lifelong friends. From his poor beginnings, he later went into business for himself as a heating and cooling contractor.

Dad's roots were clear in his pronunciation of "crick" for "creek" and "jurnly" instead of "generally." Poorly educated, he was a whiz at mathmatics, and he could visualize and construct complicated air-duct systems. He liked to write songs although he couldn't play a musical instrument, and he could spin a good yarn.

He whipped me for the last time when I was 16. He wasn't always a great dad. But he grew more loving as the years went by. When I was 28, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. In six months, he was gone. He left me with a mean game of dominoes, a killer instinct in gin rummy, and a knack for telling stories.
Here's one of the last poems I wrote for him:

Chemo Strikes the Child’s Colossus

Black hair streaked with silver
slithered down the drain.
As far as he could see
down the long white length of him
down the slick white walls,
his black hair swept.

Did he clutch at straws.
Did he lift rough hands in disbelief
before he laid his face in them.
Not moving, making no sound,
who was he then:
the bald man bowing
head to the water
to the unknown

This is a Sepia Saturday post. For more personal glimpses of history, visit the Sepia Saturday blog here.