Dad
February 25, 2008
I thought of my father when I woke up this
morning.
Dad
was a mystery in many ways. I have a
picture of him before I was born, probably taken in the early 1930’s. There he is, the epitome of debonair in his knickers, leaning
against his Hupmobile, his
Lucky Strike cigarette in his very long cigarette holder clenched between his
teeth. Mother always said he was a
ladies’ man, but I’m not exactly sure what she meant.
Dad
left home to earn his living at age thirteen. His resume is very, shall we say, eclectic? There were tales of his starting the first
indoor miniature golf course (a disaster) and many other undertakings before he settled down on a path
that led him to be a successful state-wide manager of a life insurance
company. As a salesman early in his insurance career, he was on the road a lot, but my
mother could always open the front door at 5:00p.m. on Fridays, and he would be pulling into
the driveway. If it was the right
season, she would have the pot boiling on the stove for the fresh corn he would
have bought from a farm stand on his route home.
Dad
never got used to retirement. He had
only known work—no golf, no hobbies—and I think that may have contributed to
his much-too-early-into retirement death.
Even
before his terminal cancer struck though, I remember him frequently remarking,
“I ache all over.”
This
morning when I woke up, I ached all over, and thought of my father whom I still
miss very much.
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