I hope Jimmy Dean(the "Sausage
will forgive me for borrowing his Top Ten Hit of the 60's "BIG JOHN"
This song always reminded me of my Dad and since I just finished sending "Cyber Fathers' Day Cards" to my three brothers; I wanted to take the time to remember my Dad. . . . .
He is gone now, but so much of what he was he gave to his kids and I am PROUD to be like him in many ways.
He was the second in a family of six children. Born and raised in Butterfield, MO. (an Ozark Mountain town on the MO./AR. border. His father was a mail carrier(delivered the mail on foot or horse back in the early 1900's). His mother was 1/2 Sioux indian. My father was "still-born" and left for dead, wrapped in a blanket, while the Mid-wife tended to his Mom. Later, when his Dad went to get the small body for burial; he was found to be still breathing(barely). The Mid-wife revived him by putting him in first hot and then cold basins of water. It was thought that he would always be a scrauny kid and maybe not live very long. My Dad proved them wrong! He was 6'8" 220 lbs. by age 13!!! He always worked hard on a dirt-poor farm and many times pulled a plow when no mule was available.
He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and became a mechanic in the Army Air Corp
during WWII. He met my Mom in Miami Beach. FL. at a Blood Drive Dance at the USO Hall. They knew eachother 10 days and had 2 dates before he married her.
They were together 48 hrs. before he shipped out to the Pacific front. He did not return to her for almost 3 yrs. and was listed MIA for over 18 mos. of that time.
My parents had 6 kids and I can't remember a day when I was growing up on the farm that they weren't up well before dawn and not in bed until after 10:00p.m.
A lot of people saw my Dad as a Big, Gruff (stern) man who did not tolerate disrespect from his kids and taught them that "what we get in this life we work for. . . "
They did not see the man who loved his wife and kids to a fault. Could stretch a dollar (with Mom's help) into next week. Had respect for all living things: cried like a baby when his favorite spaniel got poisioned, could barely bring himself to take down rabbits and squirrels to feed his faily in "lean" times, stayed up all night in the dead of winter to help a cow calve and ward off the coyotes, brought ino the house a discarded "runt" piglet and placed it in a box, by the cookstove in the kitchen, on a towel-wrapped hot water bottle and bottle fed it. That piglet lived to follow my Dad around the farm like a pet dog!
He taught me to fish(had to bait yor own hook or you couldn't go). He taught me to garden. He played guitar and harmonica,(sang like an angel in a choir) and taught me over 30 verses to "Mr. Frog Went A Courtin'" His favorite song was the "Tennessee Waltz" 'cause that was what played the first time he danced with my Mom. I can remember sitting on the landing (long after we were supposed to be in bed) watching my Mom and Dad dance to the music from a scratchy old radio in the living room.
My Dad never spank me, but some how I knew he would and that kept us all in line. He always made sure we had handmade toys or repaired, repainted cast-off bicycles for birthdays and Christmas. He would stand at the foot of the stairs on Christmas morning and shake an old set of sleigh bells and bellow out "Ho Ho Ho" and then "Thanks, see ya' next year, Santa!!"
(that is the way he always woke us up on Christmas Day; even long after we were too old to still believe. . . .
His big, calloused hands were skilled beyond belief. He could fix anything with a motor in it!!(car, truck, boat, air plane, lawn mower, washing machine, radio. . . . you get the idea) He did lovely, intricate cross-stitch and embrodery work. At nite in the winter months when the sun went down early and he couldn't work outside. I still have a Lord's Prayer with animals and Noah's Ark that he did when I was a young girl and it hung (as long as I can remember) above the big feathered I shared with my little sister, Delores.
As much as he loved his children; he worshiped his Grandkids!! And they loved "Grandpa" He wore bib overalls and always had a "surprise in the front bib pockets for them, or he would take out his old "pocket watch" and let them listen to tic, tic, or pop the face open to see the American Eagle inside.
He did not know his last three grandchildren or his Great Grandchildren and they would have loved him so. (and he, them)
I am sorry for having gone on, but I miss him more now than when he first died. I know he was my Dad and I am biased, but he was a BIG, "Big" man.
I am sure that anything in Heaven that has a motor is "humming" since Wallace Ward Way arrived . . . .
This song always reminded me of my Dad and since I just finished sending "Cyber Fathers' Day Cards" to my three brothers; I wanted to take the time to remember my Dad. . . . .
He was the second in a family of six children. Born and raised in Butterfield, MO. (an Ozark Mountain town on the MO./AR. border. His father was a mail carrier(delivered the mail on foot or horse back in the early 1900's). His mother was 1/2 Sioux indian. My father was "still-born" and left for dead, wrapped in a blanket, while the Mid-wife tended to his Mom. Later, when his Dad went to get the small body for burial; he was found to be still breathing(barely). The Mid-wife revived him by putting him in first hot and then cold basins of water. It was thought that he would always be a scrauny kid and maybe not live very long. My Dad proved them wrong! He was 6'8" 220 lbs. by age 13!!! He always worked hard on a dirt-poor farm and many times pulled a plow when no mule was available.
He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and became a mechanic in the Army Air Corp
during WWII. He met my Mom in Miami Beach. FL. at a Blood Drive Dance at the USO Hall. They knew eachother 10 days and had 2 dates before he married her.
My parents had 6 kids and I can't remember a day when I was growing up on the farm that they weren't up well before dawn and not in bed until after 10:00p.m.
A lot of people saw my Dad as a Big, Gruff (stern) man who did not tolerate disrespect from his kids and taught them that "what we get in this life we work for. . . "
They did not see the man who loved his wife and kids to a fault. Could stretch a dollar (with Mom's help) into next week. Had respect for all living things: cried like a baby when his favorite spaniel got poisioned, could barely bring himself to take down rabbits and squirrels to feed his faily in "lean" times, stayed up all night in the dead of winter to help a cow calve and ward off the coyotes, brought ino the house a discarded "runt" piglet and placed it in a box, by the cookstove in the kitchen, on a towel-wrapped hot water bottle and bottle fed it. That piglet lived to follow my Dad around the farm like a pet dog!
He taught me to fish(had to bait yor own hook or you couldn't go). He taught me to garden. He played guitar and harmonica,(sang like an angel in a choir) and taught me over 30 verses to "Mr. Frog Went A Courtin'" His favorite song was the "Tennessee Waltz" 'cause that was what played the first time he danced with my Mom. I can remember sitting on the landing (long after we were supposed to be in bed) watching my Mom and Dad dance to the music from a scratchy old radio in the living room.
My Dad never spank me, but some how I knew he would and that kept us all in line. He always made sure we had handmade toys or repaired, repainted cast-off bicycles for birthdays and Christmas. He would stand at the foot of the stairs on Christmas morning and shake an old set of sleigh bells and bellow out "Ho Ho Ho" and then "Thanks, see ya' next year, Santa!!"
(that is the way he always woke us up on Christmas Day; even long after we were too old to still believe. . . .
His big, calloused hands were skilled beyond belief. He could fix anything with a motor in it!!(car, truck, boat, air plane, lawn mower, washing machine, radio. . . . you get the idea) He did lovely, intricate cross-stitch and embrodery work. At nite in the winter months when the sun went down early and he couldn't work outside. I still have a Lord's Prayer with animals and Noah's Ark that he did when I was a young girl and it hung (as long as I can remember) above the big feathered I shared with my little sister, Delores.
As much as he loved his children; he worshiped his Grandkids!! And they loved "Grandpa" He wore bib overalls and always had a "surprise in the front bib pockets for them, or he would take out his old "pocket watch" and let them listen to tic, tic, or pop the face open to see the American Eagle inside.
He did not know his last three grandchildren or his Great Grandchildren and they would have loved him so. (and he, them)
I am sorry for having gone on, but I miss him more now than when he first died. I know he was my Dad and I am biased, but he was a BIG, "Big" man.
I am sure that anything in Heaven that has a motor is "humming" since Wallace Ward Way arrived . . . .