Snap Shots from Father's Day

chickenlittle said:

Just back home from having fun being a dad.

My father was born at home on a farm outside of Richland Center, WI in a house his father built. He was the 3rd in a family of 8. The family farmed, but couldn't make a go of it during the Depression. There was work to be had in the town though so the family got by. I would love to have known by grandfather, but he passed away when I was three.

My father had a Walton's like childhood, and very happy by all accounts. He and his 4 brothers were all too young for WW II, but came of age just in time for the Korean conflict. His oldest brother was drafted and served in combat. My dad was drafted after high school and spent two years driving tanks, guarding the German/Czech border. A younger brother went to Germany too.

After his service, he returned to his home town and worked odd jobs before starting an apprenticeship as a printer. He started dating my mother (5 years younger) while she was in still in high school, and they married a month after she graduated and turned 18. They left their hometown for a better job for him, but didn't really go far. My father worked for the newspaper in Madison and my brother and I grew up in the nearby town of Middleton.

My dad never really cared much for his career as a printer: his real passion was scuba diving. He got into the sport '50's when it was still a new sport. He ran a dive shop out of our house growing up and gave lessons. Chances are if you were into diving in Madison in the '60s and '70s, you knew my father. I had a C-card before I had my drivers license. He was into underwater photography too and actually won some awards for it. This August I'm going back to Wisconsin and plan on spending some time sorting through a vast collection of negatives and prints, now lodged in my brothers' basement. I should blog about some scuba stories, because there are so many, and because I'm not getting any younger.

In retrospect, my dad should have left Wisconsin and moved us to Florida or California and pursued his passion. He even wondered that himself. But he didn't. Familial ties kept his autonomy in check.

He kept his job until the late '70s, when printing technology changed and he found himself without a job after a long and protracted strike at Madison Newspapers. His career as a printer came to an end, and he took a custodial job for the local school system.

In 1982, a brain tumor (pituitary adenoma) appeared. Surgery and radiation followed and his cancer went into remission. He lived another 13 years before the cancer came in a particularly wicked and pervasive way. He didn't survive the second onslaught and passed away in 1995 at the age of 62, dying at home.

Not a day passes that I don't think of him and the things he taught and gave me. I dearly loved him and still do. I only wish that he had lived long enough to see his two beautiful grandchildren whom I'm sure he would have adored. They each inherited so many of his traits, each in their own way. In that respect, I feel lucky that his life passed through me, rather than just passing over me, or even ending with me.

It sounds like he loved scuba diving but it sounds like he was the kind of guy who loved his family most of all. I am sure he would be very proud of the man you turned out to be and the Father you have been and will be to your children.