My father was a giant of a man, physically, and when I was younger, I was somewhat intimidated by him. He was a tough hillbilly from Colinwood, Tennessee whose two favorite past times were drinking and fighting. He talked with a slow, deep southern drawl...I can still here him in my mind. I never recall seeing him without a full, bushy beard. I'm told that when he was younger, he was a ladies man who had women chasing him. I think he was married 7 times or so, although two of those times were to the same woman.
My father met my mom in 1958 or 1959. At the time, he was a driving instructor for my Uncle's driving school, All American Driving School. My father was kind of a jack of all trades, and had a few careers during his life. For someone who never graduated high school, he did alright for himself. His main job, the one he retired from, was truck driver. Being a Teamster, he lived pretty decently in retirement.
My mother and father married in late 1960, and a short time later my sister was born in November of 1961. I never got the impression from my mom that the marriage was very good...I do know he cheated on her multiple times, and between the time my sister was born and December of 1963 when I came along, they were separated for awhile. I'm told that I was the result of the reconciliation. The problem is that even though my took him back, he really didn't change his ways. Six months later, my half brother was born to a woman who was in the states from Germany modeling. Six months later, in December of 1964, my sister was born. And of course, six months after that, my half sister was born, to the same woman. My mom found out about it because he took both women to the same hospital! Soon after my sister was born, my mother and father divorced. After the divorce, my father married the mother of his two children, and in an ironic twist of fate, she left him soon after they married and took the kids back to Germany.
Like I said, I don't remember them being together. My earliest memory of him is very fuzzy and faint. It was winter, around Christmas time. For some reason I was in the back seat of his car, playing with a toy...I can't remember the toy, but I know I was playing with it, and I must have irritated him, because I have a faint memory of him telling me to quiet down. I don't remember anything else...it's a faint memory of a moment in my early childhood. I can't even begin to tell you how old I was.
Over the next decade, I recall him popping into our lives sporadically. Usually, it was in the context of him visiting my aunt, and us being there, or us going down to Tennessee. I never remember him being even a bit affectionate to either of my sisters or I, nor do I remember him being particularly generous. He was just Travis mostly, and most of the time, I kind of dreaded being around him.
In my teens, I did have a chance to get to know him, and come to an understanding of who he was as a man. I learned that his way of showing affection to us was though his sense of humor. And boy, did he have a sense of humor. His pranks were legendary...like the time he and his brothers got drunk and stole road grading equipment so they could play chicken. They completely wrecked the equipment, and of course were caught and jailed.
The first time I spent time with him was the summer of 1978, when I spend the summer on my grandma's farm in Tennessee. He drove me down there, and then promptly disappeared for a few weeks. But soon enough, he was back with a wreck of a car that need overhauled badly. For two days, he and I tore the engine apart, and for the next few days, we put the engine back together. I thought he knew what he was doing...he seemed pretty confident that he knew what went where. So imagine my surprise when we finished, and still had a dozen or so parts left over in the box! When he jumped in the car to start it, it bellowed thick black smoke, seized up, and never ran again. Eventually it was towed off by someone who I imagine tried to overhaul the engine yet again.
The next summer, 1979, I went to stay with him at his house in Akron most of the summer. I remember two things about that summer...first, he had cable, and it was the first time I had ever seen cable TV. He even had Home Box Office. HBO was rather new at the time, and often, they would play the same movies over and over, multiple times a day. That summer, I must have watched Animal House 20 times. The second thing I remember about that summer was his garden. No doubt, my father had a green thumb. His corn must have been 10 feet tall. The only thing taller than his corn was the pot he grew mixed in with it! It was the first time I had ever seen pot growing, although it was not the first time I had seen pot. More on that some other time.
After that summer, it was another 6 years before I saw him again, in 1983. My first wife and I were driving to Florida, and decided to spend a couple days at my grandmothers house. He was there...after my wife went to bed, he and I sat up half the night, drinking and smoking pot. The next day, I got up, and he was gone again.
The next time I heard from him was 1988. I was now in the Navy, and one day, I received a letter from him. He told me that he missed my sisters and I, and regretted not spending more time with us. He said that he wanted that to change, and wanted a relationship with us. I welcomed it, and wrote him back that I would welcome a relationship with him. Little did I know it would be another 12 years before I heard from him again.
Once day, late 2001, I was on a business trip when my cell phone rang. It was him, acting like no time had passed since we talked. He was now sober, and again, wanted a relationship. We talked for an hour or so, and he actually gave me some advice about a problem (more on that later) that was far more profound and deep than I thought he had the capacity for. After hanging up, I remember feeling puzzled by the whole thing, and not sure how I felt about it. It went like this for the next few years...periodically, I would answer my phone, and hear that familiar drawl.
Then one day in 2005, my sister called me to tell me that my father had died suddenly of a massive heart attack at his home on the family farm in Tennessee. I was living in Michigan at the time, and my wife Cindy was visiting family in California. I made arrangements for her to fly to Nashville, and I drove to meet her. While waiting for her, I started talking to a guy waiting for his wife. When I mentioned I was down there for my fathers funeral, he looked at me and said "There is nothing that happens to a man more impacting than the day his father dies." There are moments in my life that live forever, and that was one of them. His words rang in my mind the next day at the funeral and showing.
The last time I saw my father, he was lying in the casket. He looked far older than his mid-sixties age. He still had his beard, but now it was silver, as was the hair on his head. I stood looking down at the man that I spent my whole life wanting to know, and suddenly, I broke down. The tears came, and I was helpless to hold them back. I silently said goodbye to my father. I was the first car in the procession to the cemetery, where my sisters and I sat together, for the first time in 10 years, watching my fathers internment.
Every now and then, I think of my father. All these years later, I'm still not sure how I felt about him. I guess deep down, I loved him...probably more out of a sense that a boy should love his father than a love earned by a parent. I don't ever recall telling my father I loved him, and I never recall him ever saying it to either my sisters or I. I'm sure that at the end, he did love us. And I hope that at the end, he made peace with the regrets he had towards us.
*For my dad, Travis
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