Dad
I wanted to get this out for Father's Day but I was in California with my son celebrating his first Father's Day. So here it is...a little bit late but here none the less.
Dad
He was tall (a gene inherited by my first son, Paul).
He had a laugh and a wide grin. (My middle son, Ben, inherited that.
He had curly hair when he let it grow a bit.
He smoked a pipe and smoke curled around his head as he read the newspaper.
He always walked faster than me and I would run along side of him as he held my hand…afraid that if I didn’t keep up he would let go. He had a long stride.
He loved to watch wrestling…the early days of wrestling when the wrestlers had names like “Gorgeous George”. Wrestling made him laugh.
He got a twinkle in his eye when he was teasing.
He liked nice things but he didn’t have to have them.
He always wanted to live in a cabin in the woods.
He carved beautiful birds from pieces of wood. He quit carving them because too many people wanted them.
He didn’t question anything except himself.
He loved my mother, wrote her notes and brought her roses all the time.
He didn’t believe girls should go hunting. He loved to go hunting.
He liked to read.
He taught me to play chess when I was very young.
He could never sit and talk after dinner. He was always the first one up from the table and he had a compulsion to scrub the dishes before he put them in the dishwasher.
He left work promptly at five o’clock every week night.
He slept in the passenger seat when he took me driving. Occasionally he would wake up to say, “You had about a coat of paint between you and that car”. Then he would go back to sleep.
He made maps as a Marine during WWII and was stationed in Hawaii.
p>He grew a mustache and kept it for the majority of his life.
He could sing! Oh, he could sing!
He loved his mother.
He wrote wonderful letters.
He didn’t like it if someone messed up his hair.
He liked to cook and bake bread.
He was sentimental.
He loved babies and his grandchildren.
He was ticklish.
He was a strong swimmer
.
He liked rocks and could tell you lots of things about them…like what kind they were, how they were formed and what kinds of fossils were in them.
He was a real family man.
He loved to take us all for a “drive” on Sunday afternoons.
He was “the best” with an outdoor grill!
He was handsome.
He liked dogs. So much that he bought one when mom was in the hospital recovering from surgery.
He wasn’t afraid to do housework when it needed doing. `
He collected stamps.
He blew his nose very loudly and we laughed every time.
He always filled the gas tank, washed the windows and, cleaned the windshield wiper blades.
He liked to play cards on hot summer Sunday afternoons, drink beer and have a shot or two.
He made us go to mass every Sunday morning.
He woke us up for school every morning and dropped us off for mass (yes, mass before school….everyday) on his way to work.
He loved scary movies and he hated them at the same time.
He took us for our yearly flu shots.
He was scared of bees and spiders but he was brave when you needed him to be.
He took a long time getting ready in the bathroom.
He wore wool socks.
He had tons of cotton handkerchiefs folded in his handkerchief drawer. He blew his nose very loudly.
He was very Catholic.
He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when he was 62.
He has been gone for 12 years.
I miss my Dad.
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I loved reading this. My father died in 1957 when he was just 42. He also loved wrestling and he and his brother had been champion wrestlers in college. He also always watched the wrestling shows on t.v. which I hated. He watched absolutely any sports show including roller derby!
He was also very interested in rocks. Geology was his college major. We often went on rock-hound trips. Thanks for writing this. It made me think about my father. I think I'll put down thoughts about him,too to keep him fresh in my mind. P.S. Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting. It makes it so much more fun.
Posted by: barbara finwall | July 30, 2008 at 01:49 PM
I miss him too Mom.
Posted by: Paul Rohling | July 06, 2008 at 10:50 AM
What a wonderful, loving tribute--he sounds like an awesome person.
Posted by: cathy nash | June 28, 2008 at 09:47 AM
Hi Claudia!
Your post about your dad is wonderful, I love the photos you put up.I grew up attending Mass every school morning and Sunday as well...(12 years of Catholic school).My father passed away in 1996 and I still feel his loss, I can imagine how you feel.
Posted by: marge | June 22, 2008 at 07:23 PM