Fathers Always Know

I now know where I get my "you can run but you can't hide" ability of perception, intuition, logic, and problem-solving skills.  If I find you interesting, I will try my best to figure you out and make friends along the way.   You can run, but you can't hide.

As with my Mother, I received a story from another Facebook friend. This time, it was about my Father.  She told me about how my Father told her mother/my Father's aunt about me and my personal preferences.  I never really wanted to come out to my Father.  I don't know why.  I'm leaving that for a late night discussion with him sometime soon. 

Although I know the biggest part was fear.   Fear of being tossed out, pushed aside, Bible-beaten, and even worse, being disappointing even though I wouldn't have been.   Ah, the struggle of being oneself.   I realize now that I'm just like everyone else...

Don't tell me you've gotten nothing to hide.  That there is no facade.  No skeletons in your closet. HA!  You can run but you can't hide.  Anyway...

Your parents always know, regardless of what you may try to hide.   I don't know why I tried to run away.  I don't why I even cared about hiding it.   We just went on as if it were nothing.  And maybe that's it.   It is nothing.   Just being who I am is just part of being me on a regular daily basis.

My Father knew and it didn't seem to matter.  And if it did, he never said. He loved me just the same. 

As you may recall from other posts, I always thought my Father was the maddest man I knew.  But beyond that he was a good man who lived life the best he could.  Raised three kids.   Worked hard, putting pride into it.  Watched his parents, aunts, uncles, and friends grow old and die.  Struggled with marriage.  The big difference was in our generational upbringing.  He kept his secrets to himself.  I let out.

Fathers and Mothers always know.   My parents knew it was a struggle for me to find the words.   But it's OK.   They struggled with their own demons.

Love ya, Dad.  Hope you and Mama are having fun wherever you are.

CSM

Learning to Garden with Grandpa Marshall

One of the best memories I have of my Grandpa Marshall was him teaching me to plot a vegetable garden. 

I must have been about eight years old.   My Grandparents were visiting from Florida in early Spring.  My Father and I had created a garden bed along the back of the house underneath my parent's bedroom window.  The space measured about five feet out from the house to fifteen feet from the corner to the edge of the porch.  Two bushes took up the space nearest the back porch.  The rest would be mine to tend.   The perfect place for my first vegetable garden.

The sun shone overhead on that early spring day.  We double-checked our list.  Seeds from the local market -- check.   Starter plants -- check.  String and stakes -- check.  Shovel -- check.  Rake -- check.  Garden hoe -- check.  Garden hose connected to the spout -- check.  One elder sage -- present.  One middle-aged sage -- present.  And one eager eight-year-old -- present.

We were ready.  The spring planting begun.

The elder sage, my Grandpa Marshall, was in charge.  I remember looking up at him.  He always had a burr haircut, a sign of my own future hair style.  The first task -- over-turn the dirt in the bed.   As I recall, the middle-aged sage did this.  It was a little much for a eight-year-old to wield the shovel; however, I got the job of then raking the newly turned soil. 

At this point, the elder sage advised on the layout.   From left to right, radishes, green beans, beets, green peppers, and tomatoes -- I think.  Don't quote me, but I think that was the order.  Next came the stakes and string.   One stack at the back against the brick of the house; the other at the front at the edge of the grass.   I was instructed to tie the string so it would stretch tightly from one stake to the other.  This would the guideline to dig the trench.   The seed packets were opened, the seeds planted, and the seeds covered up by fresh dirt.

When my Grandpa Marshall opened the packet of beans, I remember him looking in and saying "These are already to be cooked.  We can take them inside."  It was the little bit of humor that I remember the most.   That single moment out of the entire experience.   One of my few "live for the moment" moments.

The last step was to water the whole area well and then often.  That summer, I watered, weeded, and waited and waited and waited...  Somehow, an episode of The Andy Griffith Show comes to mind.  The one where Aunt Bea puts Opie to work growing spinach.  You can only wait so long for the spinach to grow.   The big difference was I knew that I would eventually be rewarded.  And I was with the harvest.  

And besides, I had a great teacher who took the time to spend with a ten-year-old.   I couldn't have asked for better.

CSM

The Wall of Entertainment

We lived in a typical ranch-style house built in the late 1960s, purchased somewhere about 1967ish.

At the far end of the "family room" sat one of the room's main focal points.  A light-colored wooden-framed box on short spindled legs.  The smooth curved glass screen was gray.  Two dial knobs on the right side -- one for UHF and the other VHF.

I remember the bright sunny day when my Father installed a new television antenna on the back side of the house.  This five-year-old sat wondering what was going on.  Within moments of connection, we had new television channels, bringing us up to maybe six channels.   One channel came all of the way out of Indianapolis.  The first show we watched on this new and exciting channel -- old reruns of The Little Rascals.  The sepia-toned shorts lasted no more that ten to fifteen minutes.

This was my Father's window to the world.

Surrounding that wooden box were two floor-to-ceiling bookcases.  Eventually, they would be expanded around the corner of the room with an even wider bookcase.   All stained and well-constructed. All packed with books, overflowing into stacks on the floor.

Hardbacks, paperbacks, cheap dime-store novels, old, new.  Danielle Steele, Erma Bombeck, Frances Parkington Keyes, Ian Fleming, Helen MacInness, Dorothy Gilman, Mary Stewart.   Gone with the Wind, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Odessa File.  Nancy Drew, Little Women, Black Beauty.  Anyone who liked books from the 50s through the 80s would have loved it.

This was my Mother's library to the imagination.

Sometimes there would be arguments.

Often heard from my Father.  "Why don't you get rid of all those books?"   My Mother's response -- the wave of her right hand in the air as if shooing away a fly.  She also had her way of tormenting him -- repeats of "Murder, She Wrote" and "Matlock."  She knew ever episode by heart.  All for the sake of tormenting...  Maybe teasing would be a better term.

Regardless, the wall of entertainment was where it all began for me.   Coming of age to find the path of to be a writer.  A combination of the visual arts and the literary.  Never to be forgotten.

Of course, now I have my own wall of entertainment.   I think I'll watch an episode of "Murder, She Wrote."  For old times...

CSM

No "Live for the Moments", Please.

Sorry, but I'm not a "live for the moment" kind of guy.  I prefer the phrase "relax and enjoy the ride." 

To me, the phrase "live for the moment" (LFTM) means just sit there and enjoy the current view.  The day I hand over the keys to my childhood home to someone who doesn't love it as much as I did, now that will involve a LFTM.  I plan on standing for a minute in each room of the house and absorb the atmosphere.  Study the walls, the floors, the closets.   Relish in memories that occurred in each spot.

Personally, I want to limit the amount of LFTMs in my life.  Why just enjoy the view?  Why not be involved with the view?  Interact?  Play a part?  Relax and enjoy the ride sounds like you are actually moving towards something.  Not just stuck there on your a**.

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Agatha Christie, Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Nat King Cole, Stephen King, FDR, JFK, MLK...  I wonder how many of these people "lived of the moment?"

Sara Perkins did.  Sara Perkins lived for the moment.   Are you saying "Who's Sara Perkins?"  If so, precisely my point.   Abraham Lincoln had a war to fight.  It involved planning, coordinating, praying, sweating, making tough decisions that would effect multitudes.  He wasn't sitting around enjoying the moment.   He worked hard.

I am a new writer and it's hard work.  With so much imagination in me, I worry I will not get it all written.   It's not just a career move, it's a creative outlet.  I struggle to find the right words.  There are times I just can't get to the computer fast enough to write.   I have been in the shower, overcome writer's block, dry off quickly, and race directly to the computer to write it.  Thank god the curtains were drawn.  No free shows for the neighbors!

My journey to becoming writer is a passionate one.  I want to write and publish.  I want my readers to come along with me and watch stories unfold.  This requires discipline and hard work.  Writing is hard.

I get tired of people telling me to "live for the moment."   From now on, when they do, I've decided to tell them to sit back and enjoy the view.  I'll drive.  I've got places to go, people to see, things to do.

CSM

One Place in My Memories

I like to visit places like antique shops, junk stores, and anyplace with rustic or well-loved artifacts from the past.  I love them because they remind me of places from my memories.

Dying when I was only a year old, I don't remember Grandpa Alford, but his garage full of stuff lingered and I remember going into it with my Grandma. 

My Grandpa Alford, also known as Dad Alford, was the kind of guy who wouldn't pass up a bent nail on the street.  He would pick it up and put it in his pocket to file later in the appropriate container in the garage.  He had an assortment of cans full of nails, screws, and scrap. Grandpa was a save-it-for-a-rainy-day kind of guy.

The "garage" was actually a former chicken coop moved from the farm.  A lean-to had been added later.  It was painted white with red trim, as I recall.  I may have to check out some old photographs to confirm the color scheme.   It wasn't really a garage, but more a workshop for Grandpa to hide in when my Grandma was on the war path.

Grandpa Alford grew up on a farm outside of Pendleton.   His father died when Grandpa was only six, leaving behind his widow, several children, and a farm.   The farm would eventually be lost during the early Depression years.  His mother moved from each of her children's home, eventually living with her daughter, Nancy.   My Grandpa left Indiana and headed west to North Dakota, where he would stay with his oldest brother, Duke, in a village called Denhoff.

I find it hard to imagine but my Grandpa worked on a cattle ranch as a ranch-hand.   Riding horses, herding cattle, farming...  I picture something romantic from the early 1930s, but ultimately I'm sure it was hard work.  I spent two weeks in North Dakota.  What a great state!   Rolling fields, winds sweeping across the plains, the waving wheat can sure smell sweet...  I couldn't do any better than Rodgers and Hammerstein.   I'm not sure they raise wheat in North Dakota.

While he was working there, on a autumn hayride, maybe during Halloween, my Grandpa meet my Grandma.   A few months later, they married.  My mother was born on that cattle ranch near Denhoff.   When she was six months old, the family came back to Pendleton to stay.  During the war years, he worked as a handy man and farmed.  I remember asking my Mother and Grandmother how they dealt with the Depression.   Both said they had no problems.  They had nothing to loose.   They kept a big garden, rented from family, and lived cheap.  As Mother said "We were poor but happy."  I love those words.

I think it was during the Depression years that my Grandpa, like many others who lived through them, collected stuff just in case they needed it later.  Use everything to its fullest.   A concept that eventually lead to a packed garage.  

So much stuff in that garage.  Parts and pieces of old cars, chipped dishes, rusty nails, old magazines, iron scraps, Maxwell House coffee tins, unidentified parts and pieces of wood, glass jars, a freezer housing Grandma's yeast rolls for Christmas, an old trunk with a heavy-duty comforter storied in it...

My Uncle and Aunt live in my Grandparents house now.   The garage is still there.
I loved going into that garage.  It was a cabinet of curiosities to be explored by a young kid.

What great memories I have...

CSM

You and Me Against the World

Helen Reddy singing:

"You and me against the world
Sometimes it feels like you and me against the world
When all the others turn their backs and walk away
You can count on me to stay..."

 

My Mother was always there for me.  When I was sick. When I was happy.  When I was sad.  The Christmases, the birthdays, the funerals...

 

When I posted the entry about being mad at myself and about just being myself, a kind friend sent me this amazing story.  I have abridged and edited it.  I cried after the first few lines and had to return to read the second half.  I cried some more before re-reading the entire message again.

 

Here it is:

 

"...just read your blog, and we both shed a few tears.  It's hard to be so honest, but you did it well.  I wanted you to hear a conversation I had with your mom right before I left.  It was a rainy day and I was the person in charge for the day.  You mom was working.  Somehow I ended up telling your mom I was gay.  She said, "my son is, too."  I asked how she had dealt with it, and she said, "I don't know how to talk to him, I don't know what to say."  I told her to let you know that she loved you.  She said," I hope he knows that."  I hope so, too.  She may not have helped you or talked to you, but in her own way she was supportive.  Thought you should know."

 

I find it hard to write, read, or re-read these words, mainly because my eyes are blurred by tears.  When I went to bed that night, I talked with my Mother well past midnight.   Somehow, I just knew she was there.   I laughed, cried, and smiled... but mainly cried.

 

Helen Reddy singing:
"You and me against the world
Sometimes it feels like you and me against the world
And for all the times we've cried
I always felt that God was on our side..."

 

When I was a kid, my Mother had "The Greatest Hits of Helen Reddy" album, which I now have.  I remember her playing it.  And this one song from the album sticks in my head until this very day as being our song -- my Mother's and mine. 

 

I listen to it differently now.  And I cry... This part of the lyrics has even more meaning now...

 

Helen Reddy singing:
"And when one of us is gone
And one is left alone to carry on
Then remembering will have to do
Our memories alone will get us through
Think about the days of me and you
Of you and me against the world"

 

I love you, Mama...

CSM