Nancy's Notes

This Sunday is my dad’s 95th birthday, and I must tell you how he continues to amaze and inspire me. Having just moved into an assisted living facility, he is still doing everything for himself except cooking meals. That was one big thing he was tired of doing, and he did pretty well for a guy who, in years past, would load and unload the dishwasher, but that was about all he did in the kitchen. Since Mother passed away he has been cooking for himself, even searching for easy recipes on the internet. He got to be quite the cookie baker and enjoyed having something to share with his morning coffee buddies. Then in the last year or so, all of his “drinking buddies” have died or moved into the “Big House,” as he calls the nursing home. Now that Dad is in the Big House himself, he is in the same corridor as a couple of those good buddies, as well as our neighbor lady from the farm. We kids grew up with her being across the hedge; now she is just across the hall.

My dad has such a great memory. My brothers and I often say that Dad kept all those genes to himself, because none of us has the memory bank he has. We ask him frequently to help fill in the blanks of something we may vaguely remember. A few years ago, I encouraged Dad to write down his memories and I would create a book for our family. That’s when I learned that he had been typing stories of his life and saving the file on his computer; so we had a great start—it just needed editing, which is what I do. He continued to write out more memories, and I continued to put them in sections (chapters) and in chronological order. We ended up with a 70-page book of his life story, including many pictures, that we surprised everyone in our family with at his 90th birthday celebration.

Born in 1926, Dad recalls making just about everything to entertain himself and the neighbor kids. As he grew up just a few houses away from Sand Creek in Newton, playing in the creek was a big part of his childhood. He and the neighbor boys made a raft that he describes in full detail. He also made a little boat with a discarded Coca Cola sign. To seal the boat from leaking, he chipped tar off the bricks on a nearby street and softened it in a coffee can over a little fire in the alley. I’m pretty sure his parents never knew half the stuff going on in the neighborhood.

Dad remembers receiving his first bike when he was an eighth grader. He had been drooling over the bikes in Mr. Deal’s bicycle shop, but he knew they cost far too much for him to ever have. Somehow his parents got one of the bikes for him for Christmas—a shiny, bright red bike with dual headlights, white sidewall tires, a rack on the back and even a horn. He ended up attaching wood to the rack to make it about 10” x 18”, big enough to carry his schoolbooks. His little dog, Jackie, enjoyed riding there, too.

He recalls a time when his ingenuity kind of got him in trouble. He had missed several words on a spelling test and had to stay after school and write each word one hundred times. Thinking of how long that was going to take, he sharpened his pencils, and by holding two pencils, he could write two words at a time. Thinking he had outwitted his teacher, he handed in his paper. She told him to sit down again and write each word 25 more times. And this time, she added, use only one pencil.

Dad’s first car was a 1940 Pontiac Torpedo 4-Door Sedan. As a mother, I think I would have been a bit leery of a son’s first car being called a “torpedo.” Even my grandfather had doubts about his son’s choice for a first car, as Dad says when his dad saw it, he thought it “might be too much of a car” for his first one. But it did become his car, and he thought it was the greatest thing that he no longer needed to borrow his parents’ car to go on dates with his special girl, who ended up marrying him. I’m not saying it had anything to do with the car, but we have quite a few photos of that car, which ended up taking them on their honeymoon.

There are so many more stories I would like to share about my dad but perhaps another time, since I’ve exceeded my limit for the week. I just want to add... Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you so very much, and I thank you for all the memories you’ve shared with us and the great life you provided for the five of us kids. I pray that God will continue to bless you abundantly with His goodness and love!