Father and Son

"Well I walk the road of life among the strong, among the weak 
And I ask them for the shortcut to the answers that I seek 
But it seems nobody understands what is and what will be 
Oh, the questions of my childhood weave a web of mystery..."      Kansas    1976 

 

my father and his mother

Hard to believe my father would be 113 this year. 

I've decided to post a few things this father's day to rid myself of the stink I've put on him. I don't think my father liked kids much. The impression I get when I talk to my older brother (who is in his 80s) is that dad didn't like him much either. I know one thing, I didn't know him. 

At all.

My father was much older than most kids fathers.

My dad was confused for my grandfather on many occasions (that is when we ever did anything together.)

My dad had a family many years previous to the second family he raised but he didn't raise them. According to my older half brother (who is now 86), my dad walked out on them very early in their lives. Apparently he was told some story about my dad needing to move to the southwest due to his allergies. 

Anyway, it was many years before they saw each other again.

my father as a young married man (top row)

I know for a fact however, how much my father loved the women of his sons. He adored my brothers wives and mine, too. I remember when I first decided to leave the factory and follow my dream to be a "DJ". It was something that my father couldn't understand.

Follow your dream?

I think my dad in his early life did what his dad told him to do. A lot. He expected the same in return and when he got me the job at the factory, I think he thought it was going to be a forever deal. But, I wanted to be on the radio and he was absolutely furious and when my wife and I split over this decision, I swear to God, he sided with her.

One day, somewhere around 1930, in the middle of the depression, my dad took off from Chicago to LA to "find himself" as my brother told me. He left behind a family(a wife and two kids) in Chicago. He never went back to them. My older brother, who I visited in Spokane a few years ago said his mom told him my dad left for Arizona because of his "allergies". My father was allergic to poison ivy and that was it. When I went out to visit my brother Adam, (who as a priest fell in love with a nun and they both received personal dispensation from the Pope), his first remark to me was, "I hope you're not here to learn about dad, because I didn't know him, either".

Great.

Meanwhile the story of my mother and father getting together is pretty silly and involves a very drunk Friday night at the Little Cow Bell tap in downtown East Moline.

According to my mother, he was at the bar getting a cocktail after work (my dad was a machinist at International Harvester which was right down the street). My mother thought he was gorgeous and after a few herself walked over and said hello. For the few of you that knew my mother, this is not unnatural for her, she always had very large balls. After a bit of small talk, my dad said something about having to use the restroom and my mother offered her pocket. (?) She said she was feeling no pain at that time and well, apparently wasn't.

He accepted her offer.

She went home with him that night, 6 months later they were married and 9 months after that night, my brother was born.

Fertile combination.

According to mom, it didn't go very smoothly after that and they split for awhile, but reconciled.

8 years after my brother made his entrance, I came along and three years after that, so did my sister. 

My dad was raised by a pretty tough guy in rural Kentucky, where I am sure it was a sign of weakness to show emotion. He showed very little.

I saw him cry only twice, once when my brother left for Vietnam and the other time was when my sister told him she was pregnant at fifteen.

He was a very responsible man with a great deal of common sense. He managed the finances so well, there was a mortgage burning party well before the mortgage was due. He did the same job, night after night after night from 3 pm  to 11 pm. He never called in sick. Ever.

Working those hours suited him fine and I think he actually turned down opportunities to work days. See, he would have to be a father and actually make up excuses on why he couldn't spend time with his kids. Through all five of his kids, I think the underlying thought was my dad probably should not have had kids. We're very glad he did of course but it just seemed like he couldn't be bothered by the whole thing. He never went to any of my brothers extracurricular activities, nor mine, nor my sisters. He had to work, which became a great excuse.

dad in LA

When my dad left his first family, mom told me he went west, to L. A. he was a bit of a wanderlust in his early years as he was a port detective and a longshoreman  among many other jobs he held. He was also a very fine amateur golden gloves fighter there too.

I can only imagine my dad as a young man, because I didn't "know" him until he was 51.

His family harvested hemp in Kentucky and did very well by it. They lived in a very antebellum type setting and had black people for servants. My father made sure everyone new they were NOT slaves, as they could come and go as they pleased, had their own quarters and were very well treated, almost like members of the family. He was quite fond of a young black man that took care of him and his siblings. 

Hemp was outlawed in 1937 and sent my family into a tailspin financially. Too bad it was outlawed back then, I certainly would be in a different tax bracket now.

Oh well.

My father's family hated my mother, too. She was a "floozy". She lacked the proper attributes for being a "lady". She did, however get along with my fathers mother, who, in her day was a stunning woman. Granny did not come from wealth but married into it. She could see the tough, scrappy person in my mother and maybe recognized her as being of a familiar ilk.  I think my mom and my dad's mom were tough, stubborn southern broads who took no shit from anyone. I only remember her as being very old. She died in 1967 at the age of 88.

Charles, Bette, Wilbur and dad surrounding Granny. I adored her, Bette, not so much.

I also think my grandfather was extremely hard on my dad. I think grandpa (who died in 1953 of a heart at the age of 65) was a stern, serious man. There was very little humor in that household as each of my dad's siblings were dry as toast, except his sister, who was one of the most hateful, profane woman I have ever known. She showed outward disgust for us kids. She was a smoking, drinking, swearing almost evil person who was married to the person rumored to have been intimate with my mom. Hell, I don't blame him. I hated Aunt Bette and dad's brothers were...old.

my grandfather and his sons

When my dad came back to the Quad City area from L. A., he came back to a much different reality. Things were not as he left, so he went to work at International Harvester and stayed there for almost 30 years.

Enter my mother and her pocket.

One of my very first and most vivid memory of him was when we lived on 2rd street court in East Moline. The street was a court where it would connect to third street (later Kennedy Drive) on the north and south sides. There was a small grocery store that faced the road. This was where the bus stop was and for some reason the local hang out where kids would gather. When I was about 6 or 7, I got a brand new bike and was quite anxious to go ride it.

My father assembled it and said, "whatever you do, don't go out on the highway." "Understand?"

I nodded my head in agreement and made a beeline for the highway (Kennedy Drive). I was free and therefore, I was going to ride to Carl E. Mitchell Park and ride down the steep hill that was there with the big kids. I got to the park, waited my turn and rode the bike straight down into a ravine, then proceeded to hit a rut and take a head first dive over the handlebars going really fast. Even at that early age, when I did that, I knew that I was about to get really hurt.

I did.

I saw the black lights that Muhammad Ali talked about seeing and I will never forget them. 

I remember being very woozy and having the older kids stand over me and ask if I was alright. One girl wanted to take me to the hospital.

Oh no, that wouldn't be happening. I dusted myself off, grabbed  my bike, which was all bent up and decided to walk home while collecting my wits about me.

When I came in the front door, he was waiting for me.

Apparently, he looked out the window and saw me head straight for the highway.

I had never seen that look on his face before.

Blind rage.

He grabbed me, took me downstairs in the basement and proceeded to beat me mercilessly.

He pulled my pants down, took off his belt and beat me so hard with the buckle that I couldn't breathe. After getting hurt in the fall on the bike I came home to this. He kept hitting me until I bled. My mother grabbed him and screamed at him hysterically..."Guy, Guy…Stop...Stop..."

She took the belt from him, stuck it in his face and screamed at the top of her lungs..."YOU WILL NEVER! EVER! HIT HIM AGAIN LIKE THAT! NEVER! and just exploded with rage and frustration. My mother was on the other end of those beatings by her father and that was it. No more. After had been defeated first by my bike and then by my father, I went into my room and stayed there for the rest of the day. I still remember how incredibly humiliated, how hurt I was mentally and physically  defeated I felt.

At 8.

It shaped the rest of my life.

My father and mother never showed any kind of affection. I never saw them kiss each other and never can remember them holding hands or dancing or...anything like that. The old guy was 51 when I was born and 53 when my sister arrived. Needless to say, we had very little in common. I think he deliberately chose the second shift because it kept him away from us. He never attended a sporting event that his kids were in, never went to a play, never showed much of an interest in anything that concerned his kids. I remember one little league game where I caused the winning run to score. I was crying about it when I got home and his response was ..."well, quit then, shit." So, I did. 

He never pushed me to be good in school, never inquired about my grades. I never got it.

I wonder if having kids so late in life caused him to be disinterested or what. I know for a fact that my mom cheated on him. We were cruising along one day and then, out of the blue, when I was ten, we move 500 miles away to a farm. And stay there. 

Something happened and my theory is this. My father got to an age where he couldn't perform. My mother, being 21 years younger than him, is not going to go the rest of her life without sex. She was a very sexual woman and even as a kid, I could sense that. I also think it was with a family member (by marriage) and my dad found out. So, we were sent away, which seemed to be the way my dad dealt with stuff. Just leave.

My dad was a fair man although his definition of fair is still being debated. He had an underlying feeling that us kids were pretty much unable to be much. I think we were in the way. He didn't have much patience for the nuances of everyday fatherhood. He didn't understand the passion and love I had for a)radio and b)basketball, even though he had to have applied the same principles in boxing. He forced me to quit going to radio school when I was sixteen because he thought there were better ways to spend my money. I was even paying for it. I worked steadily and regularly through high school with sometimes three jobs going on at once. I got that from him. I've always worked hard and have his work ethic.

I never ever saw him look at my mother the way a husband should look. I never saw them go out to dinner. I never saw them do something fun together. I never saw them laugh. I never saw them connect. I never heard him tell her he loved her.

One thing my father gave me was toughness. I have walked through some of the more dangerous, more terrifying mine fields this life has to offer. I've been sick, I've lost everything and gained it back, I've broken hearts and had mine broken. I've lost just about everyone in my family. And I'm still here. So, while my father never really showed much emotion, he seemed to have answers to everything. He could figure out a way to get something done and if that didn't work, he would have a plan B set up.

My father loved to bowl, but at best he was very average. He was consistent with about a 163 average or so. He was the treasurer of his blowing league on Sunday nights and I became fluent in finding averages at a very early age. He was the guy that posted the up to date league standings and current averages of every bowler on the league.

Damn those Sunday nights. 

little mascots for my dad's bowling league

Every freaking Sunday night during the league we went to Sam's Highland Park Bowl in Moline where my father and his friends would drink, bowl and cuss. There were guys like Smokey Baugher whom I hated because every damn time I saw him he twisted my nipples. What the  fuck was that about? Why did guys do that back then? I hated that. There was "Red" Green. His last name was Green and he had freckles so... There was no option of a baby sitter then, so my sister and I would go EVERY Sunday night during the winter and almost choke to death on cigarette smoke. But there was dad, chugging away always somewhere in the middle of the pack. These guys were my Dad's age and my dad was just about the only guy who had his kids come with them, I'm guessing the other guys' kids were already on their own.

My mother's family didn't care for my dad. I used to win trivia by saying I have a father older than my grandmother. How does that happen? Usually the kids would wonder and not come up with the answer. My dad was 9 months older than my mom's mother. I don't think her or my grandfather ever got over that. My mom's brother Ray especially didn't care for my dad and he was a bad ass who has probably, no,  has certainly killed someone.

We moved a lot between Ava MO and East Moline.

When we first moved there in 1966, the farm was myself, my sister, my mother, grandfather and grandmother. Four miles east of Ava, Mo off county road FF. My older brother was there for a short time, became small town restless and bored and got caught breaking and entering into the drug store in town. That's one early Saturday morning I'd like to forget. What to do? Dad's 500 miles away, so they make a plea deal where my brother went into the Army. Shit. Great. It's only friggin 1966. Viet Nam was getting to be a pretty popular name back then. 

After being on the farm for a year and a half, we moved to Campbell's Island, probably inhabited by some of the most feared, bad ass guys ever. The Cannibal's Island" moniker was no joke. We went from the sprawling farm to an 800 square foot bungalow pretty close to the river. We stayed there long enough for something to happen again, and for us kids along with mom, to be shuffled off to the farm for our second "tour of duty." We had a 159 acre farm 4 miles outside of Ava on a winding dirt road. When my dad decided to retire, he finally bought the house in Ava and we moved back there in early 1968. I never felt so isolated as I did on that farm. It was a working farm, too. We had cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, horses and acres of planted food. August and September were "canning" months and us kids worked like dogs in the field for no money other than an allowance each week. He bought the house, but allowed my uncle Ray to live there for awhile before we took possession. Ray destroyed the house. I remember walking into the house to take it over and there was human shit everywhere. The place was a wreck, I remember specifically because it made my mom break down in tears.

We cleaned it up, dad rehabbed it (as always) and we made a home of it.

before dad got a hold of the house

his "after" work

One afternoon, I was in the kitchen, Ray and dad were having a discussion out in the front yard when all of a sudden, Ray cold cocked my dad. Out of left field, out of nowhere, Ray hit him right in the face. My dad went down and all of a sudden, I had empathy for him. He didn't deserve that. I ran out but there wasn't much a 13 year old kid could do but keep him off my dad. About two weeks later, my father had a massive heart attack and in the middle of the night, we had to drive the 60 miles to Springfield to get him help. I didn't want my dad to die.

About a month after that, since an hour's trip to the hospital was unacceptable, my parents announced we would be putting the house, all the animals and equipment up for sale and uprooting us all to go back to East Moline.

I was ready.

I tested out of my freshman year in Ava and we moved in the middle of May.

I think we were all ready to go.

My father took it easy from that point on, only remodeling part of this new house on Oaklawn Ave. I installed central air and that was the first time I lived in a house with air conditioning. At fifteen.

I, for the most part, am glad I spent a great deal of time on a farm, it taught me that work goes on day after day, no matter the weather, no matter the circumstances. The basic principles of hard work were taught to me during that time.

By all accounts, my father was an honorable man, paid his bills on time, had great, long lasting friendships with people from the shop and the bowling league we went to every Sunday night. My dad worked hard, too. 

My dad could be quite comical in his own right. After he retired, he would lay on the couch, smoke cigarettes and watch TV. Since there was only one TV in the house, his viewing habits became ours and so did a couple of customs we had. Dinner was ALWAYS served at the conclusion of the second football game of that particular Sunday. On the nose.

God forbid if a game went to overtime with the food on the table.

My father could make a symphony out of farting. On command, he would try to see how many different notes he could pull off at one time. Some were like thunder, others a horn toot. He could launch acre trembling, loud, cannon farts. I swear sometimes the room would shake. Friends would be in awe of this man, because he loved to show off (embarrass) my friends.

My father was very loyal to the women in his life and would routinely take the side of my girlfriends or my brother's. My brother's wife got pregnant when he was in Vietnam. My mother busted her, my father defended her. I cannot tell you why he did that.

We lived in relative peace in that very tiny house on Oaklawn Avenue while I was in high a school until I quit high school, got my GED and started working at the local box factory Miller Container in Milan.

I worked third shift and my boss was the owner of the company's son who really worked me hard loading flat cardboard into a machine that printed and cut it so that it would become a box made to specifications. There was a bit of down time when Tom reset the machine but during the running time, we would kick ass and he pushed me so much, I started making a good living out there. We would routinely beat first and second shift and a couple of times would move through more pieces than those shifts combined. Even though I wore gloves, I would always come home with sliced up hands that healed into callouses. Tom beat me like a rented mule. I took all he had and then some. At the end of my shift at 7am, I would be exhausted from that shift and driving about 15 miles to home where I would eat breakfast that mom made, chat with her for awhile and then go to bed.

One day, I got up for dinner and dad was being a complete dick. It must have been a Friday because I had left my paycheck on the table and he saw it.

"You're making a lot of godammed money, aren't you?"

"Yeah I guess so, we've been more than hitting our goal out there."

Here is where I thought he was going to compliment me but...no.

"I think I need to start charging you rent."

"What?"

"Yeah, you can afford to pay rent here, we're not your slaves" and he kept at it.

"How much should we charge him Loraine?"

"Guy, he's seventeen, he's giving me a few bucks now and then..."

"Not good enough," Dad said and then he looked right at me. "One hundred dollars a month."

"What? You're nuts old man, I'm not paying you that to live here, I'm not 18 yet." I was about six days away if I remember right.

"OK, one hundred twenty five." he was really being dickish now.

"Screw you, old man, I'm not paying it, you can go take a hike."

And with that statement, I balled up my fists. That was a mistake.

"You want to go?" It was on and with great confidence; I took a swing at him.

The next thing I remember was laying on the floor looking up at him, he was standing over me yelling about getting it one more time. "Stand up", he said. I did and he hit me again. 

Again, I didn't see it coming.

"You dumb stupid shit." "I want you out of here as soon as possible."

My mother was inconsolable, but I was done.

One too many times...I couldn't even take him when he was 67, again I was humiliated.

I moved out that weekend and wished my mother well. She was a wreck and sobbing uncontrollably.

Thanks, dad, for making me have to choose.

Soon after I left, my sister got pregnant at 15 with a guy I despised.

This shook my father to his core. It rocked his foundation.

This was such a surprise and a remember being there when Vickie told him. He was mortified and broke down in tears. I had NEVER seen him cry like that. He loved his girls and my older brother but, for some reason, he never felt that way about me. I was just someone who lived in his house once.

My parents moved out of the house on Oaklawn Avenue right after my sister got married. They found a nice place right along the Mississippi above the lock and dam in Hampton. I think this was the first time my parents actually got to spend some time together by themselves, but my mother's drinking frustrated him very much.

This was about the time I decided to quit my job at John Deere foundry and try my hand at radio. My father was furious. "You are throwing all of this away for a pipe dream!"  That scenario is still in my head today. He rallied my wife at the time to try and talk me out of it. "I worked in the factory for 30 years and made a good living, you can do the same,” he said. It was at that time I said something to my father that I immediately regretted. 

"Yeah, but I don't want to end up like you," was my reply.

I think that hit him as hard as he hit me that fateful day. He was stunned, turned around, walked away and we rarely spoke from that point on.

One of my last memories of my father was actually a good one. Funny thing about the radio deal. After it was all said and done and the pieces of my life were being picked up after having my wife leave me for choosing a radio career, my dad mellowed. We were sitting on the porch of his house on the river and it was late summer of 77.  

He was reading the paper and just turned down the page to look at me and he said, "what's this Randy Lee shit?" After doing a shift on one of my very first radio jobs, I came over after and found him on the back porch with my country station on. That was odd, he didn't care for that kind of music. He was reading the paper and he said from behind it…"was that you on earlier today?" "Yes, that was me". At the time, I needed a "radio" name, so I called myself Randy Lee. “Well dad, I don't think anyone uses their real name on the radio, so at least I used my middle name."

"Use your real name; I want people to know that's my kid."

Now, I was stunned. He actually listened.

That was as close as I would ever get to getting a compliment from him and he seemed to be more at ease with it from then on.

There wasn't much of a "then on" as not too long in the future, he came into the extra bedroom while I was taking a nap, kicked the bed and said "get up, I'm having chest pains".

Shit. It was 30 minutes to the hospital, we made it in 17. Maybe the ride to the hospital killed him, but he never came home. As they wheeled him in, I heard over the loud speaker ”code blue, code blue in Emergency.”

I knew what that meant. He died about two weeks later, after waiting for one of his kids to get to the hospital. For a person who didn't seem to care much about kids, we all knew he waited for Carole to get there. 

My father, in the normal sense sucked as a father. But as a teacher, I learned toughness, how to be cool and calm under pressure, how to work hard and to always conduct yourself with a modicum of class and decency. Finally, one of the first I learned from him was what NOT to do when dealing with my kids. I love you is spoken freely and there's no question how much I love them. All three have graduated from college, something that wasn't important to my father so he never thought it would be important to me. I have been there to help pick up the pieces when they fall. But, like my father, I've allowed them to fail. So much I've had to unlearn, and so much I've carried from him that lies just below the surface.

He's given me my DNA and as I get older, he appears to me more and more when I look into the mirror. Physically, I'm becoming him. Mentally, emotionally and spiritually, he's not the man I am, but ironically, I wouldn't be this way without the not normal childhood I went through.

While yes, he was a very cold person who really never said or did much, he was a man of great character and when my father gave you is word, it was done. While growing up was incredibly uneven and mostly disappointing time, the only thing I can do is filter out the bad stuff and keep the good. And while the bad was more than the good, hanging on to the good has blessed me with having walked through the minefield with three kids of my own.  

Jess is so tough and is such a great mother. She has faced the hardship of raising an infant while finishing college by herself. Her day is yet to come. Paul has the mental discipline to do anything, as first diagnosed by his refusal to put the Nintendo game down until the enemy was destroyed. He's now working for Google in San Francisco. Emily has such an old kind soul but has her grandmothers "fuck you" attitude. When she finds her niche, she'll rule at it.

This exercise will hopefully eject the bad juju I have had for my father for years. Couple his aloofness and unemotional behavior with my mother's alcoholism, and it was a very lonely place to be. But, I made it. 

Ultimately, I tip my hat to him and say..thanks, Dad.

And what I wouldn't give right now, this instant to say hello to you and ask you how I'm doing.
I'd only need a heartbeat to know.

Are you proud of me?