There is snow. The snow that wasn't here yesterday, is here today. "I" is outside now and seemed surprised by how deep it was. She looked at me as she stepped off the porch. As if to say, "This is cold." I am very glad I do not have to go outside to take care of that kind of business. Not much would be taken care of.
My Dad was twenty-eight when he and my Mother married. He had never been married before, of course neither had my Mom. They knew each other only two weeks when they married and it lasted forty years until his death. My Dad was handsome, a true introvert and he loved my Mother. Two weeks seems like a very short time but it worked for them. I think they both wanted a family and to settled down. She was twenty-four. They had corresponded for several months before they met. So when she went to western Kansas to visit her sister, she told her other sister she was getting married and she did,
Dad worked so hard and you just grew up thinking that was the way all men were. They worked, six days a week, twelve hours a day. They gave their money to their wife. What a big surprise life had in store for me when I grew up. I know that is where my brother learned his work ethics, from my Dad.
The trait I remember about my Dad so plain was how neat he was. He worked in a Filling Station back in the days they were real stations. Not a convenient store with a gas pump. They washed cars, they greased cars, they changed oil. But every night when Dad came home from work, Mom pulled out the old wooden bench. She worked on his back and then he took a bath. He had so much back trouble and she would pop his neck and rub his back. Then he took a bath changed clothes, cleaned his fingernails. Then he ate supper. By that time it was getting late. But these are the events that happened everynight before bed. After twelve hours of work, He still always cleaned up before he ate. I would have skipped a bath sometimes I am sure but he never did.
Dad also when he went somewhere other than work wore a hat. As a small child I thought he was so handsome, tall, slender, with a mustache and he wore a hat. The kind men wore in the movies back then. As a kid I loved that, seeing my Dad in a hat. He had this hat box that was lined with satin and the hat went into it upside down. On his day off if we were going somewhere, Dad got the hat box down and carefully took it out. Standing in front of the mirror he would place it on his head at just the right angle. I always thought he looked just like one of the movie stars I watched on the big silver screen.
Dad also had a sweet tooth. Which I will blame mine on him. But when you have all these kids running around its hard to keep candy very long. So in the hall we had , just a narrow little slip of a hall, Mom kept winter coats hanging on nails. One day when I was hiding under the coats, don't ask why I was, its hard to tell. I found stuck down in the pocket of Dad's over coat the bag of pink peppermint candy. Hidden! Dad never mentioned his candy stash was going down. He never moved it from the pocket. Each new bag Mom bought for him still went in there. But from that day forward I shared Dad's candy. And never told another soul about my find.
Sometimes when he wasn't too tired, he would take out his Harmonica. He kept in a cloth bag and he would play. I am not sure how many songs he really knew. He played the,"Irish wash woman," that one I remember for sure. He would smile and cup his hands and he would play. Memories flood me as I write about it. Sitting in that old kitchen on ninth street. Dad sitting in his slacks and white undershirt, playing the harmonica.
He was a good man, a quiet man. I have wondered after I was grown if he could have resented how hard he had to work for a bunch of kids who probably never gave him thanks until long after we were grown. But I remember his smile. And the harmonica. Thanks dad.
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