Life

I'm setting here tonight after a day which was long and while good had some bad with it from my own makings. If this had been years ago I would not be writing, but this is not years ago and things have changed. Then again, years ago I never read, I just waited on the movie or someone to tell me verbally. I done some of that tonight too.

It seems like when I was young, in my teens and early twenties I had life figured out. Man I was smart. If I watch the movies today or TV, kids are depicted as having life right while older people are wrong, and the older they get the dumber they are. Even in the seventies we were taught to respect our elders, to their face. Change is good we were sold. Out with the Old and in with the New, there are endless slogans.

I saw dad today. Not physically or spiritually, but inside myself. I saw and feel now at times like he must have, and it sucks, no other way to out it, it sucks. God knows I'm not the man he was/is, but I saw and felt his tribulations that he must have felt, yet he dealt with it better than I, or at least he never talked about it too much. As I grew older I saw increasingly what a man he was, but I didn't realize just how much a man he was until I got there.

As I get older, the more I know the more I find out I don't know. I'm fifty now and at this rate I'm be completely ignorant by fifty-two, and know I am. I love these ads that say to recover your youth. No thanks, they can keep it. I really don't want to do this again. I try and learn at least one thing new each day, something I retain.

At a Yard Sale a man (older than I) had a knife that dated back to the Nazi Germany era. He noticed my fancy for old tools and things and thought he would show it to me. It was inlaid with a pewter or silver symbol in the bone (real bone) handle. It wasn't in the greatest of shape but the symbol made into it was. He said he wasn't sure but he was told it was from Nazi, and off it started. The symbol was used by Nazi Occult, what the knife was used for, I had no idea, but the symbol was definitely it. That led us to the word origin for Nazi (Sumerian god), etc, etc, etc. Maybe because dad fought in WW2 that made me think of him, or at least started it, who knows.

I listened and answered questions that seemed not really relevant to anything worth saying today while we went from yard sale to yard sale. My wife's driving was intense. Surely we were on a battlefield and damned be the one who slows us down or gets in the way. It all got a bit too much, but I regressed back into a hole for a while. Suddenly I erupted. It started like a puff of smoke then BOOM! I had become a grouchy old man. Even now, knowing I shouldn't have said some of the "colorful adjectives" that I did. Not done the Marine type talk, I still feel both good and bad... mostly bad. How did dad do it? He vented at times but so much more gracefully, most times.

But I saw again tonight, maybe more than usual, a taste of what dad lived in his older years. As I hooked up the Rotovator to the tractor I needed help... but none was found, and I was too proud to ask for it. I had to swing a sledge hammer towards me hitting just below my knee. Now I have a huge knot there and it slowed me down even more getting the garden ready and eventually setting most of the plants. The pain was enough to allow me to show my butt just one more time as I had to have a glass of tea. Guess who was there, just goofing off?

This time though, I really got a dose of the past memories when I returned to the garden. Again I thought of dad. He would smile at young girls and we accused him of flirting. Now days I find out that I, like he, did enjoy talking to a young lady, but anything past that wasn't even considered. It's like you are looking at your kids, even when they are in the thirties, they're kids.

Then I saw him as he was older. He possessed so much vast knowledge it was unbelievable, yet as he age he couldn't get his body to do it. He tried so hard to pass what he knew to do along to me, eventually I started learning, but it would be later on. I never realized just how important that was until now, to have someone to pass your knowledge onto is. Car quit, he fixed it. Needed a house, he built it. In my late twenties I thought I'd make it a race by learning two things he didn't know how to do, electronics and masonry. I done them thinking it was a race yet he was proud of me.

Towards his last years I watched many times with his knowing as he worked on things. His hands crippled from hard work, feet crippled from shoes that didn't fit in WW2, body that was too weak to lift. I saw his eyes. You know the eyes are the mirror to the soul. The eyes can never hide it or lie. I'm not to his point yet, but I'm close, and the thing is, I am building back... I think. He had to know that he was in a declining body, yet he still tried, and usually accomplished what he set out to do.

In my 20s he would have been ignorant. My 30s he would have been stubborn. By my 40s, he was determined and by my 50s he was an inspiration. Now that he is gone, he is an aspiration to become like. He tried to accomplish tasks for everybody that asked, plus his own things too. Some things he could adapt to and others he eventually sought help, usually through a neighbor's son (Dusty) or through whichever one of us he could get. Many times I was too busy, I regret that.

So now it comes full circle. I've become the one that desires to pass down my skills and my knowledge. I'm the old man who knows how to mentally do it, yet physically can't at times. I'm the one who the young ladies talk to without fear, I'm a old man. I'm the one who's occasionally bursts are just seen and probably laughed off as the blathering of an old man. I didn't see this coming and yet it is the natural way of things. At times I feel alone. I just pray that I can do this ending as well as he did.

I'm not sure that I can though. This man fought to win freedom when he was a kid, I fought to a song saying the right to party... bit different there. Maybe that is why he opted out of the system in a way. He liked new vehicles yet desired none, he loved his truck. He drove a 1050 F1 until 1970 when he bought an F-100, and drove that one until 1990 when he bought an F-150, ahhh, but this one had luxury, unlike the first two. He didn't desire name brand clothing and although mom seen to it that he had the best, he knew not one from the other, nor did he care. Now he did like to eat out sometimes and he always dressed gone. He would help you even when you wouldn't help him.

He took on raising a son from a step daughter when it wasn't his obligation, treating both as if they were his own. He made sure this son knew that both parents were always loved and welcomed, even after they stopped loving each other. He always made sure everybody had what they needed, while nobody knew if he wanted anything. He had what he needed, peace and love. I'm guessing he seen enough absence of that during the war. A lot of that though we saw.

What I didn't see was just how it felt to be told you are outdated, even worse, treated that way. Kinda like treated like a child or a second hand rag by both the younger ones and his own body. To awake tired yet try and go anyway. To try and smile, even though the pain is at times more than you once thought you could bare. Yet he handled it so well.

Now as I stand there... ok, I was actually sitting, I ask myself one question, and only one. As I sat in the damp garden soil with my shinbone nearly broke, doing what I can and trying to figure out how to get back up or move to the next location. How am I suppose to fill this man's shoes? Even if I work hard at it, how?

Then I looked at it like we all play roles in life, different in some stages. He gave me a good name, so I had a start. Instilled in me faith in God and honor and duty. Something said even back then was outdated. He then left the rest up to me and hoped it was enough. If I live long enough, maybe by his example it will be, for I will ever remember those crippled hands and feet that never complained. Those wide open blue eyes that showed love even when he was mad. His silly things he done just to get a laugh, playing the fool intentionally just for a smile.

So maybe it is true that you reap what you sew, good karma attracts good karma, things you do come back to you. Days like these I think about him and how he must have felt, but then I remember what I saw mostly. A man that never invented anything, wrote a book, been on TV, and in time will fade from the memories of the next generation... but his teaching I pray will.

So dad, this one's for you...