Remembering Dad
This coming Sunday is Father’s Day. I might also reflect on my dad and Charlie Kelly’s dad. At the beginning of the Kelly Can Saga Series, Charlie and his father are at odds with each other. Over time, that gap is closed, and they develop a very good relationship. I'll leave it at that. You can read the books to find out the rest of the story. {Smile}
I have always told folks that my family life as I grew up was mighty close to a “Leave it to Beaver” episode. For my younger readers, Google it and then watch MeTV as the program is still on the air. Dad and Mom (John and Ernestine) were great parents. I should have written a blog about Mother's Day; maybe next year. Now, let me share a little something about my father.
Mom always described Dad as shy. That was true, but as he worked as a manager for the Oklahoma Tire and Supply Company in Cushing, you wouldn't know it. The Cushing Junior Chamber of Commerce had a contest every year to acknowledge the friendliest and most popular businessperson in town. After Dad won it several years in a row, the Chamber discontinued the contest.
I’ll never forget watching Dad sell a car battery to a customer. I asked him why he hadn't sold the person the battery they had asked for. Dad said, "Joey, he would have regretted buying it. The customer said he would probably sell the car that battery was for in a couple of years, so he wanted one with no more than a one-year warranty. I told him I could see that, but that he should consider how important it was for his car to always start, not how long the battery might
last.” I saw the customer smile at Dad and say, “Then give me a better battery.”
A dad or a businessperson should be like that and offer advice, putting the other person’s best interest first. I could give you many examples of how Dad had my interest at heart when he made decisions that directly affected me, but I’ll limit it to one.
When I was a teenager, I was playing American Legion Baseball in the summer. It was 1962, and I had an outstanding year. We had planned our family vacation for August after my baseball season ended. Dad came in from work one evening the week before we were to leave and said, "We're still going to New Orleans on our vacation, but Joey had such a good season, let's take him to see his hero Mickey Mantle play the Kansas City Athletics next week."
So, that's what we did. We arrived a day before the Yankees and went to the ballpark to watch the Athletics play the Washington Senators. I later learned this was Dad's plan. He went around the stadium (I thought he had gone to the men's room) and found the visiting team's locker room. The team would exit through a door and go down a ramp to the ballfield.
Dad got the family the closest seats to that door. He then had me sit in the seat closest to the ramp. That day, I met and talked with my hero and the other Yankees as well. I wrote a short story/memoir about this, and that piece, along with the program from that night, is now in the files of Mantle in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
That was Dad. Always a gentleman, always thinking of others, and I miss him. Dad passed in December of 2005, so it seems right to memorialize him twenty years later.
Now, you can see why it was important to me for Charlie and his father to reconcile. Not everyone gets a "Leave it to Beaver" family life as they grow up, but sometimes, we create a family from friends as we go through life. So be thankful when you have someone who looks out for you.
Happy Trail,
Joe