Wednesday morning about 1.30 am I got The Call: He's in the hospital, come soon. Two and a half hours later I was by his bed. He recognized me, we spoke a few moments, pretty soon he was all done talking. It was all in all a pretty peaceful thing over the next few hours as his respiration weakened and eventually stopped. Three of his five children were at his side, as was his sister, age 78, who sensed the end coming and drove herself to Harrisburg from Chicago to comfort him. The others were just too far away. My younger brother who was the only one present when my mom died 26 years ago could not be there. I am happy to have made it this time and pick up that marker he laid down last time. He did it for me, now I have done it for him.
The most important part of this was that my older brother made it to Dad's side 5 minutes before he passed. I think that is what my Dad was waiting for--that his death might serve as the basis for a reconciliation in some broken family relations stuff that I am sure everyone would recognize if I described it.
Dad passed Wednesday at about10.30 am. He turned 86 last week. He did not suffer for too long and is at peace. He was a French and English teacher and coached wrestling and football for many years. He was born in 1930, in Karthaus, PA. Dad's mother's family owned the Karthaus Hotel. His grandma and mother and aunts spoke their native French when they did not want him to know what they were saying. In this way he learned French very quickly.
I once asked my granddad whether it ever gave him pause to have had one child in 1930 and another in 1938--the heart of the Depression. He said he did not know there was a Depression. It was just hard times. Sometimes he had work, sometimes he didn't. He and another guy with kids shared a job in a brickyard, walking around on top of kilns so hot it cooked the work boots off his feet in about a month. Grampa worked 2 days one week, while the other guy worked 3. The next week, Grampa worked three and the other guy two. They ate wild game year round. Dad grew up wanting to get out.
Dad got out and became the second on either side of his family to get a degree. He graduated from Lock Haven two years after his Uncle Tom graduated from PSU. Tom fought at the Battle of the Bulge and went to college on the GI Bill. He told stories of serving Mass as an altar boy while wearing a gun on a sling as the Battle raged. He and dad traveled to Corning NY in 1950 and got summer jobs at Corning Glass. Pretty soon the whole younger generation of the family and a lot of their parents migrated to Corning. There's still a chunk of them there.
Education saved my family. A kid with nothing who has some smarts is the greatest single natural resource this country has. If we can educate them and not ruin them with debt, they will grow the economy all by themselves, and drag their whole family along for the ride.
Alright. The soapbox is being dragged closer and I'll not jump on it today. Many thanks to those who read this. And many thanks to Tom McA. It is a wonderful thing to have a forum where we can express ourselves like this.
Oh, the fights that we had
When my brother and me got him mad.
He'd get all boiled up and start to shout,
I knew what was coming, so I tuned him out.
Now the Old Man is gone
And I'd give all I own,
To hear what he said when I wasn't listenin'
To My Old Man.
