The Russians Are Coming!

My dad was a storyteller.

Meaning, he told us completely unbelievable things and I always believed him.
"Cats are really elephants."
I knew it!
(He never actually said that, but if he had...)
Dad would say the most ridiculous stuff you ever heard with a straight face.

My brother inherited this trait. Very droll, my brother. Funny. Never laughs at anything I say, 'cause I'm not funny. I'm always trying to make him laugh and it never works. Awkward. He is a tough crowd. (although he did call me to say he laughed his hind end off at the vacation post. Pleased me to no end.)

Anyway, one day when we lived in Kodiak, my father comes home from work, (Master Chief Radioman, USCG), and announces that they're working on a secret project: a new code to replace the Morse Code because the Russians have decoded it.

Now, I'm sure all you smart folks out there (ah, that would be everyone but me) see two or three holes in this little scenario straightaway. (If you haven't, email me, because have I got a bridge for you!)

And just so you don't think -
"Oh how cute. Of course all five year old's believe their father's stories." - I was in high school people.

So little ole high score IQ me (higher than Charles Manson's!) goes to school and tells anyone I can find who will listen: GUESS WHAT? MY FATHER IS WORKING ON A NEW CODE BECAUSE THE RUSSIANS HAVE DECODED THE MORSE ONE.

I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout. We learned the Morse Code, I remember it being in my handbook. My father used to write our names on our lunches in code.

The one thing I apparently forgot was...

The Morse Code is an INTERNATIONAL freakin' CODE.

Everyone knows it - even the Russians.

.-- ... .- - .- -. .. -.. .. --- -

Color me gullible.

-.- .. --

Happy Birthday Dad

Today would have been my dad's 85th birthday.



He was a lot of things: funny, grumpy,
(my son called him Grumpa), patient, impatient, keeper of unreasonably high expectations - for himself and everyone else, undemonstrative, generous, stubborn, kind, insensitive, a hard worker, loyal, stubborn (I already said that, but he was really stubborn), prone to go on and on about stuff, (guess that's where I get that from), bigoted, polite, unable to repair most anything, but a collector of tools anyway, lover of peace and quiet, books, music (certain kinds anyway), cats, gardens, nature, and family.



Moving back to Florida to be with my parents was the best thing I ever did. It repaired our relationship. My father and I did not speak to each other at all for an entire year when I was 15-16. (Yeah, I may have inherited a stubborn gene or two.) And that year colored the next twenty four.

It wasn't repaired in the dramatic way I pictured - of course. He had changed, I was older. We laughed about some things that happened, like the vacation.
He said "I must have been a real jerk.", and we were good. (I wrote a letter apologizing for my stupid behavior many years earlier. He never said anything about it, but he kept the letter.)

Miss you Dad.

Nature Boy

My father should have been a naturalist or a zoologist or some other ist that pertains to animals. Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was a regular visitor in our home (via TV, not literally people). We owned every National Geographic hardcover book having to do with animals and a set of animal encyclopedias.
I remember being at some zoo somewhere (San Francisco?) and having people ease in to listen to my dad talk about hippos. Zoo keys - who needs 'em? He loved books by Gerald Durrell. (now that guy was funny!)

Many of our family outings were geared towards nature type activities; in Guam we collected seashells (watch out for those coconut crabs!), in Miami we went to the botanical gardens or the Everglades. In Alaska, my dad would often come home and relate what he had seen that day on the ten mile drive to and/or from work: fox, beaver, ptarmigan, marmot.

And then there was the yearly pilgrimage...



to watch the salmon spawn. That's right - every year for five years we, like the salmon, were drawn to a river to struggle mightily upstream.

Now I know what you're thinking...

Exciting right?

Yeah, not so much.

Because, truly, when you've seen one dying salmon flopping around, gasping for its last breath of air, chunks of flesh missing from fights with other salmon, eye pecked out by a raven or magpie, you have seen them all. (and people wonder why I don't eat the fish - gack.)

My mother had enough slides - of just salmon mind you - to fill an entire carousel. I don't know why. Seems one or two would have sufficed.

Salmon are the candy bar equivalent to bears, they love them and the fatty fish help fatten them up before winter's deep sleep. (not sure Kodiak bears truly hibernate, but they do take long naps.) When the salmon are spawning, they make for easy pickings; the streams are so crowded with fish, you could easily pluck one out with your bare hand (or humongous paw), if you were so inclined.
In spite of not listening to Mom's warnings to take pie plates (make noise to let bears know you're there) whenever we went out salmonberry picking (bears like them too), or climb Old Woman, we never saw a bear.
Not even when we were smack dab in the middle of their Super Wal-Mart salmon fest.



But there was this one time:
We hiked up a river, name unknown or unremembered, in and out of little rocky coves, the twelve or so foot high riverbank above us shrouded with grass and foliage.

Suddenly it got very quiet and still; it seemed like even the river stopped running. The breeze quit breezing. Birds stopped singing.

It was eerie, goosebumpy.

I don't remember what Dad said exactly, but it was in a hushed voice - something along the lines of, "Walk, DON'T RUN, back the way we came. Right now."
We did.
And a cove or two down, the birds sang, the river ran, and the breeze breezed again.

I'm convinced that while we may not have seen the bear(s), the bear(s) sure saw us.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

My father's idea of vacation was the two - three weeks we had to travel between duty stations. Here's his "vacation" schedule:
06:00 - all hands on deck
06:30 - car packed and inspected
06:35 - all hands in car and heading to restaurant
07:20 - all hands back in car for the required number of miles to be driven before lunch
12:20 - lunch
13:20 - all hands back in car for the required number of miles to be driven before supper
15:00 - possible bathroom stop
17:20 - designated motel

My father was disciplined - if he decided the goal was 500 miles before lunch, then by god, we were going 500 miles - never mind if we passed up the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, or the world's largest ball of string.

Lord help us if the car made a noise or some other thing, invisible to us, happened.
His jaw would clinch, a sure sign of displeasure, and my mother would fold up the map and look back over the seat at us, pleading with her eyes for us to be quiet for a bit.

Which was my sister's (middle child) cue: "I need to use the bathroom! Is something wrong with the car? Is it going to break down? Will we be stuck here forever? Are we stopping? Is Daddy mad? Why is his jaw doing that? Mommy, why are you hitting my leg and telling me to shush? I think Russ is going to throw up. When are we going to eat? Can I have some gum? Kim's looking at me! I said I have to use the bathroom!"

My father was not a hitter or a yeller, when the jaw started clinching, he stopped talking.
To everyone.
For weeks.

Not exactly what you want to have happen on vacation.

But in spite of all the years of traveling with my dad, one year my mother insisted we were going to have a REAL vacation. Disneyland. Sea World. The San Diego Zoo.
We hooked up a rented trailer to the back of the Ford Galaxy and headed south, full of ignorance and bliss.



The first night on the road my brother threw up. Since he was in the top bunk, we were in the bottom and there's this thing called gravity...well you can imagine the rest of that little interlude. Also managed to hit my dad's shoes dead center. No problem.




Things go well at Knott's Berry Farm. And Disneyland.
My sister and I are getting along, having fun even. That's akin to peace in the Middle East.



Then at Sea World, it all comes apart. Dad had spied a restaurant that employed a tram going over the water to transport you to their establishment. My sister, who was petrified and white knuckled on the Disney Monorail, turned a whiter shade of pale and really didn't want to go.
Well, that was that. Even though she said she'd do it. My dad was done. Turns out you could drive there as well but no, my dad would not be moved.

For the rest of the vacation he did not talk to us unless he had to.
At the San Diego Zoo, he decided to punish us by sitting by himself at the entrance all day. He'd show us!

The rest of us had fun without him.



We never went on vacation again. Guess we'd all learned our lesson.

Eleven Years Ago

My father died April 30, 1999.

He died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells.

There is no cure.

He also lost a kidney to cancer (very probably caused by MM) and two thirds of one lung (most likely due to smoking non filtered cigarettes since he was twelve).

I miss him, but am glad he's not here to see what's happened to Mom. It would kill him.

Cooking - Southern Style

My father was not demonstrative as a whole; his Scots-Irish DNA prohibited it. He was a man of walk the talk, not talk the walk. If he was there, he loved us. The end.
When he wasn't at sea or didn't have duty, he was home every night for supper and he contributed, like the rest of us. He made the salad, I peeled the potatoes, my brother and sister set the table, and Mom did the rest.

Sometimes he was the cook, usually when we had "vegetable" dinner or breakfast for dinner.
Vegetable dinner consisted of pure carbs: black-eyed peas, rice for Hopping John, cornbread, sliced tomatoes with mayonnaise slathered all over them, turnip greens (for Mom) and my favorite - what my father jokingly referred to as Potatoes A La Patton.
Recipe: roughly mash potatoes with milk and butter, plop them on your plate and make a hole. In the hole, place raw chopped onions and mayonnaise, then mix.
The crunch of the onion, the tangy creaminess of the mayo all mixed in with the carrier potatoes - shut your pie hole! To this day they are one of my all time favorite comfort foods.

My dad fried eggs by ladling hot bacon grease over the top of them, no flipping involved.
I am convinced that a Southerner's blood is part bacon fat. We actually owned a canister set that included one for bacon grease. In my house, pouring a precious commodity like bacon grease down the drain was a first degree felony.
Fried corn, another one of my favorites, involved bacon grease.
Recipe: remove the kernels from a bunch of fresh corn. Saute in bacon grease (sub olive oil now) in a cast iron skillet (that is important). Ta da! Fried corn. Freezes well.

Not sure why it's called fried, batter was not involved.

Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree

(My hair courtesy of Mom's "tomorrow-is-picture-day-just-let-me-trim-your-bangs-a-little" handiwork.)

My father and I have/had very similar personalities.
We also looked the same - note the goofy smile, the dreamy far-away look, the long face, the ears. I cannot tell you how many times I heard the words every little girl longs to hear,
"Why, don't you look just like your father!"

In spite of looking alike and having the basically the same personality - or perhaps because of it, we bugged the crap out of each other, especially when I was a teenager. Except reading, that was common ground. Reading seemed magical to me and I learned at around three.
By second grade, while others were plodding through Dick and Jane, I was reading "Black Beauty".

My father was a sucker for an encyclopedia; in addition to the ever popular Britannica, we had medical, animal, art, gardening, and biblical. I'm pretty sure we were on the "that guy will buy anything!" list. We also owned every hard cover National Geographic book ever published, in addition to getting the magazine subscription for decades.

I received books for all major present giving holidays and illnesses. You never got trouble for reading in my house - unless it was a comic book (or at the table). My dad thought comic books were "noneducational", he had an irrational dislike for them and they were not allowed in the house.
This rule was so adamantly enforced I actually thought I was dying when he gave me four comics during my measles episode (105.5 temp). There could be no other reason he let me have them! Still remember what they were - two Richie Rich, a Baby Huey and Little Lulu.
Of course that rule was totally out the window by the time my siblings were reading and they both had comic books galore. Brats.

In 1968 we moved from Miami, FL to Kodiak, Alaska and were TV-less for two years. Something about the TV putting us over two thousand pounds (the limit the CG would move). Right. (Not that it mattered much, there was only one channel that was on less than 24 hours a day. Taped Christmas specials came around New Year's.)

My dad and I were regulars at the library during those years. We would come home with a stack of books and read two or three at a time. Back then I could easily read a book a day, even during the school year. The librarian (wish I remembered her name) would put aside books for my dad, sister, and I according to our interests. She told me about Frank L. Baum writing more than "The Wizard of Oz" and the Tolkien trilogy, which I thought was the best thing since sliced bread; I read it in three days and then started them all over again. We read books on Africa, Australia, nature, every Zane Gray novel ever written, science fiction, interspersed with fairy tales, Egyptology, and Norse gods.

In a way we also bonded over music, even though my dad made fun of my musical choices. He was into equipment, we always had a nice stereo system - JVC turntable, Akai reel-to-reel tape player. I had my own stereo and headphones (that way he didn't have to hear any Black Sabbath). He showed us all the correct way to handle an album, how to thread the tape on the reel to reel. (Later in life I was a waitress at a barbecue restaurant; the owner had an amazing collection of Motown, blues, and jazz on reel to reel tapes. I was the only one who knew how to work the thing.).

My father believed in taking care of things, there were certain things you DID NOT DO. Like laying a book down with the pages open (breaks the spine - use a BOOKMARK!); touching the record (LP) (handle it on the edges); not putting things away in the proper place - if Herb Albert was in the Mills Brothers album cover, there would be hell to pay!

Nothing Compares 2 U

My father was the guy who made fun of my, as he called it, "yea, yea, yea" music. So imagine my shock at supper one night when he starts a discussion about Sinead O'Conner.

"Don't understand the shaved head, but I like that song she sings, Nothing Compares to You."

Wait...whaaaaaaaa...how do you know about Sinead O'Conner?!

Turns out the nights he couldn't sleep, of which there were many, he watched VH1. His two favorite music videos: "Nothing Compares 2 U"and Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". Well, natch.

I bought the CD for him. After he died, spontaneous tears would erupt whenever that song came on the radio or I happened upon the video.

It's been seven hours and fifteen days
Since you took your love away
I go out every night and sleep all day
Since you took your love away
Since you been gone I can do whatever I want
I can see whomever I choose
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
But nothing
I said nothing can take away these blues
`Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you

It's been so lonely without you here
Like a bird without a song
Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling
Tell me baby where did I go wrong
I could put my arms around every boy I see
But they'd only remind me of you
I went to the doctor n'guess what he told me
Guess what he told me
He said girl u better try to have fun
No matter what you'll do
But he's a fool
`Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you

all the flowers that you planted, mama
In the back yard
All died when you went away
I know that living with you baby was sometimes hard
But I'm willing to give it another try
Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you

Southern Living

Both my parents are from the South, from the early 1700's on my mom's side; my father's side of the family is proving to be a bit more elusive.

My father's family were sharecroppers in Georgia.
He's the baby in the picture, the "young'un" as he'd say. He would be the baby of the family until thirteen years later when Billy came along. He was the first one in the family to graduate from high school.

My grandmother was very short, 4'9" and my grandfather was very tall, about 6'7". The Mutt and Jeff of grandparents. Neither one of them talked very much; they weren't squeezers or pinchers, but we got that they LOVED us.


When I found out they didn't own the house my father had lived in since he was about three months old, I was heartbroken, I was hoping it would be my inheritance. It had no indoor plumbing, no A/C. My grandmother lived in that house for over fifty years and didn't have indoor plumbing until sometime in the seventies. We thought using an outhouse and chamber pots was great fun, but then we didn't have to empty them!

Water came from the well and it was the sweetest, coldest water I've ever tasted. There was a bucket with a gourd dipper next to the sink on the screened in porch. That's where you washed your hands/face, brushed your teeth, got a drink of water. Baths were in the pantry in the galvanized tub, and all three of us children used the same water; water was heated on the wood burning stove.

That wood burning stove could turn out the most amazing food in my grandmother's capable hands. Ham, biscuits, peach cobbler, fresh coconut cake, (where in the world did she get fresh coconuts in rural Georgia?!), squirrel and rabbit stews, all manner of deliciousness came from that stove. She was also a consummate canner, as most women had to be back then. The pantry was full of beautiful jewel like jars of vegetables and fruits; her pickled peaches were my favorite. Once when I was very young, my mother, grandmother and I picked blackberries for pies. My grandmother made my doll her very own real pie in the pie tin from a set of play dishes.

They grew cotton and had a truck garden. My grandmother had her kitchen garden and chickens. I can remember being about three years old and watching her kill a chicken for supper. She had her chopping stump with the axe stuck in the top of it, so it was handy. They had two or three cows, mules, (my dad said he'd spent more time than he cared to remember looking at the rear end of a mule as he plowed fields), and a pig who met its demise every fall ("so fat he'd be blind").
Plenty of feral cats in the barn and one brown hound dog named, appropriately enough, Brownie. I remember him when I was three and he was still alive sixteen years later. Ate nothing but table scraps his whole life and never set foot in the house. Animals are to be outside was my grandmother's philosophy.

You did not lallygag at my grandmother's house, even little hands could do something; snap beans, shell peas, cut out biscuits, weed, pick tomatoes, feed animals. But there was still plenty of time to play with the toy grocery store, run around with Brownie, or stand in the barn wishing the feral cats weren't so I could play with the kittens.

It was a beautiful place, this sharecroppers house sitting on the red Georgia clay, with no indoor plumbing, a bed in the living room (my parents slept there), and a bed under the stairs (where I slept - until my dad told me a story about a snake coming up through a hole in the floor right under that bed).

I miss it and my grandparents.