About Daddy Series (#s 8 to 11)

About Daddy (8)

In the mid-sixties things were going downhill steadily in Daddy’s construction business. It could have been a recession at that time. Those come and go, do they not? We always had good years and bad years, anyway. My mother had almost always worked alongside Daddy as bookkeeper and office manager. I began to help a lot in the office too since I didn’t like outdoor jobs. That I learned quickly! I was about 16 and 17 and listened to music on the radio a lot when I was alone. I loved “Silence Is Golden” and the stations played it over and over.
About this time we thought Daddy had an affair. (A family member said to me one day that Daddy had a lot of affairs. I don’t know about that and didn’t care to at that moment or, actually, at this moment.) He would’ve been 42 years old more or less. He bought some farm land in the neighboring county and we left our little city and went to live there. My maternal grandparents did too, which was especially nice for me as I loved them very much. In different ways we were all happy. Almost like the Waltons, but flatlanders. It helped that mother was very close to her parents; hence, we kids were also. Daddy didn’t have much choice there. But Daddy generally liked most people, it’s true.
Anyway, mother at the time was out of the office more often than in it. I went in with Daddy a lot on Saturday mornings to answer the phone, type letters, collect rent, etc. Daddy and a very close brother-in-law of his began drinking beer again after having sworn it off about 20-odd years because of religious convictions. Soon, one thing led to another as that which we seek, we find.
A secretary was hired to fill in for mother, sort of. This secretary had a great sense of humor and a great laugh, I remember. No one (well, almost no one) could fail to like and laugh along with this woman.
Previously, Daddy had had only construction offices. Now he wanted to expand and be able to sell existing property as well as new. This meant a real estate office. I was learning a lot in my teen years!
Overwhelming temptation came in the form of the real estate broker who was hired. She was quite a package. I could see that, even though I was 20 years younger than she was. She was very unlike our mother. It still angers me: We men want ‘saintly’ wives at home who’ll practically bear everything good or bad that comes their way, but for fun we want a fancy dresser who wears generous amounts of make-up and who wouldn’t wash a dish to avoid death even. We want a luscious siren.
Anyway, to wind down, the alleged affair didn’t last too long. No marital breakup occurred (though perhaps it was seriously considered). I went on to graduate from high school and start college. Mom and Dad moved to Florida while I was in my senior year. Mom didn’t really want to move to Florida. She didn’t want to be that far from her family: her two parents, her six sisters and their families. Dad was going with or without her, it seems (Home building in many parts of Florida was far more active at that time than it was in Georgia.). In the end, Mom went. Thus, when I went home for holidays, I had to drive 8 and 9 hours one way (from Atlanta to central Florida) instead of the 3 hours I’d been accustomed to.

About Daddy (9)

Daddy couldn’t stand it when a parent would say they just couldn’t “do anything” with Suzie or Johnny (now not so little and maybe attracting the attention of the local police). He’d tell the parent what was wrong and, later, let us kids know that the reason the parent couldn’t do anything was that when s/he could (when the kid was 3 or 4 years old), s/he didn’t! Daddy was so emotional about that topic because he knew that that was his ‘strong point’—being able to do something with his kids. It wasn’t so nice when he refused to spare the rod, though. I know adults who were never ‘touched’ physically as children and they didn’t grow up anywhere near ‘crooked’. So, the ‘rod’ doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything, although it is spoken of in Scripture.
One thing was for sure: Daddy knew where his 5 growing kids were every single day! His kind of work allowed him to “pop in” any hour at home, so, we kids also learned to stay “on guard” most of the time. Cat and mice. The learning took some time, however. One brother was always slipping away from our property and going far down or up the unpaved alley. He’d been warned over and over not to do it. He was only 4 or 5 years old (even then he had a stubborn streak that would only ‘ripen’ as he aged)! Daddy would pop in and, not finding this one, would go into the alley and spank him all the way back. He’d yell and make promises, but to little avail. The other brother committed equal or worse little ‘crimes’. Me? I was too chicken and the little ‘goody’.

About Daddy (10)

To focus or “zoom in” on the one leper who returned to offer the Lord his thanks, I wrote my short story “One”. I tried to do a good, albeit brief job. Later I remembered how much Daddy had helped others. And how few helped him later in life. Obviously his reward was not to be here on planet Earth.

About Daddy (11)

Something Daddy and I agreed on completely concerned the “good old days”. One of our pastors would get into high gear talking to Daddy about the good old days and how both people, things, and situations in general back then were better. Daddy would listen a bit then fire back that he didn’t want anything to do with those good old days! Days of hunger, cold, joblessness, less efficient transportation, and so on. No thank you! Since Daddy grew up in the days of the Great Depression as well as lost his dad at a young age, I’m sure he knew a lot about cold and hunger. Perhaps grandma (his mother) did her best. I can’t be an “absentee” judge of that. I was there listening when the pastor and others talked about those days. I tended to agree with Daddy and now, many years later, have not changed that position. Here I note some of the people, situations, and things of those good old days:
Adolph Hitler; no air-conditioning; numerous incurable infant and childhood diseases; Joseph Stalin; soup lines and kitchens across our America; almost no frozen foods such as those we have today and, as a result, longer hours in the kitchen sweating over a hot stove; less-educated teachers; schools with far less supplies and special services for our students; racially-motivated ‘lynchings’ in the South; home ownership out of reach for many Americans due to lack of financing and programs that now exist for it; no Internet; and on and on…
Some say there was more love back then. More helping your neighbors. You think so? Many people have plenty of love nowadays. Others have none. I suspect that situation has never changed. I’ve got 2 or 3 neighbors right now who, should I ask them, would do just about anything they could to help me. I just hope I never have to ask. I mean, we do like being a little independent (I don’t say self-sufficient, which no one truly is) as long as we can, do we not? I suspect what really happens is we remember certain days that were or seemed halcyon to us. But see, we were young. Our parents loved us and acted responsibly in order for us to have the things we needed. In most cases, of course! Some parents were, as parents, disasters! No love and no responsibility. But they were isolated cases. Even today (and I see this when I go home to visit) all across America families still live near each other in thousands of communities sprinkled from sea to shining sea. In-laws, brothers, sisters, cousins, best friends, you name it.