I've found myself lately thinking often about my dad. Maybe its because I am getting old or that he is old. Maybe it's just me trying to turn back the hands of time to collect and carry more memories of us than I can now recall. Whatever the case may be, I've never missed him or loved him as much as I do now. These thoughts bring upon me mixed emotions of happiness and regret, sadness and laughter. In retrospect, I doubt I'll ever know a better man than he is. It took me way too long to see how many things He did out of love that I sadly mistook for other things. At the end of the day, I'll carry with me everything good and true and real thing about him in this life, and leave every reason, notion and memory that says otherwise in the past where it surely belongs.
I was the only one of the three boys that waited till I was 18 or so to drive. In truth, if he had bought me a car at 16, the decisions I made during my rebellion would have been made sooner. He was wise and prudent to keep me on a leash. He did that maybe because he must have known me. I know that every freedom and privilege given to me since 12 years of age was exploited and stretched until it was gone. When I say this, I am exposing without condition that I was born with a rebellious streak that would instigate and aggravate the short temper and long arm of dad's law. I was wrong on many levels to question what his motives were in being what I thought was glaringly hard on me as a young boy. I knew he loved me but reckoned that his discipline was only rooted in anger, and the fear I had for His discipline overtook my perception of His love, and my Godly duty to be obedient. Neither of us can take back any of our yesterday's, and knowing this I have in my own maturation concluded that love was his aim, while mine was freedom from the rules and principles he diligently sought to instill within me. I believe that if I would have been more obedient and not helped in going against the grain, he would not have much need or reason to be angry. It really was my fault, and I must live with that regret. I did what I wanted to while he did what He had to. Daddy tried, momma cried.
There is not very much I can say about my dad's own upbringing, I know very little because he spoke very little about it. I'd love to have known more but he insulated much of it when his childhood days entered into the discourse. 'Don't tell those boys all your stories' He told my uncle Bee the time he came over to our place when I was about 12 or so. Even from 100 feet away, he could hear Bee carrying on about my dad's younger years. I asked him to tell me stories about my dad and he did. With a decent beer buzz and plenty of time, he sat in the grass under the old cherry tree in the side yard on old Fair Oak Road and painted memory after memory of His own recollections upon my mind. I'll never forget that day or one single story he told. In hearing them I understood why it made my him uncomfortable what Bee was telling me. That day I knew somehow, I was just like him. Looking back at it now, I take comfort in that. It made me love and understand him more realizing he was human too. Dad was just a normal kid trying to hack it in this world.
Summers would find the family loading up the old baby blue Chevy C-10 and heading south on 75 to Chatsworth Georgia. I cannot begin to explain the level of anticipation and excitement I'd feel the days leading up to our departure. I would compare it to what a friendly little beagle dog feels when someone knocks on the door and they get so happy they just start peeing everywhere. Yeah, just like that. I loved the road then like I do now. There's something about the hum of the tires rolling and country music playing and the ever changing view out the window of them hills in Kentucky and Tennessee that felt like home to me. Chatsworth Georgia was basically a haven for professional rednecks and world class hillbillies, so I always felt like that town was full of family I'd never met. My first girlfriend, Jenny Beck would be standing in her gravel driveway next to an old trailer in some little dress and all dimples and smiles when we pulled in. Holding her hand felt like heaven to my 5 year old mind, and for so many years, those long hot summers spent underneath the South Georgia skies were the best days of my life. Well into my thirties, I took a roadtrip back down to Chatsworth to find some of that innocence I left on those red dirt roads, and they were now covered with concrete and asphalt. My soul and my road that weekend were both paved with good intentions, but I left early on a Sunday morning and headed for Daytona Beach, desperate to lose more innocence and make more memories.
Dad was a hero knowing what it took to make us boys happy. Rivers lakes dirt and mud, boats and cars and nights underneath the stars speckled my childhood like the freckles on my face back then. I never thanked him for busting his beat up back and making his hands turn to leather doing what it took to give us better than what He had. Im damn well and better off for all he did for His family, and no man I know could outwork my Dad back in the day. With sweat dripping off his nose and scars to prove his worth, I never heard him complain about hard work one time. His real strenght was found, not in His 20 inch biceps, but in His determination to give us all the best he had. Like I said, he was a hero and he didn't even know it. That was dad. Knowing him, he wouldn't have believed it anyway.
Dad would always sell something for less than what he bought it for, usually cars, chainsaws and this that and the other. Giving someone a good deal was more important than making a profit in dad's book. I believe it was his way of giving back to people. His loss was, another man's gain, but I bet He never took a loss in his book.
Today His hair and mind are grey and weathered, and there is nothing I can do but think about my childhood and wonder if he recalls those yesterday's as I do. If I could change anything, It would be every single day that has passed over the years that I didn't pick up the phone somehow and let him know how much I loved him and why. In retrospect, there are so many why's. There always will be.
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