If you’ve been following along you know that my father was a Colonel in the US Army. 27 years to be exact.
He had a very interesting career, as one of the original bomb disposal leaders in his field. You know, the guys that go in after the war and do something with the thousands and thousands of bombs and shell and mines and mortars that didn’t work. They simply didn’t explode, but still very well could blow at any moment.
Bombs and torpedoes that were dropped on Pearl Harbor. Or the Philippines. Guam. GuadalCanal, and Japan. Throughout Germany and later South Korea.
He had seen the first atomic blasts in the Nevada desert, testing grounds where no one would notice. They totally underestimated the power that day, or the power of radiation when most of the service men and scientists developed cancer of the thyroid, lymphatic system or somewhere else in their body.
He had wanted to get to 30 years of service, but his last option for a promotion required a tour of duty in Vietnam. He said he’d seen enough war and men dying. Retiring from his last assignment in designing these same rockets and bombs.
He was a soldier, and always a soldier, and had 3 little troopers for sons. Received a nice pension, plus lost a kidney and his thyroid, so the government was kind enough to give him some extra.
I wasn’t a planned newcomer when I arrived in 1957, and two weeks later, off he went to Korea. He next saw me when I was three years old, the whole family. Coming back from war he was dealing with ordering his men around, and they obeyed as they knew one mistake would cost them their lives.
I was named after my father – but not good enough to be a junior – I have a different middle name. I always wondered about that, and as a depressive person considered it was because I wasn’t good enough. I now know there’s no connection.
We were kids, not soldiers, and had just spent 3 of our important developmental years without him as the head of our little family. I grew up being spoiled by doting grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles.
But as a kid he wasn’t that involved in my life, maybe because he did that with his other sons and that was enough. I wasn’t into sports like I was expected to be, and after the rape actually preferred to be alone. But no tossing the ball around, riding bikes, just being a dad, you know?
That’s where my two most important memories of my father came to play, key reasons I think why his death was hard, but not intolerable. I know that sounds bad.
So these two memories. The first came when I was 14, when my mother said he should spend some time with me doing something, anything. We both liked to fish, I still love to, so the decision was made to go an hour to the State reservoir. We would camp a night or two and try our luck in his boat.
We got there, set up camp, put the boat in and trolled the lake for spots where either the bass or crappie were holding up. The winds were horrible, like any Kansa day, but we would try little coves to stay out of the gusts.
It was in one of these coves where we hit our luck, I first started hooking a few on a small silver lure. The crappie were schooled there by the hundreds, so we dropped the anchor from the little boat and parked ourselves in the middle of the school.
It seemed like hundreds of fish to a 14 year old, but was probably close to 50 – 60 fish each day. We cooked some up, shared some with some fellow campers, and took a bunch home for the freezer.
That was a great weekend with my father, one of one to be exact. Fishing, it ran in our blood and I was taught by the best, my paternal grandmother. My father was impressed for once, and in the future it was the only thing we bonded over, ever so slightly.
My family came from poor beginnings during the Dustbowl, where nearly everyone in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas lost their farms due to drought. The soil simply blew away. Followed by the stock market crash and the Great Depression. They partially survived by hunting and fishing in order to feed 6 boys while residing at the County Poor Farm. Yes, that’s what they were called back then. Basically free room and board as long as you helped on the farm, growing crops and livestock.
So the fish we caught we kept for another fish fry on another day. But I had proven my skill of being able to out catch him by putting more fish on the plate those couple of days.
The second memory is the one that burns in the back of my brain the most, a traumatic experience that I will never forgive him for as long as I live.
I was either 13 or 14, right at that age. I believe it was the year before my brother got married. His future bride and he were both sitting in the living room, along with dad in his special chair. (Could switch wording to say “He was sitting with his future bride in the living room”) Like all dad’s who had their personal chair.
Mom was in the kitchen, cleaning up lunch. I was up in my room goofing off doing something and came down to see what was going on, or to go outside or ride my bike or who knows what.
It was summer, or warm at least, as I remember being in some cut-off shorts and a t-shirt. Typical. And the tee shirt was also typical, always a couple of sizes too small and too tight. I hated my body, was embarrassed by the whole damn thing, and being fat.
But I remember being in a good mood, laughing or whistling or singing or whatever kids do. Wondering what my brother and his girlfriend were going to do that day.
Until I came around the corner of the hall, I was walking into the living room when my father stopped me.
“Say Kyd, I can’t remember seeing you without your shirt on for a long time. Why don’t you run around without your shirt like the other boys?”
“I don’t like too?
“Well take it off for me now, so I can see what you look like.”
Laughing, “No, I don’t think so.”
“I’m being serious.” And his tone had changed. The beginning of the monster he could be.
“So take your shirt off now.”
“No.” The tears had started.
You could sense the awkwardness in the room, the tone, everyone staring at him, wondering why he was doing this.
My mother even chimed in at one point. “Just leave him alone…”
But it got worse, more yelling and more of me saying no and more crying. It seemed like an eternity but lasted a minute.
Then finally,
“I said take off your goddamn shirt.” Not screamed at me, but in full monster mode, he was red in the face and hissed it at me.
I complied, sobbing, then turned and ran back to my room and slammed the door as hard as possible, I knew I might be in for the belt.
But no one came, until my mother came in to check on me, see if I wanted to eat. I said no, and stayed there til the next morning, when I got up early and left the house.
When I read back through this now it seems like a small thing blown into something in a child’s mind.
But I will never forgive him for that embarrassment. For that uncaring cruelty inflicted on his own son.
There can’t be forgiveness..
Except when I relate it to a female friend, and ask them, “Did your father make you undress in front of your family as a young girl?”
Then they get it.
And those are my two memories of my father as a child.
I do have two memories as an adult.
The first when he finally told me he loved me when I was 38 and had suffered a nervous breakdown.
The last when I stood on his grave on a tall flint hill in Kansas, thinking out loud..
“I’m finally free of you…”