Originally published 4/4/16
I was transported back in time to my childhood recently, when I spent a week with my dad. Every other week I return to South Carolina for work, and I'm fortunate to stay with my parents. Mom had jetted off on a foreign mission trip, so it was just me and dad.
Dad and me, June 2016
A word about my childhood: I had a fairy tale childhood. It's true. I know most people don't, and I know how lucky I am. We lived at 625 Spencer Circle. My mom was a school teacher and my dad worked at Milliken, on one of the biggest super computers of its day. We lived in a brick ranch, the newest thing when we moved to Spartanburg in 1969. We had breakfast together every morning (which was always preceded with a short devotional read by dad), a homemade dinner every night promptly at 6, just a few minutes after my dad walked in the door, pancakes on Saturday morning, a few minutes of cartoons, a regimen of chores, church on Sunday, followed by pot roast on the good china in the dining room, and Lee's Famous Fried Chicken and a snack cake while we watched 60 Minutes and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. When my parents went out to play bridge we got to eat a TV dinner in front of the TV on TV trays watching Lawrence Welk. We played with the Moore boys next door, the Hartle twins down the street, and my childhood best friend, Leslie Muzzy, lived at the end of the street. We went to the Lan Yair pool every summer until I got old enough for music camp and summer jobs. I played the viola and piano, Karl played the cello; I was in theatre productions, he ran cross country. Holidays were at home and full of tradition, punctuated by a couple of trips back to Seattle, the land of my immigrant people. You get it: intact family ensconced in a brick ranch in a small town, rooted in routine and tradition.
At left: Me in the driveway at 625 Spencer Circle, circa 1972, when no one cared that kids played with guns.
My parents left that home after 32 years there and moved to Traveler's Rest, a really small town in North Greenville County, about 15 years ago. My childhood bed (a four-post family heirloom) remains in the guest room, the Yamaha piano where I spent hours (ok, Mom, minutes) practicing each day is in the den, we eat at the same Queen Anne dining table we did growing up, and the Grandfather clock still chimes, but that's about all that remains from 625 Spencer Circle. But my mom and dad live there, and that's all you need for a house to feel like your childhood home. When I went to stay a few weeks ago, with just dad, we started off the week just like we did in the 1970s, eating a fried chicken snack and watching 60 Minutes on Sunday night.
That's dad, eating fried chicken and watching 60 Minutes.
My dad is quiet man. He is strong. He is diligent, dependable, and meticulous. His job at Milliken brought us to South Carolina from Seattle, when Boeing laid off 80,000 people in 1969. He read the devotional at breakfast (which they still do), and then he left for work, but on the way out the door he would toss the day's wash over his shoulder and count out the exact number of clothes pins he would need to securely hang the load on the clothesline, which was just beyond our driveway. He came home at 5:30, and we promptly ate dinner. We regaled the table with stories about our days at school, but I have to admit, I have no idea what my dad did at Milliken. On Saturdays he mowed the lawn (until Karl was old enough to take over), and oversaw general yard maintenance. My job was to pick up sticks in our yard full of pine trees, for which I got a dollar. I wasn't very good at it. All that bending over... My dad also oversaw the washing and vacuuming of both cars. Every Saturday. Can you imagine? Our cars always looked like new cars. We got a dollar if we helped with the cars. Washing was fun, but drying? Was that really necessary? On Saturday afternoon he headed inside, where, on a hot day, he might have had a beer. It was the only beer my dad had all week. After that, the ironing board went up, and he started ironing shirts and pants that came in off the clothesline. Collars first, shoulders, then sleeves, then side, back, side. Pants had their rhythm too: belt line, pockets, seams aligned, inside, outside, flip, repeat. My dad's work clothes never saw the inside of a dry cleaners. In an effort to spruce up my income, I offered to iron. I did. Once. He then paid me not to. My dad loved to take pictures of still life, mostly the flowers - azaleas and dogwoods - in our yard. At the end of each roll of film there were always pictures of flowers. They were a lot more cooperative than people, I would guess.
This is one of my favorite pictures of my dad. Karl is obviously taking the picture, and he is not doing it right. And dad is pissed. Grandma and Grandpa are concerned, too, and mom is just confused. It's just Karl, I'm thinking. Circa 1975.
As I spent the week with my dad, our roles reversed: I left for work early (dryers and subdivision covenants preclude the clothesline chore these days) and came home around 6, and my dad had dinner ready for the two of us. We sat at their rusticly-chic farmhouse table and talked about my day and I, for the first time, asked my dad about his. Not just this day, but all his days: days in the Navy, days in Montana, days at Milliken. His face lit up as he talked about adventures in the Navy, how he tested well and became an electrician, and how a routine physical revealed a heart murmur that sidelined him from a trip to Australia and finally, disappointingly, out of the Navy. I think he really enjoyed the Navy - he kept saying "I had fun." Now I understand why all of his stories come from Naval days; they were a really important and gratifying time in his life. He closed his eyes and recalled the days of his return to Montana, where he was courted to work the grocery he had as a kid (he was the only one the owner trusted) but knew that he'd never find a wife managing a grocery store in rural Montana. He laughed about the lady at a Milliken mill who quit when she was told she'd have to enter information into that there computer, which would send her data to the Spartanburg office for her. My dad has spent years listening to me and Karl and Mom yakety yak. Spending hours with him at the table talking that week, I finally have a deeper understanding of my dad, who is now 81. Of how important the Navy was to him (why he always talks about it - still), of the desperation of Montana (why we never go back there), and of the frustration of the bureaucratic work he did at Milliken (why he left in 1985 and why he shakes his head when Karl, a 21-year Milliken employee complains about the bureaucracy).
Circa 1973
We've always buried my dad with our own issues, just like in the picture above. We haven't always been the best listeners. But, he has always been the strong foundation of our family, just like in the picture, holding us up. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 1 Corinthians 3:10 I am trying hard to build on his foundation. I've had some stops and starts, and Isabel isn't having the idyllic childhood that I did, with an intact family snuggled in a suburban brick ranch. I came to terms with that long ago that I could not repeat my parent's life. I've left that to my brother, who's frankly doing a pretty good job. But more and more I think about the strong, quiet presence my dad has had in my life, and my family's life. He is quiet, but he is there, always, sitting in his chair, watching 60 minutes, ready for a snack.
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