November 28, 2019
A Tribute
My Father died today. People would say that he lived to a-ripe-old-age; and, they would be correct! (He made it to 97 — though I kept pushing Him to go for 100!) He said that He never thought it would be so hard to die…the brain still worked — but the body finally gave out.
I have been prepared for His passing for 46-years-now. Ever since my 16th birthday. It was around that time that he began to stress to me to make hay while the sun shined — because he very likely wouldn\’t be around the next year.
My father always wanted to be a Big Man on Campus! He wanted that fame and notoriety that a GM CEO had; or, that an inventor of some product crucial to human survival and existence would have (like the guy who invented the Coca Cola pop top).
I\’ve written about Him a-couple-of-times during The Doctor\’s Inn years (including His CIA experience) — but usually not to flatter — as He was both a FOX News junkie, and, a racist. He did, however live a full, and rather interesting life — which I will attempt to memorialize here…
He gave me everything I asked for (even discipline).
I often wonder if He felt a certain guilt disciplining me Old-School style: with the belt, the rod, and, the occasional face slap? Lord knows I needed it — because I was a hyperactive child who did plenty of crazy things — like riding my bike full blast into the garage door and trying to swerve at the last second: which put a permanent deep scratch into the door. I don\’t think I was disciplined for this mishap (it was the pre-helmet stage after all — and I did rip up my pinkie finger), but I was ALWAYS disciplined for coming home late from neighborhood baseball, football and basketball games.
One thing that would always confuse me (after being sent to my room following a whipping) was when He would come to let me out and say (like so many other Fathers said before and since): that the whipping had hurt him more than it had hurt me. After attempting to discipline Son Tyler like this (a mere handful of times) — I know now that this Father/Son dynamic might be true after all.
I did confront Him with His physical abuse of me (when I was 25) — and He suggested that He recalled none-of-the-incidents that I recalled so vividly — but He was willing to apologize for them since they had apparently caused me lingering pain.
Some years later, on 9/11 actually, He behaved in a fashion reminiscent of those early years and I reminded him of the conversation we had had when I was 25: He had no recollection of that conversation. So much for closure…
He was an inventor and a tinker. He and a friend of His allegedly invented the Skittle-Bowl Game — only to be ripped off by the Aurora (or was it K-Tel?) toy company — because they hadn\’t secured a patent. As a specialist in car door locking mechanisms — He may very well have been the first person to devise the keyless entry — which He had to give up to Cadillac for a reported mere $10,000.00 — as He was in their employ at-the-time and no other car company was willing to take on the risk of a large up-front, down payment.
Most recently, He believed he had a graphic solution to a theorem that had never been rendered on a 2-dimensional plane.
My mother reports that mere hours before his passing — He was trying to draw some type of plan or blueprint for something-or-another.
Very heady stuff.
He spoke seven languages (hence some of the CIA\’s interest in Hiomm) and wanted me to be a dentist — but I ended up a Psych/English major with a teaching credential. I\’m sure He was disappointed, (many times) — but I\’m pretty sure that I would have been a very shitty dentist.
And I gave Him plenty of projects to handle — like the time the band turned the den of the family condo into a sound-proofed bunker so the band could practice without pissing off the neighbors. It took Him many months to turn this home modification back into a den when He and my Mom moved back in.
When He got to be around 85 — the family started thinking He might be exiting soon — what with the fact that He had been a smoker for 60 years and had also sported a 400 cholesterol count for-a-number-of-years and (unbeknownst to me) had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. (Or perhaps I did know and just chose to tune it out.)
So I made sure that I kept up my annual visits and tried to fit in a second Florida trip whenever I could. We engaged in many-a next-to-last chess game(s). As a matter of fact — after he beat me in our very last chess game (I had been beating Him pretty regularly the past few years) He declared that he knew my weakness and was going to reveal it to me when I visited in January 2020.
Also (in the last few years) He wanted me to shave my white goatee off — because a clean shaven me looks ahellovalot like he did in His middle years. I always replied that it was a necessary professorial accoutrement — plus I didn\’t want to see Him every time I looked in the mirror.
I think He knew His time was drawing near — because He would say He \”loved\” me at the end of phone conversations (which coaxed an \’I Iove you too\’ out of me). We never used the \”L\” word with each other prior to His last days. In classic Freudian fashion, Wife Giti sensed a competition (on my Father\’s part) for my Mother\’s attention: Indeed, He told each of my Three wives that He lost more money in a post WWII gambling night in Munich than I would make in a lifetime…
One thing my family knows (because we have doctors in the house) and that all families with a terminally ill member should take note of is: that it\’s better to die at home than to be stuck in a hospital or hospice where they use you as a pincushion and essentially dehumanize you.
So when He passed, peacefully in his bed on Thanksgiving Morning of 2019 — I\’m pretty sure He realized he been a good husband; a good father to Three; and, a good grandfather to Eight. I believe he was finally able to catch a dream that he could fulfill and somewhere, in the Other World, He gets to play the Big Man on Campus…
It is just now sinking in for me — after being reminded so many times that he might not be around next year — that he won\’t be…
Love ya Dad