My Dad was loveable, tough, independent, no-nonsense and a very busy man. He graduated from High School in 1930 and everything he had learned about life was swept away by the overwhelming tide of the Depression. His plans for the future were now plans for survival. He and a brother traveled by riding the rails out to the Northwest from Iowa to find employment in a lumber mill working the night shift. He was about 20. Eventually his entire family made it to the mill town of Raymond, Washington but my grandfather whom both my father and I are named after was dieing. He was in so much pain he ground his teeth down the winter before he died. My father went on to marry my mother, another independent character, join the Army and find himself captured by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge. He then spent six months in a prisoner of war camp with only rice water for food and the coldest winter in the 20th century . . . (c0ntinued)Saturday, December 15, 2007
Mr. Big Shot Remembers: "My Father's Son"
My Dad was loveable, tough, independent, no-nonsense and a very busy man. He graduated from High School in 1930 and everything he had learned about life was swept away by the overwhelming tide of the Depression. His plans for the future were now plans for survival. He and a brother traveled by riding the rails out to the Northwest from Iowa to find employment in a lumber mill working the night shift. He was about 20. Eventually his entire family made it to the mill town of Raymond, Washington but my grandfather whom both my father and I are named after was dieing. He was in so much pain he ground his teeth down the winter before he died. My father went on to marry my mother, another independent character, join the Army and find himself captured by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge. He then spent six months in a prisoner of war camp with only rice water for food and the coldest winter in the 20th century . . . (c0ntinued)
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2 comments:
Thanks for sharing this story.
“There were two separate straps and when my father began to emphasize what he was saying he would snap the barber’s strap between his two hands. At that point we caved in immediately. I don’t think my father ever spanked us with the barber’s strap but he scared us to our inner core.”
Maybe it’s a sign of the times and the locale… (although I was in Seattle). My father used to do the same thing!!! Only with his belt. He would take it off and snap it. I remember it vividly. I don’t think he ever really hit us, and I didn’t think he would, but it was just the idea. (Actually I used a ‘threaten’ tactic with Spencer because he had such different sensibilities that any usual ‘punishment’ wouldn’t work and that was something that more-or-less did, but the threats would be of something unknown… because he would not mind if he was confined to his room, etc.)
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