Opa

Today my dad turns seventy years old. We will celebrate Opa's birthday with a Gathering of the Clan. All six of his kids, all twelve of the grandkids, and assorted friends will meet out in Katy for a shrimp boil/birthday party.

My contribution to the shrimpapalooza was to run down to Galveston yesterday, and get fifty pounds of shrimp off one of the trawler. Along with corn and potatoes, a few kegs of beer, and buckets of margaritas, we should all get fairly sated.

We're lucky to have had him this long. About five or six years ago, I forget, exactly, an exam he'd been putting off discovered that he was 99% blocked in one artery. 95% in another, and I forget which in the third. His best artery was 88% blocked. This is much worse than what just recently killed Daryll Kile in his sleep. The doctors didn't even let him leave the hospital, of course, and they cracked him open and fixed him up the next day.

It's hard for me to put into words my admiration for my dad, and all he's done as a father.

He's the son of a Missouri tenant farmer, (one of thirteen kids) who was the son of a Kentucky coal miner, who was the son of an Irish immigrant. He was a Depression baby, grew up dirt poor on the farm. His dad, in addition to running the farm, was a legendary figure in the turn of the century stockyards in Kansas City. He was a sheep broker, and dad often traveled with him by train throughout that Midwest, to buy sheep, and tend them on the way back, watering them while they were in the railroad cars.

After high school, Opa did a stint in the Coast Guard, during the Korean War. He had wanted to join the Marines, but his dad forbade it, so, ever the dutiful son, he spent his tour doing harbor security and manning a lighthouse in New England. It was only later that Opa's oldest son, a bit less less pliable, joined the Marines against his dad's wishes, becoming the first Jarhead in the family.

While on leave, toward the end of his tour, he met his future wife, Nonna. They've been married forty-five years now. They had six kids, the first four, all boys, in five years. Then they bought a TV. :-) The two following girls were two years apart.

Nonna and Opa raised us on a working man's salary. His first job was driving a bread truck. Later he worked for General Motors, at a plant rebuilding tranmissions. After a tranfer to Houston, he worked for a auto dealerships, in a variety of jobs, from service writer, to parts manager, to the guy who fixed everything from the A/C to the broken locks to burnt-out lightbulbs.

Some men will have as their legacy great works of art. Others will have built businesses, or created laws, or discovered Nature's secrets, benefiting all mankind. My father has done none of those things.

Nonna and Opa could have had any number of creature comforts in their life. She has always worked, too, at least after the youngest child was off to school, and between them they did OK. But it takes a lot of money to raise six stairstep kids. They've never owned a new car in their life - always bought used.

He started today, his birthday, at age seventy, by doing what he's always done - he went to work. Today he'll spend the day running around in the truck the company has for him, shuttling paperwork back and forth from the dealership to the local offices getting the license plates and such for the cars they sell. He's no longer as strong as he once was, of course, so the man that owns the dealership gave him this sinecure a few years back, when it became clear that hard mechanical labor in the Texas heat was wearing on him. He spends his days driving around in truck, listening to talk radio.

He's worked his entire life. I doubt, though he says he'd like to, that he'll ever quit before the day he can't. In the afternoon, he gets home, and goes out to his garage. There, he'll tend to his animals, (a horse, a dog, the cats, and of course a sheep - there used to be a goat, a pig, and for a short time, a deer) - you can take the boy out of the country, but... :-) My youngest brother, who lives with them, has taken over the heavier chores like mowing and watering, along with all the other attendant chores that are part and parcel of a ten acre property.

He'll spend the rest of the evening out there under the fan, watching TV, drinking a few beers, and smoking the cigarettes we've all given up on getting him to quit. During the week it's mostly TV news, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. He'll cuss Saddam and the Democrats daily. On the weekends, it's Nascar and John Wayne movies, and, in the fall, Notre Dame football.

When it gets dark, he'll close up the garage, reheat the plate of food Nonna leaves out for him in the microwave, and sit in his reliner while he eats. He'll fall asleep watching the news, then get up and finally join Nonna in bed a few hours later.

He likes when his kids come to visit, and between us all, there's usually one of his boys out there in the garage with him. I'm out there at least two days a week, most tmes three. (The girls, both the ones she raised, and the ones that come along with her boys) tend to go inside the house and hang out with Nonna.

Tonight though, when he gets home, we'll drag him over to my sister's, less than a mile away, where he'll find out about the shrimpapalooza. After a few hours of eating, drinking, and opening presents - wer're getting him some tools and this AM radio that will pick up all the stations from the Midwest, so he can hear about pork belly futures in Iowa at four o'clock in the morning when he wakes up, he'll be ready to hit the hay, and one of us will drive him and Nonna home.

"They had six kids, the first four, all boys, in five years. Then they bought a TV. "

HAHA! Good one!

Your dad is the kind of person I think of when I think of a true American. Hard work, no glory, and it would never occur to him to complain.

My father and his 2 brothers and one sister were raised in Webb City, Missouri. I wonder if that is close to your father's stomping grounds? I was born in Kansas City. My mother was born in Iola, Kansas. Can't get away from the Midwest. The only times I've ever glimpsed at an ocean was in Texas and Louisiana. Never been farther east than Indiana, or farther West in a car than where I live now, Denver. Have taken 2 plane rides to Las Vegas though.

BTW, my uncle wrote a book about growing up in Webb City, Missouri during the Depression and WWII. Your dad may relate to it quite a bit. Here's the link if you're interested:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dbooks%26field-author%3DRawson%2C%20Harve%20E./104-4669403-9747935

My grandfather commuted to Joplin Missouri every day to work at the electric company there. He rode the trolley. They were the first in town to have Christmas lights. Cars backed up on the highway that year to look at the Christmas lights. It was a string of 7 lights. They were also the first to have an electric fan, because the electric company sold electric appliances to their employees cheap, to promote the use of electricity.

My grandfather was known for growing champion tomatoes. He had graduated from K-State in the 20's with a degree in Agriculture, I believe. The family tradition was having popcorn on Sunday nights. I never liked popcorn until I moved away from home.