I was a daddy's girl. My dad was 47 when I was born, and I was his second family. Just this year we have learned the details surrounding the deaths of his sons in WWII. Both were Army pilots; one was lost in a mechanical failure over the English Channel and the other due to a mechanical failure on a training mission in South Carolina. Statistics indicate that a huge number of WWII air deaths were not due to dog fights, strafing, or enemy ground fire; more crashes and deaths were caused by design, mechanical and engine problems.
The story of my dad's courtship of my mom waits for another blog story about romance and love on one side, and fondness and expediency on the other. However, they married and I was born about a year later. His comment upon my birth was, "Thank God she's a girl. She won't have to go to war."
Recently we found a letter my mom wrote to Beth, my daughter, about the Grandfather she never knew. Apparently, I was my dad's pride and joy from day one. Though I remember trips to the depot and roundhouse connected with the Chicago Great Western railroad as part of my earliest memories, I did not realize that the first trip occurred when I was only months old. No wonder that peculiar diesel and leather smell is such a powerful olfactory trigger.
My own memories are of counting train cars wherever we went and watching the direction of engines change on the huge turn-style. The coke machine at the freight depot dispensed nickel bottles of coke, so my treat while the guys talked shop was a bottle of coke, and I thought I was pretty special to get pop, because we didn't get it at home. My dad received permission for me to ride with him one day, an original take your daughter to work day. We traveled about 25 miles to a mine site, and I spent time in the engine and caboose, even climbing up to the cupola. In the engine, I got to pull the whistle for the crossings.
Fishing provided another special daddy-daughter time. I loved fishing with my dad, but coddling his little girl and baiting my hooks wasn't his style. I learned to squish the worm or spear the minnow on the hook. He usually took the fish off the hook, though. One particular time in Balsam Lake,Wisconsin, Dad met a farmer who invited him to fish for crappies on his private lake. We got up a daybreak and headed down the overgrown track leading to the lake. Dad helped me get set and reminded me about casting and fingering the reel before he donned his waders and moved out to deeper water.
Of course, I managed to mess up my reel royally. The fish were biting so Dad said to just use the other one and be more careful. Dad was so excited as almost every cast yielded a large crappie. Thrilled just to be with him and not paying close attention to my casting from the shallows, I managed to get a huge backlash in the second reel, so I called out to my dad, but he said it was time to learn how to fix my mistakes. Clambering out of the water, I sat down dejectedly and began to pull at the knotted fish line. Beyond the black cord, I noticed my legs, covered with little leaches and striped with bloody streams. What followed was a bloody scream. My dad was probably as mad at me that day as he ever got, because as much as I loved him and wanted to be with him as often as I could, when it came to blood I wanted my mommy.
The stories could go on, but on this Father's Day, I am so thankful for the memories I have of a dad who really loved me and spent time with me...a dad who encouraged my in my faith even before he came to his own ...a dad who died too soon at only 61. I missed him then and I miss him even yet. However, I know that from that loss was born a relationship with my mom that might well not have flourished as it did. The Lord works for good in all things..., and sometimes we get to see it.
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