When he ran for judge and for the Kansas House of Representatives (this time as a Democrat), he and I campaigned together for hours. When he ran for Congress in 1974, I drove him all over the Big 1st District. You learn a lot about a guy when you are his driver! (I might mention that he had nerves of steel. He had me as a driver. Nerves. Of. Steel!)
Dad got a new camera shortly after my stepmother died in 2000 and it had a timer. I remember taking this picture with the timer and my dad thinking it was so great to have both of us in the picture. Dad took some amazing photos of the canyon lands in Utah, the beaches of Mexico and Hawaii and Kansas sunsets.
This picture hung in Dad's courtroom after he retired from the bench. I love this picture of my dad. I think he has kind eyes; but, I've seen lightening bolts shoot from those eyes on occasion. This is how I remember my dad.
My dad, as you know, walked everywhere. Even though every step hurt and it would have been easier to drive, my dad walked. And when the weather was cold, he wore a Stetson hat. Always. When he ran for Congress, his campaign photo was him in a hat and overcoat, shaking the hand of someone.
When I cleaned out the last bits of his belongings at his house in Dodge, I found this hat. Somehow, it found it's way to this shelf and it's been here for 7 years. I smile every time I see it.
(The blocks are in memory of our dog, Maxine. The $7 Border Collie we had for 14 years. )
My brother was given the flag that covered Dad's casket and he gave it to me to keep. My dad earned this flag the hard way. He was severely injured while on the way to Berlin where the 82nd Ariborne Division was to be the army of occupation. Broken legs, broken back, broken hip, broken arm and a head laceration, he was left for dead. He woke in a German hospital and it was several weeks before his parents knew where he was. We have a telegram from General Eisenhower explaining my dad's whereabouts and condition.
(The blocks are in memory of our dog, Maxine. The $7 Border Collie we had for 14 years. )My brother was given the flag that covered Dad's casket and he gave it to me to keep. My dad earned this flag the hard way. He was severely injured while on the way to Berlin where the 82nd Ariborne Division was to be the army of occupation. Broken legs, broken back, broken hip, broken arm and a head laceration, he was left for dead. He woke in a German hospital and it was several weeks before his parents knew where he was. We have a telegram from General Eisenhower explaining my dad's whereabouts and condition.
He arrived on a hospital ship in New York. After spending the voyage in the bowls of the ship in a body cast, Dad remembers being taken on deck to see the Statue of Liberty. He was then put on a train for Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. He told me that a nurse asked him if there was anything she could do for him and he told her "I'd like to go to sleep and wake up in Colorado Springs." She made that happen. He remembers nothing of the trip.
For the rest of his life, my dad was in pain. He had 5 total hip replacements and one total knee replacement. Every step he took hurt. He managed his pain with grit and determination, and an occasional aspirin. Perhaps a vodka and grapefruit juice (or 2) in the evenings helped.
For the rest of his life, my dad was in pain. He had 5 total hip replacements and one total knee replacement. Every step he took hurt. He managed his pain with grit and determination, and an occasional aspirin. Perhaps a vodka and grapefruit juice (or 2) in the evenings helped.My brother, sister and I have exchanged emails over the past several days reflecting on our dad and what being raised by him has meant to us. We all miss him but acknowledge that his energy, his essence, is not gone. It's inside us and is present in everything we do.
At Dad's funeral, we read this poem by Henry Van Dyke.
"I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?" Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
"Here she comes!"
And that is dying."
I miss you, Daddy.
Keep smiling down on me (and keep those nets loose for KU!)
