Thursday, June 21, 2012

Father's Day in Rifle!

My dad would have really enjoyed the kind of father's day I just got to have. Camping at Rifle Gap hiking Rifle Falls.
There was a lot going on. When setting up camp a wicked lightning storm blows in with huge claps of thunder. I retreated to the car with the girls, Suzy toughed it out in the tent with the dogs.

These guys are always a handful. In the dark Mary and I walked them around the camp and as we passed one sight a small dog came running out yapping at us, it went after Emma a little so she pulled out of her lease, but Tyler, while still on my leash destroyed this dog, berried him in a drainage ditch, sounded and looked like he was going to kill it. I jump in after him and had to pick up all 90 lbs of him off the little dog and back up on the path with the other dogs lady screaming and beating at him and me. She carried her dog back down to their fire histerical. It was totally uncool. Mary and I get back to our sight and 5 minutes latter Suzy and Kayla and Chloe get mack from their bat expedition. Yes, they went bat caving at night and saw a bunch of them. Yes, Suzy went into a bat cave at night. Miss we have to move if she sees a mouse in the house.

The next day when we got back from Rife Falls the winds had blown our tent down. Broke a section of one of the main polls. We decided to break camp early because of the intense weather, but Chloe really wanted to fish so I figured we'd fish from the Rifle Gap Damn on our way out. We'd be home an hour latter and I would get to cook the steaks and baked potatoes on the grill! The damn was treacherous, the climb down on these huge loose rocks made it extreme fishing, Chloe had on flip-flops, Mary screamed at me the whole time. I only got two lines in the water so the girls had to share. Kayla and Suzy quit first Chloe had the only legitimate nibble and it kept her on the rocks for a good half hour in a blazing sun set.


I think my kids will remember a lot about this weekend and non of it bad. OK maybe a little. But they can blame those parts on their dumbdumbdaddy-yo.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Wood Box Speaks!


Thanks dad. I knew you didn't care about me messing up the facts. This wood box freaks me out a little bit. He's in there. He speaks to me. I heard the other day that a legacy is not what someone leaves you, but what they leave inside you. It's true. My dad was in financial dire straits in the end. But as far as legacies go I now realize he's left me a fortune. Starting this blog, posting scraps of wood box wisdom, researching his years at Maryland, posting dumbdumbdaddyoism, becoming dumb dumb daddy - YO, posting about my family, it all has made me appreciate what he left inside me. He's there. He always has been I just never listened.

This last picture of him I discovered from all the pages of Maryland yearbook pictures. It's unusual. It's opening day at Byrd Stadium, it's his Junior year and he's in the dog house with his coach, but it looks like he was second on the field that day.

He's #44

They went on to beat Navy in the fist game in their new stadium that my father helped build the summer before. He also helped build the Maryland Chapel where my parents were married. This must have been some day.




Before:


1949 I don't know what the old field was called. It also looks like the Maryland Terrapins were also known as the Old Liners, I'd never heard that before.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Wood Box Wisdom from #44



The truth is the truth. My dad said this a thousand times. I've been taking it pretty hard on myself lately because this blog has taught me all the things I thought I knew about my father I didn't I now at all. After the 100th post I read all ninety nine previous posts and the inaccuracy of my memories is incredible. Its not so much the loss of memory more than the false assumptions I've based on vague recollections that make me wonder. Some memories are clear as if my dad told me about it yesterday and others are just as clear but not in words, for instance, knowing my dad had a problem with coach Tatum his junior year. He had gotten married the previous summer and the only words I truly remember are that he was seriously in the "dog house" for marrying my mother without his consent! But I know there was a lot more to it than that. There's this blog lostletterman.com and they had my dad lettering in only the 1949 and 1951 season rosters.

So I'm feeling down on myself for all the factual inaccuracies of my memories when I read this scrap of wood box wisdom. It was a little too deep for me when I read it the first time. But this time when I read it I heard my fathers voice, "The truth is the truth and there is nothing you can do to change it." He'd say just tell the story. "Don't ever let the facts get in the way of a good story. Tell it like you feel it and the truth will take care of itself."

So I'm an idiot, but the truth has not fell dead in the street! I must correct one thing though, the first team picture I posted of my dad with the 1953 National Champs banner was brutally incorrect. I was so proud of that picture. It was sent to me by a friend on Facebook , Scot A. I thought I found my dad in the picture. His number was obscured, but I thought for sure I recognized him. I posted about this picture a lot. My dad graduated in 1952. The guy I picked was handsome, but way too short. I couldn't tell this guy wasn't my father until I saw his real picture in the team photo 1951/52. Front row, standing tall.

So one night, online I flipped through all four (49, 50, 51 and 52) University of Maryland yearbooks and my dad was all over them. Team pictures, action photos, one with a teammate on his shoulders, another with a diving interception, class photos, game by game coverage of the prefect season.

I've got his career a little straighter now. I've resurrected some memories of the truth. The facts, in fact, add a lot of intrigue to the story and destroy the rather naive assumptions I've lived with my whole life. First in the 1948/49 season he was a skinny freshman. The team picture says a lot. He made the varsity, but didn't letter. His team had 7 wins and 2 losses. His sophomore year 49/50 he came into himself. He kicked some ass. Had his big interception. They went 9 wins 1 loss with a win in the Gator Bowl. My dad writes an incredible letter to my mom. They get married. My dad moves into the dog house with his coach and doesn't letter. But he's on the team and he's in the team photo (and someone else has his number), and one of him making a tackle and he's there on opening day of Byrd Stadium. In 1950 / 51 they go 7 and 2 and play in no bowl game. So I guess by his senior year 1951 / 52 he was out of the dog house, he letters and they go undefeated 10 and 0 with a win in the Sugar Bowl against Tennessee, the number one team in the nation. He had two really good years 49 and 51 and in both those years he was the difference between his team being really good verses greatness. The facts suggest that my dad made a real difference on his team. They also suggest that it wasn't easy.

1948 My dad #44 second row down first on left.

1949 #44 right in the middle.




Second row up second from the right.



Front row sixth from the left.



My dad under Coach Tatum's left hand after the Sugar Bowl victory and a perfect 10/0 season!

 

Sunday, June 10, 2012

The 100th Post!

100 Posts

Dumbdumbdaddyo has changed me. It has helped me forgive my father for getting old. As I sit here trying to write my one hundredth post I am overwhelmed with emotion. I am so grateful for my life. I am so grateful for my wife. This blog was her idea. The best thing I ever did in Aspen was marry Suzy. The first six years of our marriage were the last six years of my dad’s life.


I remember in the first year of our marriage I took a week off work so Henry and I could drive my old Landcruiser from Aspen to Phoenix to help get my dad out of the nursing home after the amputation of the rest of his foot and lower leg. He wasn’t doing very well at all and after my first visit with him I thought I was a fool to think we were going to make any real progress in the short time I had to give. He thought I was my big brother J and my mom went on and on trying to correct him and he got really angry and never did fully wake up.

I brought Henry with me the next day and was a little worried about bringing my rambunxious two year old golden retriever into the facility. He knew right away this wasn’t a place like any other place he’d ever been before. He knew these people were dying and if there was anything he could do to help them he was going to give it a try. My dad was asleep when we got there so we roamed the halls looking for people who wanted to pet him. Everyone wanted to pet Henry. He made some of the people so happy they would cry tears of joy. He pulled me into one room where a very old blind woman sat who had never had a visitor and he put his head right into her lap and she stroked his head and said, “sooo beautiful sooo beautiful sooo beautiful!” As we left the nurse told me it was the first time she’d ever heard her speak and she’d been there for years.

When we made it back to my dad’s room he was still asleep so I sat in the chair next to the bed and Henry put his head in my lap and started to hum to me and wag his tail and I started to cry. When my dad finally woke up he said, “Bitty Buddy, when did you get here?” I said Henry and I just got here and we’ve come to take you home. He said, “It’s about time!” So I told him then let’s get to work. I started asking him questions. I started trying to get that great big battered mind going again. He’d start answering a question and then get confused or drift off again and I’d wait and start up again where he’d left off. I’d ask something like tell me about your father? I don’t know anything about my grandpa; tell me about your father? He’d get mad and gruff, “there is nothing to tell…” and then drift off again. I’d wait and when he’d come back again I say tell me about the best memory you have of your father? He’d give me a pissed marine face and slowly bark, “Don’t… have… one…” Off again on again and I would ask, “Tell me anything about your father?” And he said, “After mom left him he drank himself to death. After mom left him he lived on scrambled eggs and whiskey.”  I videotaped some of these interviews and as the days went by his answers started getting clearer and longer and slowly, but surely, he started coming back.

I remember asking him because of his dad did he ever worry about being a good father himself? He said, “No, I didn’t ever worry about being a good father, but what I did worry about was being a good husband. I have always felt that the best thing a man could do for his children was love their mother. So that’s what I tried to do. With a mother like yours being a dad was easy. Did I ever tell about the best thing I ever did at Maryland?” Yes dad, you did, a thousand times, the best thing you ever did at the University of Maryland was marry my mother!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

He had a perfect season. How cool is that?


Last night after saying goodnight I love you to my girls I did some school work, some work work and tried to read myself to sleep with Joel Osteen and Max Brand, but sometime after midnight I found myself making a dumbdumbdaddyo post. I had one last photocopied picture from the sticky note batch and thought I would post it and think of something to write later. The picture was of my dad and his senior class teammates it looked like a football picture from a game program or yearbook. As I looked at their faces, a memory of my dad came to me, crystal clear, out of nowhere.

We were driving the 10 hours from Maryland to Oxford for my freshman year at Miami. He said, “I know how hard this thing you’re about to do is going to be. I really want you to know that it will be OK if you quit, I will always love you, no matter what. I only want you to be happy.”  It shocked me. I’d never heard him say anything like it. He went on to say, “But if you stick it out, if you keep going even when it hurts, if you keep going when others start quitting you’ll experience something really special. When school starts everyone else will be alone and you will already have a team full of friends. If you make it to graduation you’ll be standing there with a handful of brothers who you will love and respect.”  Many times I wanted to quit and many good friends walked away, but in the end he was right.

As I looked at this picture of my dad’s band of brothers I was struck at how familiar I was with their names. Coach Tatum, Ed Modzelewski, Chick Fry and Bob Ward, especially, so I typed in Bob Ward into Bing and was treated to the best surprise since I started this blog.

Wikipedia showed me one of the best pictures of my dad I’ve ever seen. A picture of the locker room celebration after the Sugar Bowl, something about how happy he looked struck me deeply.  I lay there and cried. It’s not that I never saw him happy, but never like that. I realized that after losing a child in a horrific way, after losing your job, after losing your life savings and your homes, after losing your health and mind and your foot it’s hard to be really really happy. So this is why I blog to remember my father happy and well and to honor his bravery and strength in the end.

Wikipedia described his perfect season. Undefeated season and beating #1 in the Sugar Bowl in his last game ever and named an anchor of one of the best defenses in college history and I thought by his senior year he didn’t even play. How, as his son, could I have not known and appreciated what he had accomplished and what he had meant to the team. I guess he thought it would be a lot to live up to. I guess he didn’t want his success to overshadow his son’s. I guess in the end he just wanted me to be happy.

He had a perfect season. How cool is that?

That reminds me of the thing he said most about his years at Maryland. He would say, "By far the best thing I ever did at the University of Maryland was marry your mother!"

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Perfect Season

Thank You Wilipedia for Showing Me My Dad!

The 1951 Maryland Terrapins football team represented the University of Maryland in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college football in its 31st season as a member of the Southern Conference. Maryland outscored its opponents, 381–74, and finished the season with a 10–0 record, including three shut outs, and held seven opponents held to seven points or less. It was the school's first perfect undefeated and untied season since 1893. Maryland also secured its first berth in a major postseason bowl game, the 1952 Sugar Bowl, where it upset first-ranked Tennessee under head coach Robert Neyland.
Personnel
On the whole, Maryland returned a seasoned team that included 22 lettermen, and the United Press described the team as "bigger and bruisier than ever."[9] They were led by junior quarterback Jack Scarbath who gained significant experience in the split-T the previous season,[9] in which he started the first six games before suffering an injury.[11] He was backed up by a capable reservist in sophomore quarterback Bernie Faloney.[11] (In 1952, Scarbath was the Heisman Trophy runner-up,[12] and the following year, Faloney finished fourth in the voting.[13])
Scarbath was accompanied in the backfield by several other capable players, including "one of the biggest fullbacks in captivity"[9] Ed Modzelewski and halfbacks Chet "the Jet" Hanulak and Ed Fullerton. Halfback Bob Shemonski, the previous season's conference-scoring leader, was shifted to play mostly on defense, but would rank as the team leader in kick returns with six for 126 yards.[4] The Terrapins' line was anchored by co-captains Bob Ward, a guard, and Dave Cianelli, the center. At tackle, it featured Ed's brother, Dick Modzelewski, and Bob Morgan.[11] The defense was described as particularly deep, anchored by Ward, Cianelli, and Jeff Keith, and with good reserves available into even the third string.[9]

Wow! He looks so happy. Under his coach's left hand. In the Wikipedia write up he is described as an anchor of the defense. I never knew any of this. To me this is just unbelievable. His joy in this picture has brought me to tears.

Senior Year Soon to be National Champions! Class of 1952

This Picture is Too Cool for Words

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Wood Box Wisdom / Get Old submission


At work I was asked to submit 500 words on my perspective on getting old. These submissions are to be posted on a new website getold.com to be launched at the end of June (I'm a little unclear on the details). I figured it was right up the dumbdumbdaddyo alley so this is was I sent:

The death of one who is young is a tragedy and for me this is proof enough that life is worth living. My big sister died when she was sixteen from leukemia. As children it is easy to believe that time is abundant and life is long. Death of a loved one, especially a child, teaches a hard and invaluable lesson that our time here on earth is precious and we don’t always know when the ride will end.
My parents faced many challenges raising their kids. With me, their youngest, allergies and asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia, broken bones and stitches, dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, bad teeth and every other childhood sickness that you can get seemed to come my way. With patients, love, and concern my mother and father taught me how to listen to the doctors and value their expertise. Most importantly they taught me how to take responsibility for myself and that it was up to me to find a way back to good health and live on.

As a young man I lived reckless and wild. If life was a ride, mine was a roller coaster and I was sitting in the front seat with my hands in the air. Good health for me was never easy. I collect chronic medical conditions like some people collect souvenirs and with that being the case I never expected to live very long. I took incredible risks like surfing in a hurricane and skiing off cliffs.

This all changed when I was blessed with the opportunity to start my own family. As a parent I have gained a great appreciation for what my parents went through raising me and my siblings. The greatest lessons I learned from them, however, came as a witness to my dad’s battle with old age. He would always say getting old isn’t easy, but it beats the alternative! When I was in college he had his first heart attack. Later he suffered a severe stroke and then rehabilitated himself back into his career. He had hip replacements and multiple complications from diabetes, but was able to walk down the aisle at my brother’s wedding. He had another massive stroke and quadruple bypass surgery. Again through rehabilitation was able to serve as my best man and gave the best toast a groom could ever hope for. He suffered amputations and transient ischemic attacks, but was there to meet my first child and his seventh grandchild.

My father died on a Monday and my second daughter was born that Friday. I flew a red eye to make his funeral the next day and another to make it back to bring my wife and new baby home from the hospital. On the flight home after four sleepless days I had a dream where my father told me that getting old is easy when you have something to live for, thank you!

You can read about a younger him at dumbdumbdaddyo.blogspot.com!