Wood Box Morale

Morale is what makes a man smile
In the face of death and hell,...

To be strong, to be loyal, to be free.
It is the biggest thing in a man's life, As high as hope, as deep as faith, as unfailing as Love.
It is rooted in religion itself---
The clear and unmistakable sign That man walks with his hand in the hand of God.

The morale at work has been a little low lately...I'm gonna have to work on this.

As a Marine on Foreign Shores - 1946

Now were talking! This is the guy I want to know. Nineteen year old "Marine on Foreign Shores" I don't know what shores. The south pacific was as specific as he ever got about his deployment. He once said that if it wasn't for the bomb he wouldn't have made it back. They were on their way to invade the shores of the Japanese mainland when his armada just stopped. "So don't give me any of this 'No Nukes' crap because without them you wouldn't be here!"

 I was going to post some trade magazine covers with my dad talking with Nixon and Ford, but in one of them a few photocopies fell out that seemed far more interesting. Each of the copies had a sticky note description and it looks like he had put them together for a high school reunion scrap book.

I can't believe this picture. Sitting there with his rifle looking tired. Helmet and rifle with his selves rolled up. I always pictured the end of the war as being quick and easy, Japan surrenders and everyone goes home to start making babies and all is well with the world. This picture is from the year after and he would be there a couple of more before making it to the University of Maryland. His expression tells me he knew there was still a whole lot of work to do. He wasn't home kissing nurses in Time Square.

If I was in this picture and could pull up a stump what would I ask this guy? What would I tell him about his future? If I told him right there that in a few short years he was going to marry a beautiful blond co-ed from a rich family, win the college football national championship and then go on to graduate from law school would he believe it? How could he?

I would tell him in twenty years he was going to have his fourth kid, a son. And this kid is going to ketch himself on fire a lot, collect countless stitches and broken bones and scrapes and bruises and your gonna think he doesn't listen to a word you say, don't, because he's not going to miss a thing and someday he is really going to miss his dumbdumbdaddy-o. A lot. So don't forget to leave him a box full of wisdom.

If you have read a lot of dumb dumb daddy-o you may have come to the conclusion that my dad was some kind of super hero. Maybe he was in some ways or maybe that’s just what I wanted him to be. Recently, I have been coping with a string of bad and confusing recollections that have slowed my pace of DDD posts to a crawl. This exercise in remembering the young man I didn’t get to know has me running into the old man I sometimes couldn’t stand and this old man is me.

My dad was so sarcastic I don’t know if I ever really knew what he was trying to tell me. Several years ago I couldn’t say anything to my daughter Chloe without her bawling and running to her room inconsolable. It was so bad I started to think there was something seriously wrong with her until my wife explained, “She doesn’t get your sarcasm!” Oh, what’s wrong with her is she has a dumb dumb daddy-o as a father.

Recently, I was playing a rare game of golf with a friend and on the last tee of the day I was punched in the face with a painful dumbdumbdaddyoism. I had been crushing the ball all day and driving the long ball is one of my favorite athletic accomplishments. Every once in a while, when the planets and stars align and the wind and gravity are in my favor I can make the green with my drive on a par four. I was sure this was going to be one of those drives so I gave it all I had duffing it in the process. The ball didn’t make it past the ladies’ tee and I strained my brittle back and worst of all I clearly heard my dad say, “You should swing a little harder next time.” I knew he was being sarcastic and it would make me so mad. So just like I would when I was a kid I teed up a Mulligan and swung for the fences. And just like back then I launched it impossibly far, rocketing it irretrievably out of bounds, and out of sight. My buddy asked what that was all about and I chuckled saying that one was for my Old Man.

“Hit it Alice.”

“Hardly worth looking up for!”

“You hit it where you were aiming.”

“This is a golf cart not a race car.”

“This is golf not ping pong.”

“This is golf not rocket science.”

“Go ahead and hit it, they’ll move.”

“If there was a green over there that would’ve been a great shot.”

“You better hurry up and slow down.”

“It’s already dead. You don’t have to kill it.”

“Swing a little harder next time!”

“What do I know? I’m just your Dumb Dumb Daddy-o.”

Dad, can you please not talk during my back-swing?

PTO President or School Board Member?

Suzy asked me last night if she should become the PTO President or run for the school board? I said she should do both. She's the last woman standing at our daughters' school. No one else will participate. She'll be President and the principle Mr. States (a walking blessing to our school) said he would take on the responsibilities for the remaining vacant positions. This past year she was Vice President and on the board at our pre-school, oh and she also works and blogs like a fool at savedbysuzy.blogspot.com. I told her to sleep on it and I prayed on it and this morning I pull a scrap of wood bx wisdom and it's written for her.

Suzy you are the only voice on the side of truth so your voice must be distinct and strong. Only you can make the difference. Mesa County and Sheledy Elementary Education can be SAVED BY SUZY!

No pressure but the wood box is wise beyond explanation.

My Dad was Las Vegas

Great night out in Las Vegas!

It was "his town!" Convention Capitol of the World. My Dad loved Las Vegas. He used to tell me a story about playing single deck 21 one night and non other than Elvis Presley came up and sat right next to him. He said within minutes the table was surrounded five or six people deep and Elvis apologized for attracting such a crowd and asked everyone at the table if it would be all right if he stayed and played a while. It was only then that he realized who he was and noticed the scene that was developing around them. Just a couple of southern boys playing 21 and sticking it to the house. He said they talked about the war and that Elvis asked him how he was from Alabama but talked like a Yankee. My Dad always made a point to say even Elvis had the good sense to stick to the two dollar tables. It's hard not to like a guy who calls book on every hand in single deck 21 and rejoices over his neighbors victories.

My Dad taught me how to play. I never saw him loose and most times I would get to play all night with his winnings. He said it was easy to count into a single deck. Easy for him maybe.

I didn't do so well this go around and heard him say, "You pay to play not to get rich." and "Loosing is no fun at all so when your loosing walk away so you can play another day."

Suzy and I went to the Reve, cruised the shops and finished the night with some dueling pianists. Most fun I've had in a while. I guess it's my town now.

My beautiful athletes

My Dad would be so proud of his grand daughters.
I see him in them. His little dumb dumb grand daughter-yos.

Kayla skateboards over finger!

Not to be out done by her mother, Kayla pulls a high level of difficulty dumb dumb daughter-o maneuver by skateboarding over her finger!
I remember Big Uncle Jay doing the same thing when he was little. Littler.

OMG

This is the day Suzy, the smartest woman I know, pulled a dumb dumb mommy-o! This was the result of an unforntunate run in with a pair of electric hedge clippers. The obvious question here to me is where the hec was Dumbdumbdaddy-yo and why wasn't he clipping the hedges?!

Wood Box Wisdom

I usually scan and post a scrap of Wood Box Wisdom and in days I know how I feel

about it and I go on to post some memory

of my father. Some inspiring, some not, sometimes funny and usually an exercise in remembering the father I was too young to remember.

Despise no man...or thing...I couldn't think of anyone or anything I despise.

I have thought about this long and hard and it just won’t leave me alone so I figure if I post about what’s been haunting me about this clipping it may go away. So after not being able to think of anyone or anything I despise I thought who or what my Dad did despise. This chain of thought has brought back some of the most painful memories of my life. The things that would be better off forgotten but never will. The day I first saw my Dad broken. Completely. I was nine, the same age as my eldest daughter. It was the day my sister died. She had battled leukemia since she was eight and died when she was sixteen. My Dad was out of town in NYC when she died. As my school bus drove by my house I saw the ambulance pulling out of our driveway with the lights flashing. It was a long walk down from the top of Masters Drive. Only nine but I knew my sister’s next trip to the hospital may be her last. I only remember bits and pieces of that day. My big brother was up in his fort in the woods in our back yard and him wanting to be left alone.  My aunt Linda was there and by the late afternoon my mom and us kids were all home together for the first time since Karen died. To me and for me as a nine year old, I felt a sense of relief that Karen wouldn’t be suffering so much anymore. There was this sense that everything was going to be ok. We were all so brave. Just after dark my Dad got home from New York. I remember him coming through the front door with marine face on and I remember thinking someone’s gonna get it. My mom went to hug him and he just broke. He fell apart. He wailed. He cried and he cried. We had been crying on and off all day. He must have kept it in all day. It was a display of grief so profound that I hope not to witness anything like it again. I learned that night that there is no amount of suffering that makes life not worth living.

It is moments like this that had kept me away from the wood box for six years. I knew some of it would hurt.

To answer the question, my dad despised no man, but he was really, really mad at God. I heard him say many times he wasn’t looking forward to meeting Jesus. He was going to have a word or two for him about how life had treated his daughter. God was going to hear about it and there can’t be a good enough reason for her to have gone through what she’d gone through.

He made sure I got baptized at the Chevy Chase Baptist Church and he always believed in Jesus Christ as his savior, but he didn’t seem to happy about it.

When he died I couldn’t help but picture him getting all up in Jesus’ face.

On my last visit with him he told me he was ready for the Good Lord to take him home and it wasn’t the dementia talking so I told him when he gets here be nice.

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio 1966.

I was always the littlest. Youngest of tewelve ;-)!