The Bishop Nightmare

Recently a ghost from my past resurfaced when dr bishop made the FBI Top Ten Most Wanted for the horrific murder of his family over 40 years ago. I was a classmate of one of his sons. I had just moved to Maryland from Cleveland. I I was nine or ten. Forth grade at Carderock Springs Elementry School. That same year my 16 year older sister died of leukemia. For most of my life this year of my life has been virtually a black hole of memories and energy. A few weeks ago another old classmate JJ posted a story on FB about the old memories that are regularly tweaked whenever the bad doctor was back in the news. Many of us shared and commented and comforted each other for the first time in a very long time. It was the first time I admitted to myself that it was an emotionally devastating year for me and I have spent nearly an entire life pretending not to remember it. And that this was a good thing.

I have always been annoyingingly emotional. I embarrass my kids because I am so easily moved to tears. Recently my eldest and I went to The Xmen's latest. She made fun of me a few days later saying you cried at Xmen Dad! I didn't remember crying but I probably did. Great movie! Set back in the Seventies kinda took me back in a cool way.

I have always thought there was something wrong with me. Well I guess there are a lot of things wrong with me, but now at least I own it. I understand it. And day by day I remember it. And that's ok.

This really happened

about a year ago it became very hard for me to continue posting to DDD. A lot of memories of my childhood are very painful and when you start writing about the good times it's apparent to me that these wonderful memories are what shield us from the tragic. I couldn't stop tho because a fragment of the story kept begging to be told, however I couldn't remember it because DumbDumbDaddyo asked me to stop telling it. Now I wish maybe I hadn't remembered as an avalanche of unwanted memories have opened to me. The fragment is from the day before my sister died. We're in the family room watching Flipper and the phone rings. That shrill shrill ringing of a 1970s telephone. It startles my sister terribly. I answer the phone and can hear an enormous room. I say hello and only hear what sounds like a really big wedding reception or the murmurs of a giant cocktail party. My parents went to a lot of those so I waited listening thinking my father was calling so I say is that you dad and the noise slowly fades. I get no response and hang up. My sixteen year old big sister who has been battling leukemia for eight of them, I am nine, gets very upset and insists the call was for her and how could I possibly have hung up on him. I explain no one was there and try to get back to watching Flipper. The phone rings again and again and again then Flipper and the boy stop what they are doing and look right at me. I get up answer the phone and hear a vast quiet space. More than silence I heard nothing. I said hello and the receiver swallowed my words. I looked at my sister, there are tears in her eyes and I I must tell her again there is no one there. She said because he is calling me and you won't bring me the phone so I stretch the curly receiver cord and took her the dead sounding phone. I watched her have her first lucid conversation in a long time with someone who wasn't even there. She became very relaxed and laid back on the sofa chatting away like any other sixteen year old would talking with her best friend. She appears so normal I try to go back to watching Flipper again but the TV is off. As she is listening she looks at me and smiles. She is so beautiful with her really long really straight jet black hair that has so miraculously grown back (back then they weren't sure it would) and her flawless complection. Karen sits up and asks me to hang up the phone. As I'm putting the receiver back in the cradle I pick up again and hear more than nothing. Karen is happy but becomes very tired and the color leaves her face and as she is fading back into sleep she says, "He loves you, says you're gonna live a wonderful life." She died the next day before I got home from school.

The few times I did tell that story it didn't go well, the last time I told that story I was tagged "emotionally challanged" . My Dad said that he believed me and why wouldn't He call first before coming to pick you up. Maybe you should keep this between you and me BiddyBuddy most people think your sister was delusional. I didn't know what that meant but it sounded pretty bad. She had been through so much already and I didn't want to make it any worse. DDD always had a way of making things seem ok even when they weren't. 

First DDD post from iPhone

Love our new home in CO posting these photos makes me feel like the luckiest man on the face of the planet! DumbDumdDaddyO goes mobile!

Telling It Like It Is

My Dad had a way of saying a volume of material with only a few words. It terrified me occasionally to be alone with him. He'd be driving me somewhere and ask something like, "you fool in' around with this girlfriend of yours?" I'm like 12. I would be literally speechless and he would continue with, "women are not toys, they are God's greatest gift to man. They are meant to be loved not played with. Cherish her or leave her be." Then awkward silence for the rest of the ride from Potomac to Pyle Jr. H.S.

Happy Fathers Day

My big sister Carol posted this picture on Facebook on Fathers Day. I got breakfast in bed and spent the day with my three daughters and Suzy (the best wife and mother any man could ever dream of) and when I look back and think of my father I am so grateful he taught me what really matters in life.

We are what truly mattered to him. We are all that mattered to him. He wasn't perfect. He was my Dumb Dumb Daddy-O and I will always love him.

Heart and Soul

Football has been a major theme of this blog for obvious reasons, but my dad was good at anything he seemed to do. My wife recently paid me the compliment that I too was really good at just about anything I tried, arguably the best. I begged to differ, but in the end said, "thank you."

I have thought a lot about that compliment. I'm not that good at a lot of things. But I get what she meant and I credit it to good coaching.

Whenever I would play exceptionally well in a game. My dad would always say, "You played with some real 'heart & soul' today Biddy Buddy!" I remember one baseball game in particular where I went 5 for 5 with a double, two triples and two home runs. I scored 5 times and we won 10 to 9 in the seventh. We were the home team and on the last out I had a diving over the shoulder catch that seemed so unreal that I remember it as though I was watching someone else catch it. At the time I told my dad that I didn't remember doing it and that is was like I was watching someone else do it and then there I was with the ball in my glove getting mobbed by my teammates. He said it was because I was playing with some serious heart and soul.

He said he saw me running for it before the ball had even left the bat. He said I had had a premonition and since I was playing with real heart and soul you went where your spirit led. And that is how you played and that is how you should live your life.

He said, "Today you gave your soul a chance. When you do this the soul will take care of the body, but the body can never take care of the soul. Pay heed to all of you premonitions. Cultivate them. Regard them as an extra self, above and beyond your mortal self. Regard that other self as a watchful angel, a friend who's got your back."

He went on to explain, "The mind is to the body as the spirit to the soul. There are things that cannot be seen but that are surely felt, like fear. It may be simply that fear is born into the mind because there is fear in the world. Or again, it may be that the mysterious agency of the mind has thrown out invisible tentacles and drawn the truth out of the void."

He would always say, "Fear is usually a big waste of time, but it will always keep you safe." I think what he was saying, now that I've had thirty years to chew on it, was in life always follow your heart. Because when you follow your heart you bring together your mind and spirit, and your body and soul. Pretty deep and profound stuff for a Dumb Dumb Daddyo.

SFO

"We're going to fly you to SFO for the next round of interviews. How does that sound to you?" Sounds great, where's SFO? Sometimes I am not a smart man. I told my wife I made to the next round and their flying me out to SOF next week! She said for people in the know it's SFO, but you call it San Francisco! "Cool!"

I think my genius lies in not worrying so much about being an idiot. I always felt bad for Forest Gump when he would be so concerned about not being a smart man. He never saw it. His brilliance in following his heart and just doing what he knew was right. My dad was so much like Forest Gump it's crazy, except for the whole low IQ thing. He was from Alabama. Played football on scholarship at a major university. They even had the same jersey number, good old #44. They both learned a lot about life and being a man serving in the military during a war. They both met Elvis and bunch of U.S. presidents. They both traveled the world, both being pioneering American citizens making historic trips to China. They both married the only woman they ever loved. And without a doubt lived uniquely huge lives.

So here I sit in the airport waiting to fly to SFO for yet another interview feeling like Forest on a bus stop bench. Thinking about my dad and realizing he never said anything about no box of chocolates. He did once tell to stop worrying so much about life and that it would take care of itself. He once said, "Life ain't meant to be figured out it's meant to be lived!"

Time to board.

Wish me luck.

ps
Not being a smart man is not so bad. My dad taught me I could still become educated (it just may take a little longer) but I see that there is a lot of brilliance in you biddy buddy and soon you will see it too.

Why

Why is the critical question. My dad used to tell me, "If you don't know why don't do it." Another one of his many sayings I never really got. Why do you have to have a reason to do everything? I guess now I get it, sort of. My wife just asked what am I blogging about and I told her I don't know. But I think I do know why I am doing it. Why do I post in DDD, because it brings me closer to my father.

I wish he were here now. Eight years he's been gone and still I wonder what he'd say or what he thinks I should do. Of course he is in my heart and in my head but that is not the same. He would never tell me what to do. Mostly he would say do what is right. Most of the times he would say if I haven't taught you the difference between right and wrong by now you'll never learn. Guess I'm still learning.

He once told me, "If you don't like what you are doing then do something else." I think it was when I was complaining about my first real sales job. He went on to explain that he didn't mean give up, but try and do it differently. He said, "The surest way to make something permanent is to give up. The surest way to succeed was to try again." He had a way of making the profound profoundly simple. I went back to that job and instead of going out in the field to make sales I went out to make friends. Things turned out pretty well.

I hope to start posting a little more regularly because I really could use his advice right now. The start up business I was hired to save just went out of business. So I find myself unemployed for the second time this year. If it was just me no problem, but I'm a dumb dumb daddyo now. My family is counting on me and lately I've been kind of down to say the least. He'd probably say something to make me smile and then say something like feeling sorry for yourself is not the solution. He was never shy about saying what had to be said.

So there it is...thanks DDD.

Best Newspaper Photo Ever

2012 Holy Family Bless Your Pets Day!

Wood Box Wisdom on Struggle

 

It has been far too long since I looked in my dad's wood box. As usual this scrap was the first I read and as usual struck me a as just what I need to hear. "The things you treasure more and more are the things you had to struggle for..." What do I treasure?

 

My dad's first "big job" was with the Lumberman's Association and this clip from a lumberman poet is obviously from that time in his life. It was the mid-1950s and since that's ten years before I was born it is the time in my dad's life that this blog was created for me to discover. A lumberman poet? I must look this guy up. His wisdom my father share is solid and true. What we truly value and desire are things for which we are willing to struggle and the things we will treasure as time goes by are those very things that were not easily acquired. Family, Love, Respect, Education, Friendship, Wisdom, Good Health, Happiness, these things I treasure and struggle for and none are easy but all make life worth living. These are the ends. There are many means. I struggle at time for the means to these ends. I think the wisdom in this clip is to discover what you treasure so that the daily struggle is justified. Struggle is a funny word to me. It's like strut and giggle. There I go cracking myself up again... My struggle will never be the same! Thanks Pops.