Memories of a Greatest Generation Dad

My dad, a World War II veteran of the U.S. Naval Construction Battalions (aka the Navy Seabees) built a double-decker back porch at our two-story duplex, a brick barbecue pit in our back yard and three big closets in our basement. When my mother asked him to put in a second bathroom, he hung a fake urinal on a nail in one of those closets.

Mom laughed — and so did I. Daddy's sense of humor has inspired how I live, as have his deep love of reading and his innate generosity. Father's Day is the perfect time to honor my Greatest Generation dad.

My love of baseball comes from my father. Every summer, on Sundays he and my grandfather would listen to the game on the radio while barbecuing chicken. While my mom and grandma fixed side dishes in the kitchen, my job was to bring cold beers out to the men now and then. Over time, I started sitting with them, learning about the game.

Sometimes, when my mother called out the back door to ask when dinner might be ready, Daddy would report, "It's only the bottom of the sixth" or "We have to break this tie first." Some Sundays, we had "double-header chicken," which took hours to cook because my father cranked up the grate on the grill, to accommodate the two games.

On many Saturday nights, Daddy and I watched old movies together in the den, often while my mother read in the kitchen. Neither of my parents went to college, but both were avid readers. Like many of their generation, they belonged to a Book-of-the-Month club. Often, the three of us would bring different books to the dinner table, a practice now frowned on. "Wow — listen to this paragraph," one of us would say, and then read aloud. If we'd all read the same book, we would talk about it.

One summer, Daddy and I whipped through all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels — and then laughed ever after, because neither of us could keep all the plots straight. I also read my dad's copy of "The Bluejacket's Manual," the enlightening handbook for all Navy personnel, and I spent time perusing the Teamster's contract, which my father, a truck driver and union shop steward, kept on our kitchen table.

An avid fisherman, Daddy always baited the hook for me when our family went fishing because I was a squeamish kid who insisted on wrapping the doomed minnow or worm in a tissue before inserting the hook. Still, he taught me how to handle the tiller on the outboard motor so I could steer the boat out on a lake.

I learned the importance of expressing appreciation when I repeatedly saw my dad tip the letter carrier and the trash pick-up crew. At Christmas, he handed out bottles of whiskey; I make mini loaves of pumpkin bread. When a close friend had to give up his dog when he moved to a small apartment, Daddy convinced my mother to adopt his pal's pet.

Though many in his generation weren't much involved in infant care, when I was 8 or 9, sometimes my dad took me on his Saturday morning rounds. We might hit the barbershop or the hardware store (I love them still) or maybe we'd swing by my cousin's gas station to visit for a while.

At lunchtime, we'd enjoy sandwiches at the neighborhood tavern. I knew the place well, because families routinely gathered there on Friday nights, when dads lined up at the bar, moms talked at the tables in the center of the room and kids played Crazy Eights in the booths along the wall. We were loyal customers, because years before, the tavern owner had loaned my father the money to buy my mother's wedding ring. 

Growing up, I often heard great stories from his past. As a child during World War I, one day he ran into the backyard and gobbled up his family's entire monthly ration of butter. I also learned that a decade later, after his father had bought him a pony, Daddy traded the animal to another boy for a bicycle.

More than once, he talked about relishing the day he first tasted fresh pineapple in Hawaii, on a stop on his way to build airstrips on Guam during the war. We were a meat-and-potatoes family and my mom did most of the cooking, but each summer, my dad would make the occasional pot of succotash from fresh vegetables. He did not get along well with our new garbage disposal, and dismantled it one day when it mangled a spoon.

In some ways, parenting me was not my father's first experience. His sister, born 15 years after he was, often told me that he had served as "a second dad" for her, especially after their father died when she was 13 and their mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. "As I grew up, he was always reaching for his wallet," my aunt said, "offering me whatever money I might need."

He did his sister another big favor as well. When my aunt entered a convent the day after she graduated from high school, her big brother brought her back home the next day. He insisted she give that big a decision more time. Soon after, she met and married a wonderful man, and I owe my five first cousins to them.  

When I married at 21, my parents gave me the 1966 candy apple red Mustang that Daddy and I had convinced my mom our family needed to buy just a few years earlier. On the night my son was born, a year after my mother died, Daddy showed up at the hospital and promised me he'd buy the infant a Mustang when he turned 16. Sadly, my father died before he could make good on that.  

When I was 16 and prone to gossiping about my classmates, Daddy would listen for a bit and then stop me with this challenge: "Run through your own backyard." I remember my father's advice on another topic, too. Whenever I'm tempted to hurry — though that increases the chance for taking a tumble at my age — I remember Daddy's maxim, said only partly in jest: "If you're going to fall down, have a beer first so you don't get hurt."

When my father told a slightly off-color joke at the breakfast table the weekend I brought home my new college roommate, my mother and I held our breath until Janet burst out laughing, and then we joined right in.

I also recall laughing at Daddy's stock response to any unanswerable question: "Would you eat a cold potato if I warmed it for you?" He'd learned the saying as a boy, from Irish relatives.

"I loved your dad — he was fun," a cousin told me just recently. That he was, and I loved him too.

Patricia Corrigan is a professional journalist, with decades of experience as a reporter and columnist at a metropolitan daily newspaper, and also a book author. She has written for Next Avenue since February 2015. Read more from Patricia at latetothehaight.blogspot.com. Read More