My Father Told Me
by Dorothy Wilhelm

My father believed in happy endings. So he read books backwards - or at least he started at the end. He would select one of his beloved western novels, Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey where, of course, the women were virtuous and the good guys wore white hats. Then he would open the book and read the last page.  Only when he was sure the same people appeared on the first page and the last would he invest his valuable time in reading. He wore a white Stetson hat all his life and from him I learned to identify good books and good guys.  

My father was a giant.  At least that’s how he looked to my four year old eyes.   Dad worked the section gang laying the Great Northern railroad tracks that ran  along the shores of the great Kootenai River and on past the metropolises of Libby and Jennings.  It seemed to me he had to stoop to keep his red hair from brushing the ceiling of the tar paper shack we rented from the railroad. I thought he was bent with the wisdom of being ancient.  He was twenty eight years old at the time. He had never gone beyond fifth grade.

I feared my father as I feared God - more, really. God seemed distant but my Dad was there everyday sternly outlining chores to be done, and accepting no excuses. And yet, he went about singing  in his considerable voice. “Climb Upon My Knee Sonny Boy” he would bellow at the top of his lungs, and “My Wild Irish  Rose,” and “California Here I come.” What he lacked in tunefulness, he supplied in volume and I learned that making a joyful noise can be more important than making a tuneful one and that you’d just as well make the best of things. 

My father had run away from home to join the Marines when he was fourteen, and  finished boot camp before his parents took him home. He  was sternly watchful of me in my growing up years and  suspicious of any young man who offered attention.  “They’re only after one thing,” he would say, darkly.” I am a man, I know,” unconsciously insulting himself. I had no idea what that one thing was then, and I’m none too sure now.    My potential suitors would ask in a fearful voice, “Is Mr. Conway home?”  If he was, they were pretty likely to disappear and never come back.  Yet, he gave good advice.  Showing off my engagement  ring I asked “What’s the best way to take care of  the diamond?” “I think you’re supposed to soak it in dish water three times a day,” he said.  He didn’t quite trust the young soldier who had given me the ring, and he never stopped being angry when our military assignments took us far away.

Then suddenly, by some alchemy never fully explained, the red headed giant turned into someone called “Grandpappy” who frolicked and rolled on the floor with his grandchildren .  He told them uproarious stories which gave fresh motives and aspirations to characters like the Three Little Pigs who, it turned out, were not underachievers but merely possessed of an inadequate skill set.  I rejoiced in getting to know my parents as fellow adults and grieved for my own children because their father died before  they could enjoy that metamorphosis. 

Yesterday, I came back from visiting my youngest son in Minnesota where I watched bemused as, wearing his beloved Mariners jersey, this young father unflappably doled out kisses for “owies” and changed poopy diapers for his two young sons while cooking dinner for the family. (Yes, of course he washed his hands in between. What do you think?). 

So I want to raise a slightly late,  slightly out of tune, hymn of praise in honor of the fathers  who are at this moment changing diapers, coaching Little League, or keeping vigil over a sick child.  And I’d like to offer  a whole bouquet of roses, the official flower of  Fathers  Day,  in memory of my Dad, the man who taught me to tell the good guys from the bad guys and to go straight to the happy ending.

Dorothy Wilhelm is a professional speaker, humorist and columnist and the host of My Home Town on Comcast CableTV76 and On Demand. She can be reached by e-mail at DOROWIL@comcast.net or from the home page - click here to go there.