To the editor:
My dad has been a part of my spirit for all of my 46 years. That doesn’t mean that he’s always been present. As his firstborn, he and I had our own relationship, just as he has with his other two daughters. We have shared some tough times together, many that he remembered because he talked about them with me in these last three months. And I listened.
One thing he said that I will be forever thankful for is: “You know what the best thing about my getting cancer is? Being able to spend time with my girls again.”
I remember him making our trailer into a home, making amazing wood creations and a beam entrance way. Building wooden tables and spoons out in our shed and workshop with his corncob pipe sticking out of his mouth. The smell of his pipe tobacco!
I remember watching his mind work in harmony with his hands as he created a wooden boat scene with all of its intricacies. When we moved to Brown County, the house on Helmsburg Road, it was transformative for each of us.
For me, it was the third high school my freshman year. I stood outside of the Video Junction while everyone was in searching for movies, the day before my first day at the new school, and stared out across the lawn to the laundry mat that would soon become a weekly visit. I thought to myself, ‘I do not care what anyone thinks of me anymore.’ For him, as he talked with me about it these last months, that house was where he finally felt free.
He would get off work and come home before anyone else, smell the wood and make a cup of coffee to enjoy on the back deck or the upstairs perch at the big window, and look out at the woods. He loved coffee. Every day and all day. He loved the Daily Grind in its original form when John and Gina owned it. The wooden door with inlaid stained glass and the ironwork handle that creaked as he opened it. In winter, he would sit and drink a café Viennese with lots of whipped cream and listen to the wood fire cracking. He loved going for music nights there, where he discovered the beautiful sounds of Jon Kay playing his dulcimer. Though we were poor, he made the most of every single day and he continued to do that for the rest of his life, doing what he wanted and was true to himself.
My dad was a private man. Dad was someone who didn’t really like many people. He was comfortable in his own skin and with silence. He was a man of few words. But when he spoke, it was with such insight and wisdom. He cherished life, laughed fully and worked so damn hard. He was creative in everything he did.
At Eckrich and later Beatrice, he worked right alongside highly educated people and held his own. I have known too many people with lots of education who don’t hold a candle to his intelligence.
He could not only build things, but more importantly, he knew how to fix things. He built so many beautiful things out of the creation of his own mind: Clocks, tables, spoons, boats, carvings and a butcher block that I used to skate around in our kitchen in my socked feet. He built log cabins and his own home. He could fix anything: All sorts of vehicle problems, plumbing leaks, his daughters’ skinned-up knees and bruised spirits, doors that don’t shut right and countless other things.
There is a tradition we had since I was in my late teens. Some of you may know how to respond. I will never hear him say it now, but you can, if you know it. Every time we were together and would part, one of us would yell out ‘Ear wax!’ and the other would yell ‘Toe jam!’
I remember when I was really little I said to him that I wished he were more normal like other dads. Little kids, and big kids too, say things that they later regret. I love my dad for every bit of who he was.
As hard as these last five-and-a-half years, and especially these last three months, have been, I will be forever grateful to the universe for being able to actually reconnect with my dad. I’d like to believe that he was as proud of me for being true to myself as I am for him being true to himself.
Chris Myers, Brown County
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