In From The Cold

My father had a—means of focus/physical display of intensity—that stays with me to this day, almost fifty years since I last saw it. He would put the tip of his tongue against the back of his top teeth and push out the rest of his tongue, where the tongue was curled over on itself, partially outside his mouth. His eyes would get big and terrifying. And it would drive me to cringing fear. He reserved that look for major infractions.

For minor infractions, he would do the tongue thing but not the eye thing, and pop the infractee on the forehead with the second knuckle of his middle finger, striking down with an overhand clenched fist. It was always controlled, but it hurt like hell.

I got the first treatment (deserved) during a cold Michigan winter. I must have been 10 or 11. We lived in an old two-story farmhouse. The upstairs was unheated, except for floor vents, which allowed the downstairs heat to rise upstairs. We all slept under heavy quilts in the winter, which kept us toasty, except for the occasional necessary trip downstairs to the bathroom. A cold and miserable, and it had to be very, necessary trip!

Always looking for a way to shortcut necessity, I found I could tiptoe through my sisters room, into the attic space and let fly through the attic window. Worked fine in summer, but winter now, that was another story! Fortunately, there was an old mattress toward the back of the attic which served as both a sponge and a silencer. Unfortunately, it was over my parent's bedroom, but that never occured to me, except for the need to be quick and quiet.

It may have been the developing stain on the ceiling that gave me away.

My father was coming up the stairs when I went back across to the bedroom, eyes flashing and tongue protruding. Terror, terror, terror! He had a bed slat in his hand, with which he proceeded to blister my hiney. Needless to say, I never took that particular shortcut again.
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Mom died in 1992. Dad was devastated. When Marilyn and I got there the next day, he was so emotionally distraught, he could barely speak. You could lead him around with a string, he had so little will of his own, and the least provocation would bring him to tears.

He spent the year after that visiting with his sons and daughters. I think he was trying in his own way to undo some of what he perceived as damage he had caused over the years by punishing his children. I wanted to tell him he had done no harm to me, and probably helped me to some dramatic midcourse corrections. I never did, but he seemed to be sincere in his effort and everyone enjoyed the change. And he talked with us! Something he never had done a lot of when we were growing up.

He died in 1993, a year after Mom died. He had insisted on cremation, which certainly suited me—I never have been much on viewing dead bodies that have been made up and stuffed full of preservative. A memorial service with people attending who know and love you is closure enough for me. But someone of his children requested a viewing before the cremation. Respecting those wishes, the funeral home had him in an open casket. He looked so strange and empty and hollow. I got angry and went outside to curse and kick the building. That was not my father!!
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Dad was a child of the Depression. His father, a skilled automobile artisan, always had work, but Dad learned both frugality and possession under those trying times for the Nation. His stuff was his stuff, and you touched and used it without permission at your peril. His closet and his top dresser drawer were strictly off limits to his kids. Woe be unto the youngster who messed with his stuff!

After the funeral, we all had the same thought—there was no one to keep us from his stuff! I had always wanted to rummage through his closet and his drawers. Evidently, we all did, because with rare accord, we did a "search and divide." Although it has been ten years since then, I can still tell you, dear reader, exactly what I wound up with—his beloved Canon camera with telephoto lens and attachments, a Suunto compass and a clinometer, two increment tree borers, two diameter tapes and a 100 foot rollout tape measure. All but the camera were forestry tools.

My father was a very complex man. He was highly intelligent, and not given to blowing his own horn. He always did what he felt he had to do (mostly be the strong provider and head of his family), even when it forced him to be distant and cruel. Which he was on many occasions. I still loved him. I still do.

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