Happy Birthday, Dad

My dad would've been 85 today.  He missed his 66th birthday by just under a month, so he's been gone for 19 years now.  

Dad didn't have the easiest of lives.  He own father died when he was ten, and his mom had him fairly late in her own life, so he was left to his own devices on the mean streets of a low-rent suburb of Detroit.  Oh, the tales he would tell of those days.

Dad was a patriotic man.  He joined the Air Force at 17, if I remember right, and stayed until he was 28 I think.  He got in at the end of the Korean War and out at the beginning of Vietnam.  (Because by then, he had four kids and Mom was worried she'd be a widow raising all those little ones alone if he stayed in.  Thank goodness, because if he had, then I wouldn't be here.)

Heh, Dad was skinny as a rail when he was young.  That uniform hangs on him.

Dad spent most of his after-military life in sales.  That man could sell ice cubes to Eskimos.  And what a teller of tales, he was.  He definitely had the gift of gab.  (I come by it honestly.)  

He spent his last years as a very ill man, but he lived long enough to see all 9 of his grandchildren into the world and long enough to see the oldest of them graduate high school.  I think that last part was very important to him - seeing his first grandson graduate - because Dad himself didn't.  He doted on his grandkids.  All of them.  But the first was always the favorite.  And Owl had a special place in his heart - because we lived with them when she was small.  

While I would've wished for him to live forever, I'm glad he didn't make it to this time.  What's happening to this country would've broken his heart.  Had he been around and still a healthy man, he would've fought hard against the tide and been right in the thick of the battle for this nation he loved so much.

All in all, he was a good dad.  He wasn't perfect... who is?... but he was a good man and I miss him.  I hope you're up there fishing with your own father, Dad.  :hugs: