Dad only finished the 7th grade, he was an intelligent young man, but he had to quit school to support his mother. His mother had been a cook before marriage and after his father left his mother, he worked at night selling sausages on the streets of downtown that his mother made at home.
At 16, he joined the civilian conservation corps during the depression. He earned $46 a month building state parks. Of the $46 the government took back $4, his mother got $33 and he got the $9 remaining. Imagine working hard labor for $9 per month. He learned to drive trucks in the corps and and left the corps in 1941 for full time employment as a truck driver.
Dad received his invitation from his "Uncle Sam" in 1943 to join the team in the second world war. He was inducted and spent 3 years as a military policeman, a truck driver and as an artillery gunner in Germany.
After the war, he worked as a ambulance driver, then he worked driving trucks for 30 years. The last 23 years he delivered meat in quantities from packaged steaks to full sides of beef. If you have ever lifted and carried a side of beef you can imagine how much weight that is to lift and carry. He slipped on icy pavements and cracked his ribs several times, but never missed a day's work. he never drank during the week, but come Friday after work there was a can or bottle of beer in his hand until Sunday night.
This was the truck he drove. He had to climb up to get in it, climb down to exit, climb back up to the back of the truck, get out the orders, climb back down and then haul it by hand into the restaurants he delivered to. The deliveries were all over town, so I can't imagine how many times a day he went through that routine. I can say that he was as strong as a bull and I could have never done the job he did. He could tear a deck of cards in half and did so when he lost at playing cards. Try that for yourself sometime.
My father was very opinionated and stubborn. I suppose the harsh life he lived as a child had something to do with it. I never met my paternal grandparents because they had both died before I was born. Dad had his ideas on what was right and what was wrong in life and he was not shy about sharing them. In our home, what was purchased was what he decided was the right brand and nothing else. We only had Taystee brand bread, Quality dairy milk, Pepsi-Cola, Tide detergent and the list went on from there. He only drank Falstaff beer until the company was bought by a larger outfit. I never had a Coca-Cola until I was earning my own money and even then there was never any Coca-Cola in the house. Dad's way was summed up by this phrase; "Be reasonable, do it my way."
When I was 17 I wanted to enlist in the navy, but my parents would not sign for me to do so. Dad thought joining a military outfit without compulsory service was the wrong thing to do. I suppose that was a good thing because I would have been in at 17 years and 11 months and out the day before my 21st birthday. It was called a minority enlistment. Had they signed for me I would have never continued my navy career (which turned out to be 11 years that I enjoyed) and that gave me the training that prepared me for the career that I used the rest of my working life.
Dad was in a horrific highway accident in the seventies (A woman was passing another car on a curve on the opposite side of the two lane road. The other car she was passing saw dad approaching and pulled as far over as far as possible; dad pulled over as far as he could and left a lane wide enough between the so the woman passing could go straight through, but the woman passing panicked and slammed on her brakes. When she did that the car turned sideways and hit dad, sending him off the road and down a 15 foot deep embankment. His left leg was crushed and he never had any circulation in it from that time on. He was laid up for an entire year before he could walk again. Many years later he got gangrene and had to have his leg cut off 4 inches above the ankle. By then his heart was so bad the doctors couldn't give him a general anesthetic so they used a local anesthetic and he sat on the operating table and watched them saw the leg off. Two weeks later the would was not healing so they had to cut the leg off just below the knee and he watched the whole thing over again. He finally got a prosthetic limb but he died of heart failure before he walked more than a few steps on the artificial leg. During the months he spent in the wheel chair he still ruled the roost as he had all of his life.
That's the kind of man he was. He still held the family together as he had always done. Once he was gone, everyone just kind of drifted away doing their own thing. He was always in charge and he had a dramatic influence in my life as he did with all of the family. I still miss him and lately he is in my dreams frequently, not as he died, but as he was in his younger years and in my dreams we are always working on something together.
Copyright Bill Weber 2019 and beyond.
At 16, he joined the civilian conservation corps during the depression. He earned $46 a month building state parks. Of the $46 the government took back $4, his mother got $33 and he got the $9 remaining. Imagine working hard labor for $9 per month. He learned to drive trucks in the corps and and left the corps in 1941 for full time employment as a truck driver.
Dad received his invitation from his "Uncle Sam" in 1943 to join the team in the second world war. He was inducted and spent 3 years as a military policeman, a truck driver and as an artillery gunner in Germany.
After the war, he worked as a ambulance driver, then he worked driving trucks for 30 years. The last 23 years he delivered meat in quantities from packaged steaks to full sides of beef. If you have ever lifted and carried a side of beef you can imagine how much weight that is to lift and carry. He slipped on icy pavements and cracked his ribs several times, but never missed a day's work. he never drank during the week, but come Friday after work there was a can or bottle of beer in his hand until Sunday night.
This was the truck he drove. He had to climb up to get in it, climb down to exit, climb back up to the back of the truck, get out the orders, climb back down and then haul it by hand into the restaurants he delivered to. The deliveries were all over town, so I can't imagine how many times a day he went through that routine. I can say that he was as strong as a bull and I could have never done the job he did. He could tear a deck of cards in half and did so when he lost at playing cards. Try that for yourself sometime.
My father was very opinionated and stubborn. I suppose the harsh life he lived as a child had something to do with it. I never met my paternal grandparents because they had both died before I was born. Dad had his ideas on what was right and what was wrong in life and he was not shy about sharing them. In our home, what was purchased was what he decided was the right brand and nothing else. We only had Taystee brand bread, Quality dairy milk, Pepsi-Cola, Tide detergent and the list went on from there. He only drank Falstaff beer until the company was bought by a larger outfit. I never had a Coca-Cola until I was earning my own money and even then there was never any Coca-Cola in the house. Dad's way was summed up by this phrase; "Be reasonable, do it my way."
When I was 17 I wanted to enlist in the navy, but my parents would not sign for me to do so. Dad thought joining a military outfit without compulsory service was the wrong thing to do. I suppose that was a good thing because I would have been in at 17 years and 11 months and out the day before my 21st birthday. It was called a minority enlistment. Had they signed for me I would have never continued my navy career (which turned out to be 11 years that I enjoyed) and that gave me the training that prepared me for the career that I used the rest of my working life.
Dad was in a horrific highway accident in the seventies (A woman was passing another car on a curve on the opposite side of the two lane road. The other car she was passing saw dad approaching and pulled as far over as far as possible; dad pulled over as far as he could and left a lane wide enough between the so the woman passing could go straight through, but the woman passing panicked and slammed on her brakes. When she did that the car turned sideways and hit dad, sending him off the road and down a 15 foot deep embankment. His left leg was crushed and he never had any circulation in it from that time on. He was laid up for an entire year before he could walk again. Many years later he got gangrene and had to have his leg cut off 4 inches above the ankle. By then his heart was so bad the doctors couldn't give him a general anesthetic so they used a local anesthetic and he sat on the operating table and watched them saw the leg off. Two weeks later the would was not healing so they had to cut the leg off just below the knee and he watched the whole thing over again. He finally got a prosthetic limb but he died of heart failure before he walked more than a few steps on the artificial leg. During the months he spent in the wheel chair he still ruled the roost as he had all of his life.
That's the kind of man he was. He still held the family together as he had always done. Once he was gone, everyone just kind of drifted away doing their own thing. He was always in charge and he had a dramatic influence in my life as he did with all of the family. I still miss him and lately he is in my dreams frequently, not as he died, but as he was in his younger years and in my dreams we are always working on something together.
Copyright Bill Weber 2019 and beyond.
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