A Layman’s Thoughts

I wrote this letter to thank my Dad for some of the ways in which he has blessed me over the years.  Opening it here has been a scarey thing because it is very personal.  I decided to do it because I hope that it will inspire you to do something similar.  In addition, it occurs to me that we might bless the Lord through such a statement to Him in prayer.

Dear Dad,
 

Thank you.  Thank you very very much.  Thank you, from the heart.
 

Too many times people leave important things unsaid while their loved-ones are living.  For some time now I have felt the strong desire to write and say a few of these things.  I have strong feelings for you, as I did for Mom.  I never told her, and I regret it still.  I want you to know how I feel before it is too late to tell you.
 

As early as I can remember, the life we lived felt just right to me.  As I age, I see how it suits me, right down to my toes.  The life we lived fits me like a kid glove and I want you to know how much I appreciate it.
 

I remember one little thing from the Deamers; playing with a metal toy car garage.  I drove cars up the ramp to be fixed, and there is a special place in my heart for those old toys as a result.  The bulk of my young childhood memories however, are from the house on the hill across from Harold Johnson’s.  While I know that you wanted something better for the family, (which you later provided in the home in which you now live) I have vivid and happy memories of the house on the hill—let me share a few.
 

I remember the butternut tree.  We used to wait for the butternuts to fall and pick them up and put them in the cellar for a year until the husks dried out.  Then we would crack them open and have one of the best treats I can remember.  I wish I had some butternuts now.  I can almost taste them, but not quite, and so I wish for them.  Thank you for teaching me about butternuts.
 

I remember the self-propelled reel mower (I think it belonged to the church) that you let me drive all by myself.  The moment is captured in a photograph, and it is one of the most cherished images of my youth.  Thank you for trusting me to run that big machine as a little boy; it made me feel like a man.
 

I remember the pear, apple, and cherry trees and all the berry bushes through which were cut paths like a maze.  Every year we would go out with ladders to pick fruit and with baskets or pails to pick berries.  After we had them all picked, Mom would begin the canning process.  I remember straining juices through cheesecloth and boiling and boiling, and using lots of Certo, and melting wax on the top.  I remember the Ball jars too.  The cellar was loaded with them each year (in fact I think you still have some in the “new” cellar—but you can probably throw them out by this time) and we would enjoy them all winter and into the next spring.  Thank you for raising me in the old style.  It’s something no one else of my age whom I have ever met was privileged to have experienced.
 

I remember the long rutted driveway.  In the winter and spring, the driveway was a special challenge.  I remember getting off the school bus and walking across the road to the open area of snow I thought was the driveway.  As it turned out, it was the ditch next to the driveway, and I fell in right up to my hubs.  What a laugh I had, and what a great story to share with the other kids at school who just walked down their neatly shoveled sidewalks!  I remember too, that often we could not get the cars up to the house in the winter, so we had to take groceries up by sled.  I remember dragging those sleds up the hill and carrying bags.  By the time we reached the top I thought my arms would fall off!  I also remember you masterfully navigating between ruts and high ground as you drove the cars up the hill in bad conditions.  You were my hero when you drove a car.  I’ll never forget the way your strong hand looked on the wheel.  I still compare my little businessman hands to yours today.  Thank you for teaching me how to deal with hardships and how to make do and how to drive like a pro.  Most people go through life without ever understanding any of these things, but I am far ahead of them all because I know them.
 

I remember the outhouse.  In the summer, I was always afraid that a bee was crawling on my bottom, or that one would fly down from the top, but none ever did.  In the winter, we would freeze when we went out, so we used pots in the house that had to be emptied the next morning—by Mom, I guess.  I remember shoveling out the excrement through a kind of trap door in the back and burying it.  Thank you so very much that we had an outhouse.  No one else I know who is anywhere near my age ever had one, so I have always been a little special in that regard.  I also appreciate it because it shows me that newer is not always better.  Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade the comfort of my bathroom for an outhouse, but the outhouse never got backed up and failed to flush like the new toilets do—I have occasional nightmares about that.  I am really very glad I got to use an outhouse for six years—and not just the one at Grandma’s house either!
 

I remember that we had a dug well and that we had to be careful not to use too much water so it wouldn’t run dry.  I also remember that when it did run dry, we would go to Whiskey Hollow and get water from there to hold us over.  Thank you for living in such a place and for teaching me that there is always some way to solve a problem.
 

There are a few other memories I have from the house on the hill.  I remember the brown Ford station wagon; scraping, sanding, painting, and (especially) varnishing the wooden boat; my sixth birthday party; the death of JFK and the events that followed; the “Round Oak Heater”; the linoleum on the floor; the rat traps in the cellar and behind the kitchen stove (not to mention that great old stove); the flour sifter in the cabinet; Mom’s old wringer washer; Mom rocking me on her lap in the living room; the curved staircase; the low ceilings upstairs; and the swing you put in the tree in the front yard.  All of these are a significant part of me.  Thank you for creating such great memories for me.
 

I remember moving to the new house when I was six.  At first we kids didn’t want to go, but once we saw the house we couldn’t wait!  I remember stuffing leaves in the holes in the floor that we later learned were not trash receptacles, but heating ducts.  I remember playing in the tall grass, when that was the more prominent feature of what is now a Pine forest.  I remember you showing me Katydids and Praying Mantises and walking sticks, and teaching me not to be afraid of them—although Praying Mantises still look pretty scary to me.  Thank you for moving us to the new place and for teaching me about all those exotic bugs.
 

I remember the “Blizzard of ’66” because that’s when I really learned how to shovel snow.  I remember you cutting blocks as big as the shovel could possibly make and tossing them onto a huge pile.  I remember what you went through to get us milk, walking through waist-deep snow and even going in deeper in the ditch.  You made the winter fun for me and helped me cope with my own winters as a dad with a family.  Thank you so much.
 

I remember vacationing every year at Boulton’s Beach on Lake Ontario where we would go out in that wooden boat we used to paint every year.  I remember the little cabin you would rent, and the huge stone in the water, about as far out as I could go at first.  I remember getting crayons so I could color if it rained.  I remember the barbeques they used to have down by the beach—man were they great!  Thank you for taking me on simple vacations like that and teaching me that great fun can be had without the need to travel to Europe or someplace.
 

I remember camping at various places and finally settling on Golden Beach on Raquette Lake.  I remember having our new fiberglass boat up there and that there were almost no fish at all.  I remember how far we could see down into the water, and that you had a friend from work across the lake who had a huge place and a really fast wooden cruiser that would go sixty miles-an-hour on the water!  I remember rock hopping and having the freedom to roam at will for the entire day.  I remember waking up and freezing to death and sitting by the fire you had made.  I remember setting up, living in, and tearing down the huge Army-style tent that never leaked.  That thing was great, and they just don’t make weatherproof tents like that any more.  I remember our walking or driving excursions around the Adirondacks, going to church in Inlet, and shopping over in Raquette Lake Village.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for introducing me to camping,  Joan and I have found it one of the greatest pleasures of our lives and we enjoy it still—though we now want air mattresses or a trailer.
 

I remember King, our little horse, and raising chickens and cutting off their heads—what did we ever do with them?  I remember shooting woodchucks, and nearly being fumigated to death by coal gas.  That made for quite an amazing story at school, and it solidified our familial friendship with Mrs. Gridley, my third-grade teacher.  I remember that you built a great little sulky for King, and that we drove him to town sometimes.  I remember you teaching me about the electric fence and how I learned that peeing on it was a bad idea!  I remember cleaning out King’s stall, and miraculously finding living baby rabbits in his pasture.  I remember the path we (mostly you) wore into the yard from the house to the barn by our daily feeding trips.  I remember what to do to water chickens, and that I have to be sure their water doesn’t freeze.  I remember crushing eggshells really small so they would eat them for calcium, but so they would not recognize them as eggshells and begin to eat their own eggs.  I remember selling baby chicks on the bus for a dollar—I wonder what happened to them too.  Thank you for giving me experience with animals.  It has stood me in good stead all these years, even though I have had no farm animals.  It made me a real part of the farming community.
 

I remember haying it up on Judy Cook’s Dad’s place one summer.  I learned an incredible amount that year.  Thank you for letting me go.  That was a big summer for me in many ways, but one of the most continuously vivid was the fact that it was then when I first disobeyed one of your big commands.  You told me not to go in water over my head, but Eugene talked me into swimming after a day loading hay, and I was more than eager to cool off.  The problem was that the pond was over my head.  I told him that I couldn’t do that, but he talked me into it by telling me that he would be right there with me and would save me if anything bad happened.  This is the first time I have ever confessed that to you!  I hope you will forego the spanking.
 

I remember buying new school clothes each year and that paying more than seven dollars for shoes was unacceptable.  I remember that ten cents a pound was the maximum price for bananas.  I remember shopping at the Thrift Shop and getting treasures off the dump.  Thank you for teaching me the value of money, and creating ways to conserve it.  Thank you even more for managing the little you had in such a way that I never knew money was an issue.  I wish I had learned the lessons better.
 

I remember your support for my forays into radio broadcasting and Ham radio.  I remember your support for my bicycle trip to Rochester, and a trip I took with church kids to Illinois.  Thank you for always being proud of my every accomplishment.  It helped me like myself.
 

I remember too laying around on the couch watching westerns on TV, I remember you reading all the time too.  I remember you reading to us; Bold Sir Mose, Mrs. Smart Learns to Skate, Hans und Yacob, and most importantly, the Bible.  You read with expression.  Almost no one does that you know!  You read all the time, and it has been the single most important thing you did in my view.  Thank you so much for teaching me to love reading.  It has made possible my success.  Thank you even more for putting the Bible into my mind and heart by osmosis.  I have always had a store of verses that sprang to mind when the Lord wanted to convict me or help me.  To this day, I find our family Bible reading the most prominently important thing we did growing up.  You were right to do it.  Thank you again.
 

Let me skip ahead.
 

I can’t believe to this day that I was so dependent that I called you to drive the hour-and-a-half from Baldwinsville to Oneida to simply turn the key in my car.  It was flooded, but I had become frustrated and thought it was something serious.  You did not treat me the way I deserved, you just started the car and said something like “they do that some times.”  Thanks, Dad.
 

Jumping further, your insights on tractor maintenance and many other topics have been of great value to me.  There are many things I could not easily have done around my various homes without your encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much everything under the sun.
 

Finally, I want to thank you for your spiritual constancy.  You have always appeared to me to be a paragon of virtue; a tower of spiritual strength; an unmovable rock of faith.  I can see now that you had your weaknesses and struggles spiritually, but they were never apparent to me in my formative years—which is pretty much everything prior to forty by the way.  Particularly I think of how you showed me (and show me still) by your attitude that the things of the world are unimportant.  Nothing really seemed to faze you.  Although I know that you experienced deep pain in the loss of Donnie and Mom, I also knew beyond all doubt that you believed what you taught us all those years about heaven and hell.  When I heard the stories about things people said when the garage caught on fire, and saw the way God blessed both you and others through it, I was profoundly blessed.  When I see your attitude toward your own eventual death, I am comforted greatly.  I know that your passing will bring deep sorrow and pain for me, but I also know that I will celebrate.  You taught me (and continue to teach me) how.
 

There are so incredibly many other things for which I want to thank you, but I simply remember them at other times, and so I will close this letter.  Thank you Dad, for everything.  I love you from the bottom of my heart.  I know that our Lord has a great mansion for you to enjoy in His presence.
 

See you there,
Your son (and brother in Christ),
Larry