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My father sits in his wheel chair, one leg gone due to diabetes, the other leg and the arm above, paralyzed by a stroke. That same stroke cut his once rich vocabulary down to a few hundred words, which he can only use a couple at a time, with great, great effort.
I knew him differently, but to most of his grandchildren, he's always been in that wheel chair, or bit by bit heading towards it.
I try to tell them differently. I try to tell them of the strong, heroic figure, the laughing wild man that I grew up with.
Last night my mother mentioned another story of my father, one I didn't know, one that defeats the diseases and disabilities.
My father was a marine, for a few short years, between the Korean war and the Vietnam war. He did his duty, fighting forest fires in California. He is the only marine that I know of that never learned how to swim. I mean--marine, a branch of the Navy, who's name means someone who is of the sea, refuse to learn how to swim.
There are many interesting stories about that, but I digress.
One of his platoon mates liked snakes. Even back in those days he was able to make a pet out of a large snake. Once he ware it around his waste, under his shirt, as he went to the mess hall.
Unfortunately the smell of the food brought out the snake's curiousity. It stuck its head out of the private's shirt and looked around--directly into the eyes of the Sarge.
The Seargant did not like snakes. He was a bit phobic. The dressing down he gave that snakes owner was quite loud and quite long. It ended with the dire threat to anyone who dared bring that snake back into the mess, or would even think about putting a snake in his bed.
A few days later they went out on manuevers. They set up a large tent for most of the platoon, and the sarge, to sleep under. The sarge was out playing cards, and enjoying a cold beer or two, while the others settled in.
One of them settled a radiator hose into the sarge's bed.
Later that night the sarge made his tipsy way back into the tent for a couple of hours of sleep. He put his toes under the blanket and felt, then saw, the snake-like hose.
He screamed.
He jumped.
He ran, directly into the center pole of the tent...
which proceeded to fall on all inside.
When they finally dug the Sarge out he had a knot on his forehead the size of a golfball, and a minor concusion.
Two bits of coincidence:
My father had decided to spend that night sleeping under the stars instead of in his cot. It was cooler, he claimed.
My father worked at a radiator shop before and after his time in the marines. He know where and how to get a radiator hose, and how much it looked and felt like a snake in the dark.
When my mother finished this story, I turned to my father who's half smile was larger than most people's full smiles. I asked, "Did you put that hose in his bunk."
He didn't answer me with words. He just laughed so hard and so loud he nearly fell out of his chair.
My father has done many things to make me proud, from quitting the school he loved to earn money for his family to almost single handidly building a basement under a house, without moving the house, I have honestly never felt more of a surpising burst of pride as I did that moment.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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