Memories of our fathers.

Jerry losing his dad recently rekindled memories of my own dad, who's gone 20 years now. I thought maybe some of the people here would like to tell a story of some kind about their dad. *(regardless if he's still here or passed on) It can be a sad, an heroic, or a funny story. I know I was very lucky to have great parents raise me. They had their own flaws like we all do, but their capacity to support me and never waiver with all the mistakes I made in my life was something I came to appreciate greatly after they were both gone.... So, here's a story about my dad.

I was a union cabinetmaker. I decided to quit the union at about age 26 to open my own small shop, once I actually felt like I had learned enough to do some decent work on my own. My dad wasn't angry, but he did think I was making yet another mistake in life. (He was a lifelong union member, wood finisher)

By the time I was about 40, he was happily retired, but loved to come up to the woodshop, which I shared with my best friend, and be around the working guys. He would come up before lunch time and walk around inspecting everyone's work while bullshitting with everyone before going to the marina to go out on his boat. When my dad would show up, I would go out to the good italian deli and get lunch for all of us, while he hung out and enjoyed the fact that he was in his element (all the cabinet makers at work) but he had no pressure on him to do any work at all. No difficult colors to mix. No deadlines. No toxic chemicals to work with. He got to stroll around like the true master that he was, just like when he was the foreman of the shop he worked for, only he didn't have to do any work...

I would go for the lunches and as I walked out the door, he would yell to me as a joke, "Don't forget, I want a big Heineken beer with my lunch". I would say back to him, "This is a working shop. We don't drink on the job!" To which he always replied, "That doesn't apply to me, I'm retired!" I did always get him that Heineken BTW...

We would all eat our lunch and he would tell funny stories about job screw ups, and miracle rescues of jobs he did in the past. Then he would announce that he was going down to the marina to go out on his boat because he was now a man at leisure.

By the time I was in my mid 30's, something had happened to the union cabinet shops in NYC, where they were going out of business one after another. It wasn't long before even the last great one "Langenbacker" was gone too. My dad used to say that he timed his career just right, because he retired just when the industry collapsed, and the chemistry he was an expert with was discontinued because it was toxic and outlawed.

At some point in his last years, he looked around our shop with pride and said, "You guys have a nice place here." I knew that he finally saw how much it meant to me to be my own entity, rather than someone's employee and he finally understood my vision and the path I had taken. His skill set was legendary in the NYC finishing trades. Other companies would get into trouble and call his company to see if they could buy some of "Artie's time" from his company to perform a miracle to save a job of their own which had gone wrong.

I miss him greatly. His steadfast belief in me in spite of not always agreeing with me, always kept me trying hard to get things to the next level of quality, and that turned out to be the key to my survival.

He was a born and bred New Yorker who had a rough childhood in the 20's. He served in WWII in the pacific as a sailor. When he retired he didn't have to commute into the city any longer every day. He would say, "I can't believe I was able to do that commute for over 35 years... Thanks Dad... You are greatly missed and fondly remembered by all the guys in the shop.


Please tell a story about your dads. It doesn't have to be long winded like mine... It helps to hear them and appreciate our own dads.

Nice to hear good Dad stories. None here past being a youngster.

My dad left my mom, then threw me out right after I got out of HS, and cut off contact with us not long after. I havent heard or seen him in decades.

I spend my time trying to be a far sight better than that for all my kids.

It is a good story. Wish I could say I had such a close relationship with my Dad.

My Dad tought me certain value traits such as be considerate to others, do unto others as you would them do to you, do an honest days work, be proud of your work (no short cuts, don't cover up mistakes, etc), be true to your word, value your friends, and a dishonest deed will cost you more than any gain, among others.

Beyond that, he was not there for us. I have passed his Maxims on to my son, and tried to be the Dad he was not.

Perhaps his Maxims did more for me than any thing else he might have done.

Thanks for posting, oOnortonOo.

Slick

Thank you for posting Slick and Nipper. Oddly enough, my Dad was like the both of you. He had a rough childhood. His dad wanted children so the kids could work and support him. When my dad was 18 years old he told his dad that he wanted to keep some of the money from his own paycheck rather than turn it all over to my grandfather. My grandfather met him at the door the next day and handed him a box with some of his belongings in it and told him, "We had you children so you would support us when you grew up, and then slammed the door in his face". One by one my grandfather did this to each of his kids as they got old enough to want to have a life of their own. I think that's why my dad was such a good dad. He knew what it was like to have a rotten father, and he broke his ass working for the family he raised as a reaction to his own horrible father and rough childhood. I only met my grandfather once. I was 13 and when he walked into the room he punched me in the face, knocking me off the chair I was sitting in and said to me and my brother, "Which one of you is the tough guy?"

I know how lucky I was to have the dad I had. I worked with him on weekends as a teenager. Except for vacations and the few hours he was the king of the castle after he came home from work, doing "side jobs" with him on the weekends was a way to help the family and grill him on his life.... I have some great stories about him. Some funny as hell too. If this thread takes off and people tell some dad stories, I'll tell another one....

I'm in the same boat as many of you. I wish I had better things to say about my old man and try to be everything he wasn't with my son. After he died I did my best to clean up some of the mess he left for his widow, mostly financial crap, and mostly to show that wasn't like him. Had to sell off his lifetime's worth of Grey and SnapOn tools to help pay for his follies. Only thing left was a collection of long guns that had been in the family for generations (dating back to Boer war service). I ended up making this gun chest to lock everything away (figuratively and literally).

Jerry , my dad died at 82 in 1999.. I remember sitting in his Humber Hawk (1953 sidevalve) going down a seriesof hills to a road junction where it is a mandatory stop. The Humber was a very heavy car and it was seriously loaded and it was doing about 70mph at the top of the last hill . Just as I was thinking we would never stop, He braced himself against the steering wheel so he is almost in a standing position (he was disabled) and double declutched down through the gears using his 'good' leg on the brake and gas pedal. The car pulled up on the white line.

The pain and anguish will pass but memories will remain.

best wishes at what is a difficult time.

I believe my Father may have had a good sense of humour, though as a parent he was an abject failure to some (and it ain't just me saying it).
I'm afraid I'd struggle to say anything nice about the man, so he might appreciate that the best I could come up with is he made a damn fine corpse....
Apologies if this goes against the narrative here, hopefully those with better stories will wade in and lighten the tone.

EstuaryBoy, If anything, your comment highlights the narrative, that many of us are so very lucky. I might paint my dad as a wonderful guy, but just like his son, (me) he made a lot of mistakes too. The passage of time since his loss has made those mistakes seem less important and some of the basic things he did well, like pay the bills, put food on the table, and work his ass off for our family to survive have become more appreciated.

I've already expressed how blessed many of you are whose Dads rode and appreciated motorcycles, my Dad hated (not disliked, HATED) them. The flip-side of that is, my Dad was a GREAT Father in EVERY other way!

In case anyone wants a L-O-N-G story, here it is:

Dad (Oscar J Zuniga) was a professional engineer (UT Longhorn, as were my two older brothers); he was not only a Mechanical/Electrical engineer, but a Civil Engineer and RPLS (Surveyor). Dad did the mechanical/electrical design work for the San Antonio architect who designed all of the Denny's restaurants and La Quinta Hotels/Motels. Dad was the Laredo AFB Civil Engineer for many years then he "hung out his shingle" in order to have the time he felt he needed to be a "proper" Father. I can drive you around Laredo and point out many large facilities that my Dad was instrumental in designing, as well as a half-dozen residential subdivisions he developed. In fact, one of the larges home builders in the country for many years was "Armadillo Homes"; my Dad started that company to make sure my two worthless ex-brothers-in-law could keep their families fed and clothed (they did better than that, financially, but not morally). Dad received recognition as the TSPE "Engineer of the Year" several years.

He served aboard a Fast Attack Transport, the USS Jerrauld, in WWII all over the south Pacific; if you watch classic WWII movies and hear the names of the islands and bases, Dad's deployment sheet lists MOST of them. Dad was an Aerographer's Mate (weather guesser), he crossed the equator at least twice, took some shrapnel in a Kamikaze attack, and when they were transporting troops back after the war, he traded cartons of cigarettes for Japanese swords (I inherited one). I followed him in the Naval tradition and served as a Ground Support Equipment Electrician.

Dad's long suit was hunting, fishing, and ranching. We got to hunt, fish, roundup, and camp out all over south Texas at several of Dad's friends' ranches. Dad caught more BIG Bass in almost any given outing as I have in my lifetime! He just had the techniques down "pat". He also bagged very nice trophy Whitetail deer, Mule deer, Elk, Caribou, Dall Sheep and other big game, besides catching trophy Bass, Pike, Rainbow Trout, King Salmon (all freshwater), and Kingfish, Tarpon, Red Drum, Speckled Trout, Southern Flounder, Dorado (Dolphin), Sailfish, Marlin, and other saltwater fish. (and I can't forget Ducks, Dove, Quail, Turkeys, and Pheasant). He and my older brothers (I was too young) as well as 2 or 3 of my uncles, all appeared frequently in "Outdoor Life", "Field and Stream", Sports Afield", and "National Sportsman", as one of his best friends was Byron W. Dalrymple, a PROLIFIC outdoor writer. In fact, Byron was SO prolific, he had to use pen names in many magazines so as not to be seen as the only writer they had! Many of Dad's interviews and techniques were written about, especially game calling, which he could do with no physical "calls" (reeds, etc.); he was especially adept at using a trimmed set of antlers to "rattle up" Whitetail bucks.

Dad carved out a noteworthy niche for himself by inaugurating the "Border Olympics" track & Field meet in Laredo, which invited Junior College teams from around the South to participate for the week-long meets. It all came about by his hunting and fishing association with the University of Texas coaches from his years in college when he met one of the coaches fishing in Lake Travis. So, every year as the coaches would arrive a week before the event to coordinate and plan, he'd take them all out hunting and fishing at his friends' ranches. The Border Olympics became an official part of the annual George Washington's Birthday celebration in Laredo, which is a month-long BIG deal there.

Dad & Mom raised 10 of us kids (5 boys, 5 girls), and did a respectable job at that. He taught us to be respectful, polite, honest, trustworthy, and good citizens (knowing history and civics, not blindly following public figures). I've only raised 5 kids, with a 20 -year "rest" in between the first 3 and the last two, and it AMAZES me that he and Mom didn't crack up or kick us all out of the house. They ain't makin' em like that any more...



(This photo has appeared in over 100 outdoor magazines from the 60s to the 2000's)

I can both thank and curse my father for some of the things in my life, but in the end I wouldn't have it any other way. My fathers entire working life was spent in aviation starting in 1940 when the Army taught him to keep airplanes flying. From there he went on a few ventures of his own before spending almost 41 years at Boeing Helicopters in the flight test department. As a kid all I wanted to do with my life was fly but I got more words of discouragement than encouragement from him. "Join the Air Force" was all I ever got out of him. Being as stubborn and hard headed as him I figured he was just being a dink when he told me that " flying isn't what it used to be". Nothing ever is, but I decided to forget that dream and get that motorcycle he always told me I couldn't have. That decision has given me over 50 years of enjoyment, frustration, companionship, solitude, mechanical experience and just plain good times that I never could have gotten from a Cessna 172 or J3 Cub, even if I could afford it. The only thing I have done differently is when my grandson expressed an interest in riding I gave him all the encouragement I could. Things are definitely not like it was back when I got that first clapped out Enfield Interceptor but I know riding is still as good as ever.
My dad is 98 years old now, kind of frail but his mind is still pretty sharp so perhaps I should tell him some of this while I still can.

My father was a motorcyclist before the war, he had a 250cc Velocette, I dont know what model that would have been.. an MOV? He did fall off it and broke his leg, which re-set and then broke again when he jumped off the back of a moving London bus. He was going to get an Ariel Red Hunter from Slocombes, (apparently Bill Slocombe was a family friend), but Adolf got in the way. In the 60s he joined the UK Ministry of Transport and became a driving test examiner. There is a photo of him and all his colleagues taken during their training. They are sitting on a row of 3TAs, complete with bathtubs and big mudguards, and even though it is black and white, you know the bikes are all maroon coloured. He took my T140 for a ride when I bought it (Sept 1980) but couldn't sit on it comfortably, so only went round the houses.

Firstly my condolences to Jerry. I hope fond memories of his father serve him well.

I am lucky enough to still have my father who is now over 90. I have always been part of a fairly tight family and had the privilege of serving an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner under my father, who in turn was trained by his father. As a young man I worked with both my father and grandfather on the same building sites. Not something that I thought anything of then, but something that I now look back on as a great privilege.

How many people have worked with both their father and grandfather. I also remember that on my first day as an apprentice, my grandfather gave me his no7 Stanley trying plane and his Record rebate plane. I subsequently collected a lot more of his tools on his passing including a no 55 stanley plane set with all cutters, a taper tooth Diston rip saw, straight back handsaws including a D100 and his shark tooth panel saw. I still use those tools and think of him fondly each time that I use them.

Like myself, both my father and grandfather were motorcyclists. I have a photo of my grandfather on his 29 Harley with his sister on the back, wife and two children (my father and uncle) in the sidecar. My father rode his 250 Honda until 2 years ago. Unfortunately he overbalanced on his steep driveway and fell over with the bike landing on him and pinning him for some time. He decided it was time to give up motorcycling and gave the bike to me. I also have his first motorcycle, a 1949 500cc Red Hunter Ariel, which I have fully restored. Many fond memories and I still have him.

Funny storey, I remember walking past the corner of a brick wall that was under construction. I brushed the bricklayers string line corner block and as the line was under a lot of tension it fired and the corner block hit may father in the groin. He doubled over in pain while I roared with laughter. He never did see the funny side to that.

Many fond memories and I still have him.
ando

My dad was a depression era kid who could fix anything with a strand of copper wire or a roll of duct tape
Cheap as shit too...but he taught me a lot of the basics when it came to tools,working with your hands and solving problems with your head. I spent most of my youth not wanting to admit I had parents and most of my adult life getting to be good friends with my dad.my dad was a practicing dentist for over 60 years and from my earliest memories there was always a broke down British sports car in the driveway from jag xk-120’s to 150’s Mg tc-tf’s tr 3’s none ever ran reliably but I think in hindsight they were his therapy after dealing with people all day he’d tinker and try to re engineer shit to fit his budget and being 6 years old I just wanted to be near him...so I ran for tools and whatever else he needed.I did learn a lot about things mechanical and about tools and the intoxicating smell of old English engines running, old cracked leather seats etc....one day he trades a guy a set of teeth for a 1956 bmw R-26 in pieces....we put that thing back together and got it running and as a 7 -8 year old now....it was ...to me the coolest thing in the world,this is 1963 now so no helmet laws in MD well if I got a good report card I’d get a nice ride out in the country,we’d have these matching blue berets and I thought I was the shit ! Well that started a life time of passionately envolving myself in 2 wheel motorized vehicles,it started with a 2 1/2 HP Wren mini bike a rupp tt-500 then Spanish dirt bikes,now I’m in my early teens and pop is keeping these bikes running for me, I started paying attention to British bikes and at the age of 17 got my 1 st British bike it was...wait for it...71 combat with OE bearings....knowing nothing about nothing what did I do ? Seized it up ! But not before falling head over heals in love with everything about that bike it had worn out ISO’s I would never ride that bike today knowing what I do.fast forward to the late 80’s and we’d discovered long distance touring on BMW twins
I took him everywhere with me and my group of guys.he really was one of the guys. I think my dad was proud of me and the man I became
I have been working on cars professionally for 42 years and he did respect me for my career decisions. I think his folks pushed him into dentistry and really he was living vicariously thru my career.my dad passed a couple of years ago and I recently finished a tribute bike to him. I got him a 72 roadster that he loved....for years.it along with my other bikes survived a nasty shop fire . I did this bike with the philosophy that I would do and spend money the way he never would to make a nice sorted piece using all the resources we have today to build a special piece !
Well it’s that and more. I gotta say,my dad.....
Once I saw him as a human being with all the wonderful flaws we all have and accepted him for who he was....I had a good friend for many years..miss ya Doc !!
To doc ! AMF

I wrote above that my dad strove to be perfect in his work. That characteristic lead to a humorous anecdote in his life.

This happened before I was born, back in the 30's. The story came from my Mom. Dad was an auto mechanic back when autos required complete overhauls at 100K miles, and a competant mechanic did it all, from hand fitting the Babbitt bearings to lapping in the valves.

His reputation as a perfectionist in his work, got him a job to overhaul a Maxwell (a poor man's Dusenburg) that belonged to a bootlegger. After he had completed the overhaul, the bootlegger decided he wanted a new one, and offered to sell the car to Dad for what was an affordable price in lieu of payment for his work.

So Dad got to own and drive a car which he could not otherwise afford. Mom said she and Dad lived just down the street from a "speakeasy", those illegal pubs during the Prohibition Era. Dad would park his prized Maxwell in the speak's parking lot ..... safer than on the street, and besides, it had company with other vehicles of its own stature.

He got away with this for quite some time ..... the speaks' owners and management naturally assumed the car was owned by one of its mobster clientele. When they found out it was owned by John Nobody, it was stolen one night. Dad found a note in his mailbox that said in effect "You should be more careful where you park." The note went on to tell him where he could find the car, and warned that more carelessness on his part might result in the car being found in the river.

Dad wasn't rich, or stupid, so he parked the Maxwell on the street after that.

Mom said she made him sell the Maxwell after I came along ..... there being no room for a baby, except in the rumble seat.

Slick

My Dad was a big solid man, he was a stocker in the Merchant navy during the war, after the war he build war service houses and he brought one that he built, I am still living in it today, he broke his back on the job that put him out of building houses after near 4 years recovery, he was a quite man, worked hard all his life and drank heavy after a hard days work as they all did in them days, with his back problems he never complained, my 2 oldest brothers hated him because of his drinking and coming home drunk, my mother pasted away when I was 14 and I had to live with my granny but I always stuck by my dad I use to wag school to go to work with him, when I left school as soon as I turned 15 I worked with him for a year till work slowed down, a few years later down the road when I was about to turn 21 I moved back home with him and had a big party for my 21 birthday (4 x 18 gallon kegs) and the next day was still 1 full keg still on ice, it took my dad and 3 of my best mates to drink that last keg, it lasted 3 days lol.
My dad was my best friend we did a lot together, fishing, crabbing and just enjoying life, he didn't like bikes but he helped me get a loan at 15 years old to buy my first dirt bike a Honda MT125 new and I was hooked, he always helped me when it wouldn't start to get it going again, my dads best mate had 9 kids and I grew up with them, the oldest girl Debra always picked up and drove the drunks home from the pub she was a daughter to him he never had and when I was 30 I ran into her she was living in a flat beside my mate's place and we went out for pizza, 6 months later we were married, my dad was over the moon, she moved in with both of us, I looked after my dad as when I first moved back home at 21 I asked my dad how much board he wanted and he just said pay all my house bills and that be all, the war service home loan was only $15 a month and paid his other bills that came in, unknown to me he willed the house to me so the other 2 brothers couldn't get their hands on it and he told me to keep the house in the family if anything happened to him or me, so my kids will end up with it and my oldest will end up with it, my youngest daughter will get all my bikes.
One thing my dad told me when I was a young lad was to always look after your mates, don't take shit from no one and if you ever do anything wrong, tell no one and don't involve anyone else (less chances in getting caught) look after your wife and kids and treat others the way you like to be treated, a very wise man indeed.
When he got older he got Dementure and my wife became his carer till it became to hard for us, he got sick and when in hospital they wouldn't let him come back home and we had to fine a place for him, he pasted away after a short time there but it was only down the road from us and we visited him everyday even when he wasn't talking, my 2 daughters were only young but they both remember grandad, the home was right on the beach front of western Moreton Bay where we did a lot of fishing together in our days.
I miss my dad and my best friend, I couldn't watch him die, but my meriories of our time together will always be with me.

Ashley

Dad just passed June 10th. He was honestly the best man I've ever known. Raised me and my sisters to be good people too. There's probably someone somewhere who didn't like him, but I never met anyone who didn't have the utmost respect for him. I arrived in Tennessee the day before he died and I was with him when he took his last breath. He would have been 90 years old this coming October. He and my mother (still with us) would have been married 70 years this coming August. I jokingly told my mother that I had known her and dad "all my life". I certainly did not like to see a man who I knew when he was young and strong, pass with a weak body and a failing mind. He had been valedictorian of his high school class, spent time in the U.S. Airforce during the Korean war as a mechanic and continued as a mechanic for Oldsmobile until he retired. I try to be as good a man as he was and very often find myself wondering "how would dad handle this?"
Charlie.

I just recalled another interesting story about my Dad- being that we were a big family, and our Grandfather (my Mom's Dad) was a Chevy dealer, we always had a Carry-All (Suburban). The old ones were 2-door (being typically used as commercial service/delivery vehicles); you'd flip the front passenger seat up to get in the 2nd seat (they didn't have a 3rd seat). Dad "fixed" this by bolting in a bus seat (3 place).

This is the interesting bit - Suburbans had no A/C! That just wouldn't do. Chevrolet offered an A/C option, but it was just a below-the-dash chrome lump that "barely cut the mustard". So, Dad being the engineer that he is, he designed not only a better front console, but re-purposed a hotel/motel low-profile fan/coil unit and hung it on the ceiling in the rear of the vehicle. In order for this all to work, he developed a control system that took advantage of an oversize compressor and dual refrigeration circuits, so that you could run just the front unit, or both front and rear units. Of course, he created a full set of design plans, and the system functioned perfectly. In order to put a feather in my Grandfather's cap (with Chevy), he bundled up the plans and Bill Of Materials, and sent it to Detroit HQ. He included a note that basically stated "Chevrolet will sell a lot more Suburbans in Texas, if they have dual A/C and a 3rd seat". The following year, the single A/C option became a standard feature, and the rear A/C became an option. The 3rd seat appeared not too long afterward, as did the second set of doors.

came from home broken 3 times by death and divorce before I was 16 years old never knew father abusive stepfather killed in car wreck when I was 11 stepfather #2 a sloppy mean drunk got no kids of my own wonder why?

We all have a story , some good some not so .... Alan from what I know bout you from our communications , I think you a fine Man , so in your case the apple grew legs , you have my respect for being who you are ....

thanks