RAMBLINGS IN THE NIGHT.....My Dad

RAMBLINGS IN THE NIGHT…….My Dad

            My Dad spent most of his time working hard to provide for his family. He worked a full-time job as a lumber inspector for Stanley furniture, for years. When we wasn’t at his job, he was usually working in a tobacco field or hay field. We raised tobacco when I was growing up. It gave us extra money at the end of the year to purchase those things that were needed and a few things that we wanted. We cut hay and sold it to farmers who raised cattle. That extra money was needed to raise a family when I was growing up.

            I can never fault my dad’s work ethic. He was a hard worker. His name is Marvin James. He will be 69 in a few short days. Unfortunately I will not get to celebrate his birthday with him.  NO he is not dead. I am dead to him. We haven’t spoken in over two years. Before that we spoke only on rare occasions. And to see each other was maybe once every couple of years or more. I last saw my Dad last year in February or March of 2015, at my Aunt Ruth’s Funeral. We never even spoke to each other. It is sad, in so many ways.

            When I was younger Dad had me working in the tobacco and hay fields. I was setting on a tobacco setter when I was 4 years old. Now a tobacco setter is pulled along behind a tractor and it has levers that you set tobacco plants in and then they are inserted into the ground. I spent many long hours, sitting on a setter growing up. But I didn’t mind, because I was spending time with my Dad. I didn’t much care for the hard work. But I loved my Dad and wanted to be near him.

            We had a red Chevy pickup truck, when I was growing up. It was a 3 speed on the column. Now we used it along with Grandma’s Blue Chevy truck to pick up hay and take to the barn. When I was younger, I couldn’t pick up the bales of hay, because they weighed too much. But I could drive the red Chevy. Now it wasn’t easy task, I could barely reach the clutch and look over the steering wheel at the same time. I would leave the truck in 1^st gear and poke along giving cousins and uncles time to pick up and toss the bales into the bed of the truck.

            Now Grandma Ruby or Aunt Shirley would drive down to Crisp Grocery and pick up RC Cola and moon pies for us to snack on. Man there isn’t anything any better than an RC Cola and a moon pie while working in a hay field. A hay field is hot work. Plus it is itchy, scratchy, and sneezy. You can lose 30 lbs or more working in a hay field. I guess that is why I was so skinny when I was younger….lol

            I remember one year it was during hunting season. It was in December towards the end, going into the New Year. Dad and some of his buddies were going on a hunting trip. So they were going to be gone for several days. And wouldn’t be back until a few days into the New Year. Well Dad said, as him and his buddies were leaving that he would see me next year. To my young mind that meant a year, not a few days. I became upset and started crying and hung on to Dad for dear life. His buddies got mad at him and so did Mom. I was holding up their trip. Dad finally got me unwrapped from his leg. And explained how that when he returned in a few days that it would be a New Year. It was not a fun time for me. I thought he would be gone for a year. But after much talking on his part he finally convinced me that what he said was true. Oh yeah he got the calendar off the wall in the kitchen and showed to finally get me to believe him.

            Dad loved sports. Growing up that is all I heard was sports, sports, sports. Not just from Dad but everyone in the whole family. I now look back on it and wish I could have been a bigger fan to have made my Dad happy. I played baseball. I really wasn’t interested in it. But I did it because Dad wanted me too. Dad really wanted me to play football. But Mom was not going to let that happen. So I never played. Which that didn’t bother me. My interest was reading. I loved to read, and still do all these years later. Now I didn’t meet Dad’s expectations with not liking sports. I did make him happy because I loved to hunt and fish.

            I will be writing a RAMBLING on Hunting and Fishing. I am putting it together already. There are so many tales to tell of days Hunting and Fishing with Dad and various family members. It will be coming soon.

            We had a wood furnace to heat the house growing up. And man it would get so hot in the house you had to open the windows to cool off in the winter. Well Dad and I would go cut wood in different places to have enough to last the winter. On two different occasions when we were out in the wilderness cutting tree to have firewood for the winter I had bad encounters with 1^st a nest of yellow jackets and on the 2^nd a nest of black jackets.

 Now on the 1^st occasion we were at the head of Tallulah cutting wood. Dad had been cutting down trees and sawing them up into sections. I was loading the cut up sections in the bed of the truck. Well evidently Dad parked the truck close enough to a yellow jackets nest, that while I was totting the cut up wood to the truck I stepped into the hole that the yellow jackets nest was located.

Let me say right here, that life got very interesting real fast. The very second I stepped into the nest I knew I was in trouble. Yellow Jackets were flying up my pants leg. I was jumping around and stripping off all my clothes trying to get away from the yellow jackets and not get stung.  Dad saw me hoping around and taking clothes off. He had this weird look on his face. Cause there I stood with pants in one hand jumping up and down trying to get away from the yellow jackets that were still attached to my socks and shoes. Dad of course busted out laughing. I didn’t think it was at all funny. Luckily I only got stung 3 or 4 times.

The 2^nd time we were on the head of Sweetwater nearly to Stecoah Gap, on an old logging road. We were on the side of the mountain. Dad was sawing up a downed tree and I was rolling the cut up section down to the road then putting them in the bed of the truck. Well I was claiming back up the hill to role another bunch off logs down into the road, when my foot went straight through the ground up to my knee.

This time I had stepped into a black jackets nest. Black jackets are a cross between a hornet and yellow jacket and a 100 times meaner. Man I jerked my leg out of that hole and blindly ran off down the side of the mountain and creaming bloody murder. Those little demons were eating me alive. Again I started stripping off clothes to get away from the black jackets. I ended up getting stung about a half a dozen times before I got out of my pants. Stop laughing it wasn’t funny.

This story here is funny. When Dad was in his mid-thirties, he went and had all of his teeth pulled and got false teeth. We were living at my childhood home on Atoah. I was probably 12 at the time. So that would put it around 1982. It was during the summer I remember that. In our living room we had this big brown chaise lounge.

Well on this particular afternoon. Dad was lounging on the chaise in nothing but his fruit of the looms. It was hot outside and we didn’t have air conditioning in the house other than open windows. Dad had at some point fallen asleep. The phone rang or someone came by the house I don’t remember which, and woke Dad up. Well between the time that he fell asleep and woke up Dad lost the upper set of his false teeth. And I mean that literally.

He accused Mom and me of hiding them. I was in the living the whole time. I was lying on the floor watching TV it was a Saturday morning and cartoons were on. Mom was in and out of the living room doing her morning routine of cleaning the house and such. Neither one of us had at any time touched Dads teeth. But he sure thought we had.

After tearing the house apart, for over an hour, looking for his teeth.  Dad finally found them. They had somehow fell out of his mouth and down into his fruit of the looms. I will not say that it was the funniest thing I ever seen or heard of, man it was close. I laughed my butt off.  After the initial shock of where he found his teeth, Dad laughed about it also.

            It is sad; My Relationship with my Dad took a nose dive around my 14^th year. We have never been able to recover from it. Today we are nothing more that acquaintances. There is NO, Father and Son bond. I have spent the years since I was 14 at odds for one reason or the other with Dad. Dad doesn’t like having a gay son. I hate it for Dad, I truly do. But I can’t change who I am just because he wants me too.

            I love my Dad, don’t miss understand. I loved doing stuff with him when I was a kid. 32 years have passed since the time of my youth. I am closing in on middle age. I see my years swiftly passing me by. I am sure Dad feels it also. There are not many days left to us to have a Father & Son relationship. Life it too short to have a heart of anger and hate. Holding on to past injustices and wrongs, only makes a person bitter and sick.

            If I had one wish, it would be, to have a relationship with my Dad. But a relationship is a two way street. Both parties involved have to want it. I have made attempts over the years when I lived in Knoxville, TN. But nothing ever happened. Mom used to call me and say to me, you need to work thing out with your Dad. He is the only one you will ever have and you both need to fix it. I would get so upset after one of those calls from her. I was working at the University of Tennessee at that time. And my coworkers would get involved and agree with Mom about it, which was so irritating.

            I will end with this. Like I said at the beginning of this, My Dads birthday is just a few weeks away in April. I know that I will not celebrate it with him or even get to talk with him to wish him a happy birthday. So I will end this Rambling wishing my Dad a wonderful and happy 69^th Birthday. And I hope that whoever celebrates it with him makes it a blessed day for my Dad.

            A special blessing, to all of the sons out there who don’t have a good relationship with your Dads. Do what you can to set things right. Go the extra mile. A relationship is a two way street. Either your Dad is willing to meet in the middle or he isn’t. But make the effort to find out.  Life is too short, not to have at least tried to make peace. If your efforts bare fruit, then you truly are blessed. If it doesn’t then you have at least tried and you are the better for having tried.

Written on 18MARCH2016     By: David M. Shuler