Guest Post by Archaeopteryx Phoenix
My father is lying in front of me, dying.
He was a Dartmouth, UVM medical school graduate, army doctor, head of internal medicine at a large hospital, self-taught furniture maker, self-taught sailor and yachtsman, consummate craftsman, maker of model ships and cars, meticulous in his upkeep and maintenance of his tools, cars, tractor, and home.
He no longer is eating and has been without food for over a week. He sips water and sucks on small sponges dipped in ice water. His only intake is the liquid methadone every 6 hours and liquid morphine as needed for the agonizing pain he experiences when he moves his left leg or arm. Imagine watching a person waste away in front of you, the weight falling off them until they look like a Union soldier in the Andersonville prison camp. And imagine that this person still has their full mental faculties, even as the methadone places their mind in a waking dream state.
Sixty percent of the time, it looks like every breath will be his last, his chest barely rising and falling, eyes rolled back up into his head, whites showing, mouth open.
Thirty percent of the time, he is living in another world, his eyes staring at the ceiling, using one hand to manipulate unseen objects in the air above him. He’s already partly in the spirit world, sometimes intently telling us things that seem important to him, “Take this book. Remember, I have a medical background. Don’t let them write in it. It has to have the notes correctly written.” But there is no book. Then his head falls back and he gives up.
The amount of skills and knowledge lost when he dies will be immense. He kept meticulous notes and files of everything he learned and everything he maintained. A file for the 1984 John Deere tractor, a file for each piece of equipment, each grandchild, each car. This was his trademark. A fellow physician wrote him a letter saying how they were sorry to hear of his failing health, and how his pre and post-operative writeups were clear, detailed, thorough, and, most importantly, legible.
He was a natural craftsman, his brothers also being artists, wooden boatbuilders, and also extraordinary craftsmen – also self-taught, and simply for their own pleasure. His 78 year old brother, ex-psychiatrist, is building a 15 foot, two masted, sailing canoe out of wood with canvas over the wooden fuselage-like hull in his basement. He’s built twenty-odd foot wooden sailboats by hand, alone, but also small ship models no larger than your hand, and he hand carved each piece out of wood – not from a kit.
The loss when these men die to society is immeasurable. I made models and have some talent, but can’t hold a candle to their level of skill.
My point is this – White men are natural craftsmen and builders. What were plastic model kits for boys? They were like training wheels or primer books – meant to take the mind and skill level of the average White child and let them begin to learn about tools, materials, engineering, quality, paint, glue, and the artistry of crafting and producing the elemental building blocks of White civilization. These model kits, and legos, and erector sets, were to coax the growing mind of a White child to their natural ability to engineer and create. And White children were drawn to these model sets, the use of tools. It was like standing on the shoulders of giants – the finished, engineered, and highly crafted ship, airplane, or car was shown to them on the front of the box, as it was produced in real life, and you only had to learn to recreate it, while customizing it in however you liked.
Model making was the hands-on, self-taught, school for young White boys to which they naturally gravitated. No one had to encourage them. There were no government incentives to make models. It was a pure form of learning of productive skills that would last them a lifetime, and benefit society and the civilization that they helped to construct.
That world is now fading, those skills having been replaced by cheap imports and machines. The pleasure of craftsmanship being replaced by the immediate short-term dopamine hits of social media, pornography, video games, high fructose corn syrup, and 900 channels of mindless entertainment.
[I just gave him his 1.5 ml of methadone and .5 ml of haliperidol.]
The real triumph was not the mass killings in World Wars that White men were deceived into fighting (and are continually lauded by the media for our ability to fight and die in manipulated events), the real triumph of White men was every small act of craft, every small instance of learning, every act of construction, all the constant reinforcement and rebuilding of the dikes and ramparts of civilization, the intentional production of quality, the drive to create and design clever fixes for human problems of farming and of life, the endless inventiveness, the mastery of tools and toolmaking.
And now all that, and Western Civilization as a whole – a construction of European Whites – lies dying in front of me, wearing a diaper, reduced to skin and bones, still intent on relaying important memos and notes about maintaining the world and home he created.
The refrigerator and their master bathroom are filled with the past and current medications that accompany an agonizing death – bottle of hydrocodone, fentanyl patches, bottles of morphine, methadone pills, stool softeners, diapers, and in the background the ever present pssh and whrr of the oxygen machine in the hallway.
I wish I could show you some of his work.
It was magnificent. An entire lifetime.
Almost done.
And all I can do is watch and care for him as he dies in front of me.
The pathos on all levels is overwhelming.
This, on my micro scale, is what we are losing on a macro scale.
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When a great man dies, a library burns to the ground.
AP- my heart breaks for you and your family. You are a good man and a good son. May God be with you, your father, and family
My God, you’re right. The generation that didn’t have cell phones and the internet had time to tinker, think and create. That doesn’t happen any longer. After our generation leaves this earth, who will remember tinkering, creating and making real things?
I’m going out to my shop to putter around and make something. I don’t know what I’m going to make but I will MAKE it with my own two hands.
My God bless your father in his final day and leave you with nothing but wonderful memories of an amazing man.
Such a moving tribute that speaks for so many.
Well written and well presented.
Blessings to you and your family.
My grandfather was a machinist and build all kinds of thinks and tinkered around with all kinds of stuff. I really wish I would have grew up closer to them. They where fun people and him and I had a lot of similar interests.
It is time for men to be men and stand up to what is going on. If we do people like this will be there in the future. If not, only God know how bad it will be.
A P – so sorry that you are going through this with your Dad. Sometimes you have to tell them it is OK to let go and leave this world behind.
You are so correct about the loss of the makers of society. These are people who took raw material & created wonderful things. How many of their skills did they pass on to their children and how much was passed on to the next generation?
I pray that his earthly suffering will soon end and he will hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Amen. And may we acquit ourselves well in this world to honor their legacies.
And be vessels that bring glory to Christ so as to earn our place alongside our ancestors when it’s time for us to be recalled to Heaven.
AP, your father is an extraordinary man.
Greatest generation, surely.
There is nothing in life that compares with-or prepares you for-watching a loved one cross over.
Absolutely mind numbing, soul crushing grief.
May God bless and comfort you all.
I’m sorry for our imminent loss, brother. Men who build are not easily replaced and neither is the civilization they leave us.
May God have mercy on us for failing to preserve what great men such as your father bequeathed.
It has always been the white man that advantured the world and brought innovation. The white race is going to shrink back to it’s natural size in America as it has elsewhere. So what? So what is all the ka ka ka about? The boomers are checking out so the society is being transitioned back to the next generation to run. So what is the vision of the next generation? Does it have a future?
We will see
My Father passed away in 2008 and I still think of him everyday. My Father was a carpenter who learned the trade from his Father and Grandfather. He taught me a lot and I still use many of his tools. My Dad, Grandfather , and Uncles were all good hardworking family men who took their commitments seriously and whose word was their bond and I to emulate them in how I live my life.
You were very fortunate to have such a man as your Father, and you are the man you are because of him.
AP- It is dreadfully hard to lose our fathers, my life felt so empty and yet I knew that my father needed the sweet release from his painful illness. Prayers for you and your family.
AP, of course you’re sad. Such a man as you describe to us brings humans into this world.
Maybe you will find some comfort in this:
Think of your dad’s parents. What a life joy they must have felt bringing two such men into this world and raising them. Intelligent, conscientious, accomplished at each phase of life.
Few can be at death’s door with such a well lived life.
Your dad is one. Condolences and joy to you sir.
And every divorce is the death of a small civilization.
Peace be with you all in this trying time.
Losing another good man, it sounds like he gave more to this world then he took.
America is now dead, nothing but hot air, nothing more!
I also had the privilege of making things, first parts of the space shuttle, aircraft, cars, trains HVAC, Medical equipment, on and on.
Most of my neighbors are collecting government pensions, never produced anything, cant even remove a tire at the age of sixty.
Its just a matter of time now before the final shit show.
Some are gifted. Pain takes a terrible toll. Death brings …a wonderful surprise.
My dad suddenly died of a heart attack at 71. That was 26 years ago. I’m now 72. One moment he was there and the next he was gone. I never recovered, not to this day. I never had the chance to tell him I loved and appreciated him one last time. I felt cheated. Reading this heartfelt and melancholy report I think maybe it was for the best after all. Thank you for relating this. I’m not a religious man but I sincerely hope God is with you and him.
Ahhh…Yo my friend…
After reading this I was bombarded with flashbacks of my Fathers long, hard, hospice at home goodbye.
This is one of those moments in time many of us relate to as our hearts ach in understanding of this generational flashpoint.
Your descriptions are exquisite in painting the picture of the man.
Grace and peace through your Dad’s end…of the beginning.
I’ve lived what you’re living now. My father too was an Internist. He taught it at USF after giving up private practice. He was diagnosed w/ skin cancer in 1999. As a physician he knew the thing about cancer was even if you achieve remission, it ALWAYS comes back. So he called me in ’99 and asked me to come home when he needed me so he could die at home. I got the call in April, 2005. The cancer had invaded his lungs. He said come home in October. He knew exactly the progression and how long he had. I drove from California to Virginia alone with my thoughts and the marvelous memories of this, the most honorable man I’d ever met. He came from very humble beginnings and had tremendous empathy for the poor . Like Voltaire, he believed “he who steals my purse, steals trash”. And he always hid his light, this most humble of men. The cancer moved to his brain.
I and Hospice cared for him for 3 months. He died on January 8th, 2006 and the last words he spoke to me 2 days before he lapsed into coma were “stop it. you’re hurting me you sonofabitch (he was in a moraphine stupor :>))
My sincere condolences as regards your father. I’ve walked in your shoes. God bless the both of you.
This is a real kick in the balls for me. My father was the same type of man who died of cancer way to early. Dad was larger than life: military officer, physician, wood worker, expert fisherman and just the nicest guy ever. Death sucks and the grief lasts forever.
Rough go, Yo.
No matter how much a person expects these things to finally show up, it is always heart-rending.
You will be greatly happy later that you put the effort and love into your dad’s final time.
It’s a great burden and a great blessing, all at the same time.
Points well taken as I can attest to the same loss.
SHOW US HIS WORK!
Thank you.
I thought this deserved its own post, too.
Hugs
What a glorious tribute you have written to a great man. God bless you. That may be one of, if not the best, things I have ever read here. Tears. You are a damn fine son, my friend. May your Dad walk with the Lord, and that together, they grant you all that you will ever need. Follow in his footsteps, as we need all the great, creative White people we can find to survive that which lurks just ahead. Prayers for you both. Peace.
What a great song. I was a big Alan Parsons fan and do not recall ever hearing this one.
This was from the “Eye In The Sky” album. The lead vocals were sung by former Zombies vocalist Colin Blunstone. He sung with APP often, but this was his only single with them to get airplay. The kick ass Sax solo is courtesy of Mel Collins. My best friend was killed by a drunk driver back in 1983. I played this song all the time. I still think of him whenever I hear it.
This is the song I play to remember some of my friends who left this world way to early.
As a huge APP fan, I have loved this song for decades. Thanks for putting it up, TN Patriot.
Alan is a musical genius. What an amazing array of music he has been associated with. The opening of Sirius with just the synthesizer is a haunting lead in to the orchestra joining in to transition into Eye in the Sky.
Thanks NKIT. You have great musical taste, maybe even better than our departed friend E C.
Watching a parent wind down like a clock is hard to process. For me, there was an element of surreality to it all; even absurdity. The hospice worker could tell by my Dad’s physical condition that he would be dead within 24 hours. And the next day, Dad was teasing the nurses and even smiling. Then, he fell asleep within the hour and passed within 5 hours of that.
Indeed. It’s hard to process, yo.
On dark days I would always try to find the silver linings. For example, I would be grateful for the level of care my loved ones received. Modern healthcare and facilities really are blessings.
And I remembered the good times in the bad. Keep in mind, when we’re tired, and down, and stressed, most of our fears are imagined and our minds play tricks.
It’s gonna be alright, man. This, too, will pass. And even if it’s not alright, we were fortunate. And, no matter what, I believe I’ll always find comfort in these words penned by the poet Dylan Thomas. Supposedly, he wrote them in consideration of Romans 6:9:
“And Death Shall Have No Dominion”
By Dylan Thomas
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion
AP, I am sorry for your pain and soon loss of your father. I was fortunate enough to be with my father as he died. He wanted out of the hospital bed in the family room and I forced him to stay in it. I regret that. I know now he wanted to die standing. My great-grandfather was a wood carver and my mom’s house has wonderful furniture he carved.
His son had nothing but his two hands and not any money so he made things when needed including digging out a basement under his house one shovel at a time. My father did not have skills but with words. I was a mechanic but have none of the previous generations skills.
One only has to visit Europe or old town America to see what past generations achieved.
The world has been gifted by your dad’s presence, and yours. I wish you peace.
When it comes to the brain, causality is not a 2 way street. I like this neutral example of how a cat will purr when it is calm and a cat will purr if it wants to be calm.
I want to live free. That includes freedom from a barrage of idiocracy telling me the blooming obvious is wrong and so am I. I have no qualms at this point about means and ends. Being a faith-based person, you can’t know that. By definition of cause and effect, causality is a one-way street. There are feedback loops, but we are not so powerful in a world of limited resources and cutthroat competition. You are competing against my sanity in your own special way. You see me as a threat to yours. Such is this stinkin’ life.
Incredible tribute with a dose of red-pill analysis.
I also inherited the tools of both my stepfather and grandfather.
We take those tools and build something for the benefit of our families and others.
We strive for improvement. We make things and make things happen. Others only seem able to destroy.
No other race has the intellect, curosity and the drive to create.
The light of the world will be darker with his passing.
My heartfelt condolences to you and your family.
My condolences to you and your family.
I have been thinking about what you were going through these last few weeks.
Stay strong.
“It’s better to conquer grief than to deceive it.” —Seneca
This is sad. I am a surgeon. I have and do build things. I have used both woodworking tools and metal working tools. I feel I can appreciate the narrative above. All of us that have commented should start to look at what is missing and make a move in the correct direction. I hear the same narrative from my brother and a friend in the machine tool business. We need more teaching that starts with hand tools and those tools that require “knob turning”. This “Father/Physician”, on his death bed is still attempting to communicate and teach. If we are looking for a place to start perhaps it is by talking, face to face, with neighbors, children, grandchildren or the neighbor kid (male or female) next door, before it is too late. Share the knowledge. We all have hands and mouths. Put down the cell phones and use the more personal tools.
What is missing from your popular perspective is season. Why build something if it’s not yours? Frankly, we need dangerous men more than builders, or men who build death for civilized purposes. You folks presume to plant in winter, sometimes called a fourth turning. There is a reason it’s not working, and that reason is very alive and very well.
Was that psycho-babble supposed to contain anything that makes sense ?
I bop, you bop, a they bop. Be bop, be bop, a lu, she bop. Oh, she do, she bop.
I build something that is mine…then I give it away.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord’s holy people,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3: 16-19
Very powerful piece. My most sincere condolences on your Dad’s passing and at the same time congratulate you for the wonderful father you were able to learn from.
As to the soul of your missive all I can say is it’s spot on. I spent many years building models moving on to fabricating scenes from my favorite Greek mythology stories and for my rather impressive train setup. Then on to a lifetime of glass art including building all of my glass melting and forming equipment, running a small business(11 employees) that created large art glass projects for commercial & residential applications nationally.
I never connected the model building with much more then it being a simple hobby. As I think about it, there aren’t these types of models available in any of the large retailers that I’ve ever seen and that’s too bad. I guess if there was a demand, huh?
When I pass onto the next plain, there also will be a great loss of knowledge. For many years, I’ve offered to teach what I know with no takers. My consolation are 1,000s of beautiful works of art I’ve built that will long outlive me. And most are signed.
God speed to your Dad.
MM. Hobby Lobby locally carries some models. It is the only place I have seen them outside of a hobby shop in a few decades.
I felt the need to return and let you know that you continue to surprise us all, which is why I sent you that odd reminder not long ago that someone really did like you. I have it on good authority you are a lot smarter than you seem from time to time.
So, in spite of old buried hatchets and sleeping dogs that lie or lay, depending upon your grammatical bent, I wanted to share a little piece of your writing back at you that resonates not only with me about my own end of life experiences with parents and dear friends, but with several others here.
Your father, as so many of the fathers of that generation, my own included, grasped that the devil is always in the details, and so detailed and documented what he understood to be important information which needed to be kept to contribute to a bigger picture. A picture that perhaps people like my son and other millennials will have to gather together to hide away for future generations of mankind to decipher and attribute meaning of their own.
I believe my father died alone, having been sent home from a hospital for refusing the treatment which might save his life. He was 93 when he died, semi-coherent at times but not enough to know what he was doing. My mother, subservient wife to the bitter end, ministered to him as best she could and refused the help the Veterans Administration would have given her, but which my father absolutely rejected because he could not accept that the same federal agency that had tried to kill him in the 1970s really was trying to provide better care and service to veterans. My father never used the VA system, but in the 1970s he went to the VA hospital to get some test done because of abdominal pain and they rushed him to surgery for a hernia in his intestines that would have killed a normal person, but my father was a former POW from World War II!
Dad would never have watched George Carlin for the filthy language but he would have applauded rule number 1. Paraphrased: Everything the government tells you is a lie.
He turned down a Veterans Administration grant of $68,900 to modify the farmhouse into a customized nursing home, as well as an $18,900 grant to buy a wheelchair accessible van. And he got really angry at me for submitting a request for additional help for him because he said he thought it was wrong for the government to tuck so much away for POWs like him when there were wounded soldiers that couldn’t get help. But, mostly, it was that my father believed anything that comes from the government comes with a string (or ball and chain) attached. He did not believe the VA Civil Engineer who came to the farm to brief us on the grant(s) resulting from my application.
I am not really conflicted telling you that while I agreed with him in principle, I also didn’t see how his turning those benefits down helped anyone, while his accepting them would have helped both him and my mother, who was enfeebled herself and hardly able to care for him.
It is similar to the argument that a child should eat everything on their plate because children are starving in Africa. The government is still going to go bankrupt and collapse; it was just that I figured my parents could benefit a bit for Dad’s WWII experience.
(There’s a lot more to the story but either you were around and know it or you weren’t.)
I don’t know if your father actually had a real collection of information that really should be preserved. He sounds a lot like my grandfather who left binders of letters and receipts and cancelled checks (who remembers cancelled checks?) from the farm.
After my father returned from World War II and married my mother, my grandfather used his agricultural degree from the University of Missouri to become the County Surveyor and he moved my grandmother to a hill overlooking the farmland that sits on Crowley’s Ridge, which is the furthest the Gulf of Mexico reached long ago and far away.
He continued to keep detailed maps, which is how I ended up with many of his hand drawn maps of the region with various topographical and/or local features pointed out in his or my father’s neat handwriting.*
So, over the past year, I gathered up a lot of his collected notes, books, journals, etc. and donated them to the local library and museum, privately funded, with a stipulation the museum make them available to serious researchers only.
Anyway, it sounds as if your father may have such a worthy collection.
*I really did talk to bb on the phone, also.
Okay, I rewrote this too late to save it.
I think the revision is worth it.
… trying to delete what was already written.
After my father returned from World War II and married my mother, he bought the farm from my grandparents for $100 per acre. My grandfather used his agricultural degree from the University of Missouri (1922) to become the County Surveyor. He and my grandmother moved to a home on Crowley’s Ridge, overlooking the farmland that spreads from the very last of the Ozark foothills at Gravel Hill where my father is buried. Not far from his grave, an open spot in the treeline offers a clear view of what is Sikeston then the Mississippi then Cairo and then eastward still to Kentucky or southward toward Tennessee. Of course, you have to know what you are looking at when you stand there. Otherwise, you would not know that my grandfather is looking right back at you in this photo taken in 1978 in the gate he built beside the barn he built.
Most people from the east coast do not really appreciate how flat a landscape really can be without being parched desert. In this photo, just at the horizon is Crowley’s Ridge. If you know what you are looking at, you also see where the Gravel Hill cemetery is located.
The farmland, drained by a federal works project begun in the 1920s called the Little River Drainage District, is now farmed by large corporate entities and is even flatter. You can probably see all the way to Arkansas too, which is what is at the edge. By the way? All of these places on the horizon, including that little line of hills are at least 20 miles away. Probably more.
My grandfather and my father both continued to keep detailed maps after World War II, amazed at the changes in the region after mechanized and GMO farming began to change the farming industry. The hill land is less changed, so that the old maps Dad sent to me or including in his “books” (now available at the Bollinger County Library and Museum), include various topographical and/or local features pointed out in his or my father’s neat handwriting that are still there to help one navigate the old roads.
My father hand wrote a number of local histories and had a couple of his collections of newspaper editorial style essays bound and published at a local printer and he got quite creative with his drawings and illustrations in his older years. I will be quite honest and tell you that I very rarely read any of my father’s work, having read it in many forms (letters, draft copies I learned to never edit!, and sometimes painful discussions on the phone when he would call and ask me to critique the recent 20 page letter he’d sent me.
My father began showing signs of dementia in his mid-80s, but refused any form of medications except occasional aspirin. The Veterans Administration did an assessment and diagnosed Alzheimer’s 8 years before he died. That really made him angry because he knew good and well he didn’t have Alzheimers and he would rant and rave about that while looking all around the table for something he never could find.
Sometimes, it is good to leave a map to places hard to find.
Imagine the value of knowing where all of those old cast iron bridges over rivers connect old roads through the forest.
Most of my father’s writings would probably fall into a local history and folklore category, with a bit of countrified humor thrown in for a laugh or two. Nothing of great monetary value, but containing the full measure of a unique man’s extraordinary character. Some gems of wisdom might be found if you don’t mind some of the turds on the ground.
He did a lot of playing around with photos before photo shop was invented. My father developed and printed his own black and white photos in a little darkroom/once a closet behind the wall where my piano sat.
I found out in a very nasty way last spring that someone thought they owned the copyright on everything my father had written, “published or unpublished.” The banality of evil is that is really makes no sense at all. My father’s little books and pamphlets (even the POW story and all those photos he collected from POWs) are of absolutely no value unless someone reads or looks at them. They bestow value and I intended to share those books and stories. I still do, but no longer plan to publish them myself. The world has grown litigious, even amongst family.
I gathered up a lot of his collected notes, books, journals, etc. and donated them to the local library and museum, privately funded, with a stipulation the museum make them available to serious researchers only.
Anyway, it sounds as if your father may have such a worthy collection. Make sure you and your siblings are in agreement about how it should be preserved or shared. Such things, unresolved, tear families apart.
Grieving with you at your loss and the loss of a world we both grew up in. May you and you family find peace in the greatness of the man lying before you and the great accomplishments he left behind, to those who knew him.
I to was driven to the B-17, Black Widow, X-15 stiletto and many other plastic model kits that forged my own skills at using my hands to create.
Today, those models now consist of a total of 6 parts, pre-painted and snap together that just reflect the dumbing down of a whole generation of future model builders to a generation of kids who let machines do all the work for them.
My sadness is in many layers, but am thankful for your article to remind me of what we had and the importance of holding on to our humanity in loving and cherishing one another, even as you see the dark days approaching.
NS,
Funny you should mention the Black Widow, as my Dad was intimately involved with it – his team designed the radar for it. After WWII and eventually earning a PhD in nuclear physics (Carnegie Tech, Pitt, and MIT) and some engineering/research jobs, he joined Texaco as a boron fiber materials expert, but when Texaco got out of that, he became one of the best oil spill guys in the world. I grew up reading Oil & Gas Journal, Aviation Week & Space Technology, and tons of SAE engineering papers on all sorts of automotive/oil/lube research efforts. Here’s a neat story about Dad (after seeing a pix of the Northrop P-61 Black Widow on another site): Enjoyed your pix of the P-61. Dad, after joining the Army’s Signal Corps (he did a quick ROTC at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, was working on his electrical engineering BS) returned to the states from England after setting up their coastal defense radars against the Luftwaffe and Hitler’s V1 buzz bomb and V2 rocket. Once back here, he was sent down to Orlando FL’s AAF aircraft systems development base and led the team that developed the Northrop P-61 Black Widow’s radar. As you know, the P-61 was our nation’s first night fighter and went on to significantly affect positive outcomes conducting night ops in both the European and Pacific theaters. Loved to hear his stories of test flights around central FL jumping other AAF fighters. The Black Widow was a hot rod and always was victorious over the surprised pilots in the other aircraft. BTW, his pilot in FL was often Col. Norm Appold, who later went on to fame as one of the element leaders in the extremely dangerous mass daylight low-altitude B-24 Liberator raid on the Nazi oil refinery complex at Ploesti, Romania. Sadly, Dad died from Alzheimer’s a few years back. My visits to him in the memory care /hospice were always tough for me, but he recognized me essentially to the very end. Perhaps his situation was the ultimate cruel irony – here was a man with IQ essentially off the charts, yet ended up mentally in some world that only he could comprehend. I miss him still everyday and will always consider him my hero.
One more Dad story: On his way over to England, aboard a cruise liner re-purposed for troop carriage, him and some of his buds built and used a sextant to determine the ship’s position. Of course, due to German U-boats prowling the Atlantic looking for just these types of targets, any info whatsoever relating to position and course was strictly top-secret. So after determining the ship’s position, just for fun, they got hold of one of the ship’s officers and rather accurately informed him of the ship’s position. He and his buds were immediately taken to the captain and asked how they knew this info. After realizing the serious trouble they were in, Dad explained to the captain their experiment with celestial nav. Cooler heads prevailed, but Dad and his buds were made to immediately toss their homemade sextant overboard and were told that if they ever pulled such a stunt again, they’d spend the remainder of the trip in the makeshift brig and ultimately be turning big rocks into little ones back at Leavenworth in the states.
I would say that as long as we remember folks and what they have learned and taught they are only dead in the physical body sense,they live on in the passed on lessons and skills.
I hope the book dad is reaching for is obtained and perhaps he can pass a little on while still here,feel might be some real knowledge there.
See you on the other side Great Man.
My pappy was a simple guy, self taught in the mechanical area. He could listen to an engine, gas or diesel and tell you what needed adjustment or replaced. Could tear down any engine and rebuild it. Drove heavy equipment, logging trucks and freight haulers. He passed some of that hands on to me for which I’m thankful for nearly every day.
He had serval strokes, poor german diet and smoked. After his last stroke he quit smoking but to little to late. Took a fall and hit a dresser with his head. The result was a slow organ shut down. My five other brother and sisters who all lived nearby would come one, maybe twice a week to see him. Fortunately I was out of work again, injuries, so I could spend the nights with him. Wasn’t about to let him die alone or without a family face in the room. Fortunately I was honored to be present when he pasted in the early morning hours. He aroused long enough to open his eyes, look at me, smile and left for his eternal appointment with God.
Yesterday was the nana papa day for our grandkids. Yesterday I showed my five year old grandson how to saw wood for his rocket ship he was going to build. Got to encourage him to keep going when the saw was binding. See him thru his hurting hand and frustration with the saw. His next visit he won’t notice the few extra pieces and will get to start the assembly part. Hoping this will spur more hands on experiences.
There are people like you my friend, that see the value in yesteryears smart phoneless lifestyle and will pass this on to their children and grandkids. We’ll miss our parents and feel sad about the wealth of information seemingly lost for ever, thinking that its a shame that experience couldn’t be transferred over. It is and it isn’t. Those experiences are personal and its what helped define the person and made them who they are/were. Just as you will be remembered for your experiences one day and whether you lived for yourself or passed those on to others… Pass them on…
Praying for you and family… Those in Christ will be reunited again, and it will be a party…
My father was a nuclear physicist who died of cancer, possibly caused by his profession…He was a skilled handyman and active citizen…Death came as a release for him..I always think of this verse from the Rubaiyat….
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d–
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”
But I believe that after a sojourn in the Spirit world, he will be back one day …the soul is immortal..
While he’s still here, whisper to him that after he passes he has to send you back a signal that he’s ok, you’d be surprised, it does work. Flicker the lights, drop one of his tools on the floor in the middle of the night, suddenly your car radio is playing his favorite song..
I’m sorry.
Never had anyone like this in my life, yet longed for it since I was a kid. Used to do models, build rockets, paint figures, write DD manuals, draw, and it seems like a different person did all that. Somewhere, I lost my imagination.
Retired army helo pilot and PA. Dabbler in wood and metal work, gardening. Can usually fix most things myself: cars, furniture, appliances, construction. Successful real estate investor. Teach a home bible study. 2 great sons…
Trying to become the man I never had, but honestly, most of the time I feel hollow, like a fake of who your father really was.
Honor his memory. You are already clearly thankful. Bless others and fight to the end to have the same impact.
Grief is temporary and the final thing destroyed is death.
I really am sorry even though we’ve never met.
Doc. All your kids and grandkids really want is your time. If you give it to them, you will be well rewarded with their love.
2 weeks ago, I got down in the floor with my twin great granddaughters and “played” Dream house Barbie. I did not really do anything other than comment on Barbie’s dress or shoes, but they were thrilled that I gave them some personal time. When we face time, they ask me when we are coming back to their house to play. It is a great feeling.
A grandniece once asked me if I was someone’s mom or just a really big kid, I loved playing with them so much. LOL
Where are you at in TN? I live just south of Clarksville.
In Fayette Co, about 50 mi east of Memphrica.
so glad that you found Whatfinger.com.
I’m glad Whatfinger led me here. I feel like I have discovered an entire world of brothers and sisters in arms. Someday I hope to make the trip to the July 4th shindig and really meet some of my adopted “family”.
You’re not a fake, Doc..you’re you.
Thank you for sharing
God Bless.
My sincerest condolences for you and your family.
Your analogy of micro and macro society with respect to your Great Father, is a powerful one. My Grandfather (RIP) worked the deep shaft iron ore mines that helped build the country. He built his house based on a garage ordered from Sears-Roebuck.
My Father taught me woodworking and gifted me his ’50s era drill press and radial arm saw, still in perfect working order.
I believe there is a Heaven, where time ceases to be, and your Father will have ample opportunity to discuss woodwork with carpenters such as St. Joseph and his rather famous Apprentice.
Stucky, I saw your comment to the above from the original. I commented there. The gist is this: https://bestpsychicdirectory.com/Why-Do-Dying-Often-Wait-Until-Their-Loved-Ones-Leave-Room-Dying
I’ll add this: https://theconversation.com/for-some-people-dying-alone-is-not-such-a-bad-thing-heres-why-90034
Those are two very interesting, and helpful, articles. Thank you so much for posting them.
Glad you saw the links. Welcome.
I just lost my dad to an agonizing and undignified death due to colon cancer several months ago. He was 80 and immigrated from the former Yugoslavia 55 years ago with Mom. He was equally talented with carpentry, building and well known for his magnificent gardens. He worked “like a mule” – his words- his whole life but cancer took him down quickly. He had the physique of a much younger man. Your description of the pill regimen, suffering, and drug-addled last days of this wonderful man who dedicated his life to making a better one for his family in a free country resonated with me. The world was a better place with him in it.
Admin – I’m so sorry for you & your family. All of us will come to this point eventually. I pray for the Blessings of Jesus Christ upon you, your Dad, & your family. May God ease all of your suffering in this most difficult time.
If you keep him in your heart, he’ll never really be gone.
I would bet that your father taught you to take what life throws at you and keep going. You will make him proud.