Memorial For my dad Draft Idea

Like his father, my dad lived to Age 82. Grandpa was 24 years of age when dad was born.

He left the planet honorably having spent his life and his last free day helping others.

He lived nearly 30,000 days. Any of you who know something that will build on the legacy of this good man that ought to be shared, is invited to do just that that. Some of what I relate here, I’ve heard from sources I believe. Please cut me some slack if your recollection isn’t the same.

For the record, I tell you at the outset that I have a dog in the fight. I am not a dispassionate preacher or paid hireling sent here with generic platitudes. He is my dad. And though I have a positive view, even more so after digging into his past in preparation for this, I know he was imperfect. It’s not the role of anyone in this room, certainly not my role to judge him. But lest you think I have rose colored glasses, after keeping an open mind I have found a potential defect. Dad shamelessly possessed and kept ready for use as needed his reasonably comprehensive library of colloquialisms (cuss words) that he activated as needed. Near as I can tell, it was not for show, he just spoke that way. We grew up with it and I didn’t much notice till after I returned from the Air Force spouting worse language and was reigned in my my older brother who simply said, “Dennis, you have a dirty mouth!”
I didn’t complain about dad’s colorful language. But in the last 20 years, I heard very little of it, which I Chalk up to respectfulness on his part. He may have known that I’m the sort who now walks out of movies that have cussing.

(post note: it’s been pointed out that his choice of language in this respect was actually a choice, and not inherited from his family or parents. Indeed, I never heard any of that from my grandparents and I don’t think it was allowed among their children. Without knowing it’s genesis, I’m guessing he picked it up from his bride)

Especially since the day he died, I’ve been interested in sorting out the flavor and quality of times in my father’s life that I could not personally experience or know because I wasn’t there. Honestly, I think I saw some of his darkest days. Stained by the same challenge that darkened my own, his life took a tortuous journey through the veritable valley of the shadow of death because of the risks of his job and even greater peril at the hands of a mismatched marital union.
So imagine my joy at discovering about his excellent childhood!

I already knew that he’d known true friendship. I drove dad and Pete to someone’s backyard wedding and found right away that they were a completely self contained unit in ways that I recognized from my own excellent friendships. As soon as Pete got in the car, the chemistry was obvious. It put a smile on my face.
In a way, dad was a trail blazer. No substantial challenge has come to light that can counter the impression of the goodness of both his parents from recollections of life under their wings.

His father knew his own troubles at an early age, first with the untimely death of his mother while grandpa was little, and then with the void created in her absence being filled by his well meaning father in a marriage of convenience that probably did more harm than good.

Grandpa was affected by the impressions left both in scars and in his heart where he grew to largely distrust formalized religion. When I joined my church long years after, Grandpa said, “that’s fine. Just don’t bring it around here.” So we had a deal.

I never attended church with either of my parents though mom did send us away to get time for herself until it suddenly stopped. Two events get credit for the reprieve.
First, the Sunday School bus ran over our little cat and the crusty driver scowled that the cat shouldn’t have been under the tire in the first place. There was a little thug on the bus named Louie who had two sidekicks who emboldened him to do things like threaten us with his switchblade knife, so I was glad when we weren’t forced to ride that bus any more after it squished the cat. Dad would never have forced us to attend a church, but mom was happy to force me to go to a church with my little brother until I was around ten. As we entered the sanctuary that last time, they asked me if I wanted to sit in the back. Normally, I would but that day I saw no reason to do that. In fact, I found it mildly amusing that they’d start out by directing a guest to the back. From there began a downward spiral where each new observation put me in stitches. The bread they passed around was tiny unleavened pills that tickled my throat.
I thought they were cheapskates.
The wine in shot glasses turned out to be Welches grape juice in too small a quantity to stop the tickle. People scooted away from me as I tried desperately not to snort laugh or make any sound. I wondered if the people outside with speakers on their windows could hear my poorly contained joy. Old women on the far side of the room leaned forward to advance scolding looks as tears ran down my cheeks at the realization I was sitting on a “pew”. We were allowed to leave right after that meeting rather than suffer through the rest of the services and mom was complained to. She never again forced me to go to a church for fear I might re-offend and be a bad reflection on her righteous parenting.

Dad at least had an opinion about organized religion. He explained to me as a teen that religion was a prop for sheep, or for people who didn’t have their own moral compass or didn’t trust their own. He so much distrusted the behavior of so called religious people that when I left home for the Air Force, he told me that if anyone asked me what my religion was I should tell them, “Protestant”. Not being affiliated with any religion, nor wishing to be, I asked what that meant.
“A protestant can be anything.” he replied.

I don’t doubt that he’d been told of his grandpa’s best friend who described his devotion to God by exclaiming to his best friend that if the Pope told him to kill him, he’d do it. There may have been a better way to make his point but he didn’t get the chance. The friendship fizzled right there.
Grandpa used to tell me that you could prove anything and it’s opposite with the bible and he’d seen grown men heatedly, pointlessly argue over it. He said, “There’s one part I can agree with and it’s the part I live. Treat others the way you’d like to be treated.”
I think he really believed that and passed it on to his children.

While it seems that my grandmother had a pleasant childhood, except for the teasing of her sisters and the intrusion on her health by polio, grandpa followed a pattern that reminds me of biblical prophet Abraham, who once wrote that it was “needful for him to find another place of residence” after his father tried to have him offered as a sacrifice. Grandpa likewise fled the home of his stepmother for his own safety. His dad didn’t know till years later what the step mother had done. Without seeing the scars with his own eyes, he might not have believed it ever happened.

It is a credit to my Grandfather that he rose above those ugly days and that by his own resolve, he escaped any more harm by fleeing to live with decent people.

Neither he nor his future bride ever made it to high school. Both were intelligent, attractive people who lived in a place and time where necessity called them other things than formal education.

All I’ve been able to learn of their meeting was that Grandma, who was one of the beautiful souls, walked past where Grandpa was working. He noticed.
Their marriage scant weeks later is not an evidence of impetuousness in either of them. They recognized a good match and spent the rest of their lives together content with the choice.

Photos from those days convey a sense of economic poverty. The houses have no paint. The siding looks coarse. The grounds are messy. No one in the photographs seem to notice.
I used to get a peek at some of those pictures and thought that dad had come from uncomfortable poverty and then because of the antics of an awful marriage partner to uncomfortable misery.
In fact, poverty is hardly a problem when everyone in the family is equally poor.

Bit by bit, conversation by conversation with others who were in that situation with dad have happily convinced me that life was very good in the Fenimore household under the watch care of Lloyd, his dad and Silvia Loretta, his mom.
I could never figure out why relatives called her Sib.
Dad always called her “Ma”.

Details don’t entirely match up when I compare some of the stories of my fathers childhood from one person’s version to that of another. Of course, dad’s version trumps all. But I know that memory does it’s tricks.

We used to drive far into the country on the way to the beach so we could visit a couple known to me as Otto and Hazel.
Otto had a peculiar through-the-cavernous-nose voice and didn’t like gophers or moles. One morning he took a bucket of them that he’d caught and slit the bellies. He tossed the bloody mess in the hog pen where they were enthusiastically devoured. My brother said, “I’m glad I’m not a gopher!”
I was glad I wasn’t a pig.

The property they owned was surrounded by forest and Dad took my brothers and I for a stroll. As we crossed a little bridge over a creek, my little brother got in front of me and then slowed down. That kind of driving still annoys me. To the surprise of everyone, normally calm little me shoved him out of my way off the bridge.
Years later, we compared notes.
I pushed Marty off a low bridge a few feet into a slow moving shallow stream.
Marty, on the other hand, fell ten feet into a raging torrent and was lucky to live through it. Dad ran down and fetched him and the walk was over.
Back at the house, dinner was on. No one yelled at me for the misconduct, but the sons of our hosts arrived with two fish that they’d beat against a rock and which they claimed to have caught down stream. Their message was that I shouldn’t push my brother into the water because he could land on a fish.

So as I relate stories about events I wasn’t present to enjoy, if your recollection is contrary to my description I will take no offense at your earnest correction.
Memories are sure. Sure to vary, that is.

Though dad was born in Battleground, Washington it wasn’t long before his family was relocated to the big city of Portland, Oregon. The only story Grandpa told me about the time before he moved to town involved a car he was buying on time that turned out to be a lemon. He tried to return it but they refused to take it back. The car was so bad and so unreliable that Grandpa says he buried it, stopped making payments, and told the seller to come get it. Somewhere the thing is still under ground rusting away.

Treasured relatives were also left behind in the move, but they stayed in the picture thanks to frequent visits by the growing family over the years in cars that actually did work.
This is where it gets interesting to me.

During the great depression, Lewisville Park was born. It is not so different now than in those days, at least where the river runs. Dad’s sister tells me that many happy times were spent there playing in the water. Some parents might drop the kids off then go visit with relatives. But that wasn’t how the Fenimore’s rolled. Dad’s sister told me, “they were always with us! They never just left us alone.”
My grandparents loved their family.
When dad took us to the same park and I had no idea there was any family history there. It wasn’t until I saw the photos and recognized the distinctive boulder-strewn waterway and liked that the kids in the photos were like us.
We floated on inner tubes and plastic mattresses and repeatedly navigated from one end of the park to the other. Very fun!

Portland was a very different town when dad was a boy, especially in the vicinity of Yale street. Houses were sparse and there were many empty lots with weeds and rabbits. The road in front of their home wasn’t paved and developed some massive tan puddles. That was a time that I’d be glad to hear about form those who lived it with dad.
It almost sounds like it was country living in some ways. I’ve been told of adventures involving unexploded fireworks, plinking in the weeds, and happy weekends in the country visiting relatives.

Dad had some serious medical incidents as a boy, from the madrona tree that split and gashed his leg to appendicitis and peritonitus and the loss of finger parts to an exploding blasting cap. There were probably others. But I think the loss of fingers affected him profoundly. Certainly it bothered him to be judged. By middle age, he’d long gotten past hiding the hand. I’ve since noticed that in the photo taken at his successful Canadian Moose hunt.
I’ve wondered if that hand contributed to my father’s well established excellence in work and other endeavors. He had to prove himself, and so he certainly did!

After seeing the conditions of poverty evidenced in photos of his childhood, the high school picture of dad’s cache of long guns leaned up against his LaSalle seemed inconsistent. I asked where the money came from to obtain them and learned that starting in Junior High School dad took work at the school as janitor.

Guns played an important part of his life from the time that he could own and shoot them. He learned about them and acquired them and used them. Rather than simply purchase ammunition, he aquired the equipment and expertise to load his own.
Along with the older brothers and friends from school, dad spent significant time shooting. It eventually paid off in confidence and accolades in the form of winnings at local contests of skill that I’m told were so common that as many as four or five could be attended in a single weekend.
Historically, turkey shoots have taken many forms. At times, the turkey would be placed live in a box with an opening wide enough for the bird to stick his head out of. When he did, the contestant had a chance to do him in with a single rifle shot. Various other ways and means to make a turkey shoot challenging were employed over the years but by the time my dad competed the turkey was the prize, not the target. And it was already cleaned, packaged, and frozen. Turkeys, ham and bacon could serve as the prize in shooting contests involving skill, clay disks, and shotguns.

Dad was not the source of my findings about the degree of success he enjoyed in the early days. At least two men have told me that some contests were not open to dad because of the established pattern that if dad were in the contest, dad was going to win more often than the contest holders could abide.
This makes sense if the point of the contest is to bring in participants who pay a fee and turn someone a profit from those fees and if participation by others dwindles because of the foregone conclusion that the same kid is going to take away the prize every time. I don’t know if that was the case. It must have had some element of satisfaction for dad if it is true that with the help of his plastic stocked Montgomery Ward el cheapo shot gun, he defeated experienced adults with their thousand dollar engraved and gilded firearms. He was told not to compete as an amateur. I doubt he had the means to shoot as a pro.

He explained how to blow up the flying clay pigeon.
“Bring the bead up from under the pigeon,” he said. “When it touches, pull the trigger.”
Low and behold, that actually worked.
With the skill he gained at the weekend practice on the rail road tracks and turkey shoots dad brought Chuckers, Pheasant, Ducks, and other flying creatures home to the dinner plate. I have his 1949 and 1952 state duck stamps. He was serious business.
I wanted to know from his brother how it was that the boys could all go on foot to where they shot guns on the weekends without creating a stir from concerned citizens like would happen today. Turns out there was at least one time when there was interaction with police who were responding to calls about the kids with guns. Fortunately, not long afterward dad got a car and transport to and from the fun became more discrete.
Hunting, target practice, competition, and reloading were part of dad’s life in varying degrees throughout his life.

He got me through hunters safety. He got me through my first and last deer hunt. We even fished together a few times. But he was far more engaged than I had the interest to be. In fairness, he and I never painted together.
He was still winning turkey shoots when I was a teen.
He was a skilled and avid hunter who studied to know how to succeed and then applied the findings masterfully.

One time, he took mom on a hunt and they each bagged an animal. I don’t know if it was elk or deer. It just had long legs and probably horns. The meat was subsequently cut and packaged, but mom was bothered by her kill and agreed to eat the meat from dad’s creature but not the one she did in.
The packages were labeled to differentiate them.
When all that was left was the meat from moms bambi, Dad revealed that the labels had been switched.

It wasn’t always about hunting, though. Dad liked the outdoors enough that along with the rugged hikes and forays into no mans land for meat, there were plain old camping trips.

At least a couple of times my brothers and I were awakened in the middle of the night for such trips. Dad got off his late shift and we bundled into the car for a trip to Marion Lake. As they dressed us, the radio accented the harsh lights in the room. The radio station was country, and it featured the sound of a ricocheting bullet in it’s jingle. I think it was KWJJ.
We would pull into the camp parking lot just before dawn and everyone got their own back pack. We had to step over a log border and onto the trail. My favorite part every time was just past the boulders. The ground was faintly white, and as we approached it the meadow floor rose in the air and fluttered away in the form of white butterflies. There was always a mishap involving an enormous slug that got stepped on.

Camp was near the lake edge and there were always these elements: a campfire, a box of sugar cubes, sleeping bags, and nature. Water skeeters played on the placid water that was scary clear. Some times there were little row boats. Far down into the water there were boulders. Salamanders ran along the wet shore.

A favorite juxtaposition was the comparison of my memory of a certain tree climb to the view of that climb as captured by my parents on movie film. Marty, Dale, and I found a tree and scaled it’s lofty heights without the expected parental interference. When discovered, we happily showed off our dangerous accomplishment. I remember being so high!
It made me smile to see the movie as an adult and realize that none of us ever got higher than dad could reach with his feet on the ground.

We slept in army surplus “mummy bags”. I was in fear that an elk would step on me or that some ravenous creature would get my toes, so I always curled up as much as possible.

At least once, dad took us out there without mom. Most likely it was to get away from her for the weekend. A couple of us would ride in the back of his Chevy pickup with the supplies. It was cold, but oh so glorious. Half way there he stopped for gas and provided us with a bottle of coke. Twelve ounces of amber delight!

I should point out here that an experience not now available was not unusual in the early 1960’s. Soda pop was commonly available in glass bottles that were transported in specially designed wooden boxes. A truck laden with cases of pop would occasionally ramble past our house and nothing on this earth sounds like that delicate wonderful tinkle of the glass!

That house was on an over sized lot with a great big tree that got orange berries in the fall. Gray squirrels seemed to like it.

Dad made me an airplane. He took three sticks and some silver paint to make it. The neighbor got so tired of me flying it into his yard!

The address was on Chicago street. Dad made improvements on the house, including a wide porch capped with translucent corrugated fiberglass.
Having newly installed the thing, dad was not about to let it blow away when the great Columbus Day storm came through. While mom stayed inside telling me that it was okay, he was out there securing the porch somehow to the car. What ever he did worked. The porch is still intact to this very day.
The wind was ferocious. They positioned me on on an outside wall in the living room and we waited it out. The next day the sun came out and there was calm over all the wreckage. Dad had a broken walnut tree to clean up.

Dad taught me to ride a bike there.
He also saved us all when mom forgot to clean the dryer vent and a load of pants caught fire. He drug them out to the yard and extinguished the flame.

He also saved me when one of moms plans for getting us boys out of her hair for the evening backfired. We were stuck in the basement playroom where the laundry was also done. It was March the 4th, and I was intensely thirsty. My older brother climbed on the washer and poured a measuring cup full of bleach and told me how tasty it was. I drank it all. Highly not recommended.
Somehow we defeated the basement lock and I made my way through the sun room to the back door of the house, ill. Dad interrupted moms chiding about me not chewing my food and recognized there was a serious problem and got me to the hospital in time.

Those were interesting times that we spent at that house. Dad and mom were still new, but I think trouble was abrew even then. Mom was not a good fit for parenting and I suspect she was a source of unhappy consternation for my dad.

Mom was earnestly concerned with punishment, almost eager. One night, she goaded my dad to attack. Their bedroom was a tiny room just off the kitchen and right by the back door. Their bed took up nearly the entire room. Having discovered me in the refrigerator with a ball of margarine in my tiny hands in the middle of the night, she sikked dad on me. He stealthily approached as I stood bathed in the fridge light and then he pulled my pajama bottom down to get me a swat on the behind. Startled, I dropped the butter and spun away. The dance was on! As I maneuvered to escape the attempted swats my bowls evacuated their contents throughout the room. I’m not sure he landed a single blow. Dad never snuck up on me again and I never again played with butter in the middle of the night. Someone else had to clean up the mess.

By the time I was eight, we were closer to dad’s dream of living in the country. We relocated to Rainbow lane in Scholls within sight of Groner Elementary. The Tualatin River flooded each year, submerging our back field and lapping up against the edge of the back yard.

Dad was working at Skookum and grandpa was edging ever nearer to retirement. We frequently drove into town to visit Lloyd and Sylvia Fenimore, my grandparents much as they had done with their children when dad was a boy when they happily visited grandma’s folks.

I took a liking to all things Indian during that time and it led me to an intense desire to make arrowheads. Dad discovered me busting his tools in failed attempts to create them from driveway gravel. He patiently addressed my interest by promising to find out how it was done and to get me the right stuff. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later he brought me the tools and showed me how arrowheads were actually made by indigenous natives anciently.

Later, he would get us a Yew tree to make bows from scratch and grandpa would twice bring me a large load of obsidian.

As parents, my father and mother were distinctively different from each other. Dad played with us, helped us chase our interests, protected us, and was fair.

I rarely saw him agitated and he was always doing something interesting.
His big home made welding machine, constructed by dad using a car engine, was parked near the garden. I secretly hoped one day to own it.

Dad got a Troybilt rototiller and put in a giant garden every year.

We had slot cars in the basement, made root beer from scratch, dug forts in the dirt, rode bikes, and made trails through the elephant grass that grew well over our heads.

Dad got a pet raccoon and made a big cage for it. The raccoon washed everything and was hillarious to observe with ice cubes. She’d wash them till they melted then paw around looking to find out where they went. It stayed with us a year or two then went wild. Later, she returned with babies and showed them to us for a couple of days. Then she took them into the woods, never to return.

Mom had relatives who visited us. Her brother moved in for a few years until he could be shipped off to the army. Her sister was an angel and periodically came for short visits. She was fun.
A favorite memory involves Grandma Hayes, whom dad was not particularly fond of. She was a stocky type with a white bun and a stern temperament. One Easter, dad fetched her with the Impala, bringing her home in the back seat. She tried to exit the car, but lost her balance and fell back in, becoming wedged between the back seat and the front with both arms and both legs helplessly extended. Dad was unable to jump immediately to her aid because he didn’t want to get caught laughing. When he gained his composure, he pulled her out and sent her into the house.

Dad taught us how to create a pinpoint of heat with a magnifying glass. This spelled doom for many ants.

He also made sure I had plenty of paper for my endless drawings of “Zenithanians” who lived in the sun.

One night he came into our bedroom in a panic. Dale was showing me how he could mimic the terror of being suffocated in a pillow. In response to the very realistic screams, dad applied persuasion on Dale’s butt and advised against sounding like he was dying unless actually being killed.

Mom always wanted a girl. Dale was to be Gale. I was to be Denise. Marty was to be Leslie.
Mom and dad decided to adopt, because dad was particularly good at sons and stayed with what he knew.

The first child they tried to adopt was taken back by the state because they discovered some Negro blood in the girl and wouldn’t let us keep her. Dad took it hard. They just came out and took her away after we’d all grown to love her.
They then adopted Marla, who was white as paper and three years later, Lori, a blonde. They were beautiful and sweet girls.

At this point, my writing drew no inspiration.
I printed the text with key points in bold. I practiced. Then I wrote two pages of reminders, one or two words per item.
From those pages I delivered the memorial discussion.
Some was added. Some was left out.
LaVern, his younger brother, wanted everyone to know that as a boy, dad cheated. Then he grinned.
The discourse was well received. Dale did a slide show. Lori secured the location and made it work, including providing a meal. Her youngest son did the meal as a school project. All was excellent!