happy birthday, young man!

It's interesting how relationships can evolve over time in a way that all past grievances are forgotten. Generally, this isn't uncommon when it comes to the ties we have with our own flesh and blood. So, I don't think my stating that I'm closer now to my father than I ever was when I was younger will come as any surprise to anyone or really be all that profound a statement. Well, I disagree slightly and for reasons I'll not be divulging today. No. I think I share enough about myself now in the present (and a little of my past) without digging up old bones, dusting them off and putting them on display. Really, do we need any more Tennessee Williams-esque moments? The past is the past, and some would argue that it is nothing more than collective perspectives of common experiences.

Therefore, standing solidly in my present, one thing I can claim to be joyous over today is that I have a wonderful, close and very genuine (as in honest) relationship with my dad. I tell him things most daughters probably wouldn't tell their fathers (hell, he reads this blog - enough said), I debate politics with him (we are on opposite ends of the political spectrum) and I sincerely hope he lives until he's 100. Put simply, I love my dad. And today is his birthday.

Before I continue, I love Mom, too, and I fear she'll get her feelings hurt since I didn't go on and on about her on her birthday. Really, I didn't do so cause she has told me not to expose her on here. I was merely respecting that request. I've written about Julia (JT) many times, so I didn't dedicate an entry to her on her birthday either. But Dad....well, he reads this blog for one thing (fairly regularly) and since I very recently visited and rode with him, it just seems the thing to do.


Therefore, I am now going to tell you (somewhat briefly) about my Dad. If he wishes to tell more about his life, then he'll just have to blog as I've encouraged him to do.

My father was born in 1939 in Wyatt, MO, a very small town on the southern end of that state. He was the first child of 8 that my grandmother bore in her younger years. My grandparents (Captola and Ulysses Grant) were both Irish descent and my grandfather was a farmer. My father basically grew up in flat, farmland. My grandparents were not rich, but they did have wealth in the land they owned (some of which has been sold). Dad was not poor growing up but was raised in a fairly strict, southern Catholic household. From his own accounts, his childhood was a good one.

However, at age 13, he suffered a tremendous trauma when he, four of his brothers and his father were involved in a horrific car crash. A truck pulled out in front of the car they were in while driving home from the movies one afternoon. My grandfather was killed instantly in that crash and three of his sons suffered physical and emotional wounds one would hope no child would have to bear.

Dad, in particular, was the worst injured when he hit the dashboard face first (seat belts were not yet installed in cars at that time). He was left with a crushed pelvis and blind in his left eye among other things. He also suffered a concussion and remained unconscious in a hospital bed throughout the week after the accident, the time during which his father was laid to rest. Dad has no recollection of the accident only the horrible emotional impact of waking up in the hospital and being told his father was not only dead but buried.

My sister and I would ask him to tell us this story from time to time as teenagers. We were fascinated by the tragedy of it all as it is the kind of drama that one might find in a movie. Only, unlike a movie, the injuries don't just go away when the cameras stop rolling. No, Dad has lived his entire life blind in one eye (of course) and for years, had to contend with a bum hip.

After his father's death, my grandmother, who had an eight month old baby and five boys to raise, remarried another man, John (my step-grandfather). They had two more children together, bringing the brood to eight. My father, being the eldest, was hit hardest by all of the many changes. In order to keep him respectful, my grandmother made the decision to send him to military school. Now, I don't presume to know how this came about or how my father felt about it, but I suspect this too was quite traumatic. He survived, and in his early 20's, entered college as a very striking and, rumored to be (by Mom), wild young man.



Mom met him when he began dating her roommate. Mom tells the story with such gusto every time I ask her to, that it is hard to determine at times if all she is telling is true or not. I personally don't care cause it's funny as hell. I can't tell it like she does, but basically, it goes like this. Dad was dating the roommate and trying to get, um, friendly with her. Back then, the girls 'held out' as long as they could (what a concept), so the roommate asked Mom to go on a double date with her and Dad so as to keep his 'octopus hands' to a minimum. Mom agreed, Dad laid eyes on Mom, and that was the end of it. He would then come hang out on the doorstep until Mom got home to woo her. Mom and her roommate ended up moving out and ending their friendship over the whole thing, since Mom finally was wooed right off her feet by Dad. They then married at age 23 (Mom is six months older than Dad).

Dad took a managerial job in Denver, Colorado, and they moved there back in the 70's. Mom tells very little about those years before us children came along, but what she does reveal is through a sly grin. Mom was always crazy about Dad, that's for sure, and he for her. They were well matched in many ways, and other than the long plane trips back home, they liked Colorado (I wish in some ways that they had stayed there and never moved to TN).



In her late 20's, she and Dad discovered that she couldn't have children unless she underwent a radical surgery. She did and was able to conceive my sister. Mom tells how Julia was born itty-bitty, delicate and premature. Julia was her first born and Mom thought, her only child. The doctors swore she'd never have another child and that she should give up hope. I think Dad was a little bummed, because he wanted a son. Dad has never said as much to me, but Mom has. Regardless, they were happy to have a daughter and went on about their business carefree, if you get my meaning.

Well, lo and behold, three years later, my mother was convinced she was pregnant. She was back in the south visiting family and called her Denver OB GYN to report this (in shock). The doctor told her that she was absolutely wrong and that he'd pay for the plane ticket for her to fly back immediately for him to test her. I'm not sure if that plane ticket really was ever paid by that doctor or if that's just an embellishment of the story my mother enjoys, but she did fly back early from her visit with family to find out that she was, in fact, expecting another child. Oh, lucky me.



Here is where my parents (both of them) torment me. They love it, too, cause I always (fake) protest with shrill yelps and cover my ears when they tell me the story (it's kind of like our little game we play). I, too, was born premature, only I wasn't itty-bitty and delicate like Julia was. Oh, hell no. I was bigger than a normal 'preemie' and I didn't want to come out of Mom's uterus any time in that decade. I clung to the umbilical cord for dear life and refused to be born. The doctors had to use 'prongs' (my mother's term, she's so mean) to 'dig' my big, fat head out of her, um...well, anyway, they finally 'ripped' me out of there, kicking and screaming (and no doubt, already cursing) and damn near blinded me in the process. I had a severe black eye from one of the 'prong' tips and I was yellow as tobacco-stained teeth. I had jaundice and they kept me at the hospital for over a week or so in an incubator. I was not a trouble-free child.

My parents were still very happy to have me (they say, anyway) and my mother was then hopeful that she might conceive a third, a boy, for Dad. No such luck. I was it (really, I was) and no baby brother came after my arrival. I never felt my father minded this, though. Nope, he just decided that if he couldn't have a son, he'd teach his daughters all the things he'd have taught a boy. We learned how to fish, ride bikes (yay!!!!), run (boo!!!), hike, mow the lawn, climb trees, swim in the deep end of the lake, etc. Julia and I were no delicate little girls, that's for sure.

I, however, was much tougher (and meaner) than JT. I was a handful and insisted that I be part of everything JT got to be part of. This included when Dad would take JT out on bike rides in the hills behind our home in Denver. Julia was six and a half at that time and I was three and a half. I was too little to ride my own bike (like JT did), so Dad sat me, sidesaddle style, in front of him on the tip of his saddle and wrapped a belt around his waist and mine, tethering me to him (something my mother never approved of for fear of injury). I loved it! I can still see from a child's-eyes perspective the handlebars in front of me, and the trail flashing by as we rode along. Unfortunately, my mother's worry would one day prove prudent.



Dad, JT and I had set out on our normal ride. Only difference that fateful day was that Dad put sandals and not sneakers on my little feet. Something I loved to do was swing my feet from side to side (remember, I was seated, side-saddle with my feet off to the left of the bike). Well, on this particular ride, I swung my right foot right smack into the spokes just as we were flying down a hill (I say flying, but I doubt Dad was going faster than 15 mph). That one spoke was rusted and loose, and in all of a nano-second, it snapped from the rim (from the force of my foot hitting it) and back, impaling my small ankle. Now, my foot was stuck to the wheel, and as we rolled along, the spokes cut my ankle all the way down to and through the bone. I screamed and slapped my father's arms in sheer, blind terror. Dad didn't ride far with my foot like this before looking down and seeing blood. He stopped, ripped the wheel from the bike (yes, ripped - this was before they had quick release, so he had to use some major strength) and carried the wheel with me attached to it up on his shoulder screaming with everything I had in me. Julia trailed behind us, crying herself.

I don't remember the pain of this accident or really even the accident itself (some of those details were provided by Mom). What I do remember are two things. My mother hitting my father upside his head with a rolled up magazine at the house (she was ready to kill him) and my mother screaming (obscenities) at the ER doctors when they informed her that they would have to amputate my right foot. This was 1973, and they weren't quite as advanced then with limb replacement and repair. My mother wouldn't hear of it and demanded a second, third and fourth opinion or there would be multiple lawsuits. Dad was there in all of this, of course, feeling horrible and wanting to crawl into a hole, I'm sure.

Lucky for me, there was a foot specialist (whatever that's called) in the area who rushed over to see if there was any hope of my keeping my limb. That doctor reassured my mother that he could keep my right foot attached through a series of complicated surgeries. However...however...I would doubtfully ever walk normal again, if at all. And forget my dancing, running or jumping. That was over. Clearly, this doctor did not know my parents or me.

After months of several surgeries (a surgical bolt is still in my right ankle today), skin grafts, infections, more skin grafts and misery, I was finally left to limp and crawl around on my own. The thing is, my parents never told me what that doctor said back then. It wasn't until my teens that his (erroneous) predictions were revealed. No, they just left me alone, and as a child with enormous energy, I was determined on my own to run and play with JT and other neighborhood children again.

It was sometime near my fourth birthday that we moved to Tennessee and my playground went from a mere backyard to an enormous neighborhood with even more kids and more opportunities to be active. I can't tell you when it was I started walking just fine, running, dancing (albeit terribly) and biking, but all the way up until I was almost 12, I was a very active little girl. I was chubby, too, but I think more of that had to do with the crap southerners eat (and genetics) than anything else, because I most certainly was not a lazy child.

Which brings me back to Dad. He was the reason for this as he refused to believe that doctor right along with Mom and was determined that I'd prove to be a miracle child. He was the one who got my sister and me up on Saturday mornings and outside to run, rake the lawn and play (he practically pushed us out the door). He was also the one who bought me my first bike - a three-speeder, orange if I recall correctly. I loved that bike and rode the hell out of it. I crashed all the time, but somehow I avoided injury (other than a scrape or two), and oddly, I never connected the near loss of my foot (and all the pain from the surgeries) with cycling. I never feared riding a bike and to this day, it is something that brings me so much joy. Thanks, Dad.



During my teens, Dad and I drifted apart. I hated my teen years and have already mentioned on here why, so I'll not revisit it. Nor will I dwell. Spending time looking back and wishing things had been different does nobody any good. What's that old adage? - The past is just a memory, the future only a promise, but the present is a gift. Something like that, anyway.

So, really, flash forward to the 90s and this decade, please. These are the years that my father and I began talking to one another as adults and in the last five years or so, as friends. I do believe you can be friends with your parents. Good grief, if you feel you can't out of respect, you may spend years with less of a relationship with them! That's my opinion, anyway, and I feel deeply rewarded in sharing my life's silly dramas with Dad. As I've mentioned, we disagree (sometimes in heated exchanges) on certain topics. But that doesn't mean we don't love one another. My Dad is a good ol' boy. He means well and can be tremendously kind. He can also be mistrusting at times and not give others the benefit of the doubt. But in his lifetime, he's never intentionally hurt anyone and as he gets older, he's mellowed considerably. If you met my father, you'd most definitely like him.

On the other hand, as his age advances, he improves himself, too. For one thing, he finally got his hip replaced a couple of years ago. Thank goodness! I can't tell you how upsetting it was to see him limping in pain for all the years he suffered with a deteriorating hip. His shattered pelvis from the car accident at age 13 caught up to him earlier than expected. Here was a man who ran all his life and was tremendously active barely able to walk across the room. I begged him and at times yelled at him to see a doctor. But like daughter like father - we're both obstinate - he refused until he finally couldn't take it anymore. After a few consultations, he relented, had the hip replaced and then healed way faster than expected (but, of course).

To celebrate his new ability to walk without pain, he ran out and bought a bike. Yup, a bike! It was a hybrid as he wasn't sure how he'd like being bent over on a road bike. He should have saved his money, cause of course he wanted a road bike within five months of getting the hybrid. I visited last year and rode the Tour de Corn with him in MO and rode his first 40 miles with him, too. I must say, that was an experience of a lifetime to get to ride with my dad to Cheatam Dam. Then, as I've reported on here, I got to ride with him again just recently. I love going for a bike ride with Dad, cause like me, he just 'gets it.' Cycling makes him happy, and it is no surprise to me that he rides with a stamina more belonging to a man much younger than he is. That's my Dad.



I report all this on here today as it is June 10th. Dad turns 70 years old today, and I wish I were home to first hug him and then go riding in the country with him this afternoon. I'm so grateful he's still here (and he'd better stay on earth for many more years to come). I got lucky in life and somehow pulled the long straw when it comes to my parents. I don't think I tell them enough, but really, I'd never trade them for another pair. So, Dad, I know you're going to read this - Happy Birthday, young man! - now, get out there on your bike and kick 70 in the ass!