I spent the weekend down in south Louisiana, celebrating my father's 75th birthday. It was a great time. I sat down with Daddy in the back garden with my Flip camera, and interviewed him about the things he'd seen and done in his life, which began in 1934. It went well, but we filled the camera up without any means of downloading the files, so I have to finish the interview when I go back around Christmas. I tell you, I can't get enough of these stories. Daddy talked about how hard times were during the Great Depression, and how he and his brother got to be crack shots hunting squirrels with their Benjamin Pump BB guns, because if they weren't, the family would go without meat. He said that folks in the cities had it much harder than country people, because city people couldn't hunt or, in many cases, grow their own food. Years later, when he joined the military, he said the country kids usually qualified the first day as marksmen, because they'd all come through the Depression as hunters.
One thing that helped his family and neighbors get along is that they didn't know how poor they were; they thought this was just how life was. He talked about the war, and how everybody stayed close to the radio during the war, because it was their only lifeline to what was happening on the front. He also talked about how growing up in the country taught one resourcefulness, and made one strong. When he was 12 years old, he could hoist a 100-lb. sack of feed on one shoulder; when he was 14, he could hoist one on each shoulder at the same time. He said when he was 12, he had his own bank account, and was raising crops and livestock after school. I've never known anyone more self-reliant than my father, who has no patience for people who won't work. He was the first one in his family to finish college, but to this day disdains and distrusts educated people who shirk physical labor. Unsurprisingly, he worries a lot about what would happen to the country if we had another Depression ... and he worries that we're headed back to those times.
Anyway, it was a great and illuminating weekend, full of stories bringing to mind this column I wrote about him for the Wall Street Journal a few years back, when I was living in New York, and the birth of my first son caused me to reflect on manliness and the world that shaped my father. My mother took the photo below of us just before we started the interview; she snapped it with my iPhone, using the Toy Camera app, which I highly recommend.
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No, Rod -- your mother *is* a great photographer; the iPhone didn't get those smiles out of you and your father; you mother did.
The reason I'll fight the left until my dying breath is that the left wants to make a world without any more people like your parents -- or my parents -- and that's a world in which I'd rather not live.
Even if all I do is *inconvenience* the left on its way toward getting the world it wants, a world without any more people like your parents or mine, then that alone would be a reason why my life was worth having lived -- though, of course, there are others, not the least of them being people like your parents and mine.
Rod, that WSJ column made me weep. My dad died in 2000, on Leap Day.
He grew up in western North Dakota on a cattle farm. Because of that, they never wanted for meat, but he ran a trap line to bring in money. I occasionally tell my kids stories about how they'd eat pretty much everything that came wrapped in a cow's or a pig's hide: heart, liver, brains, tripe. "Eeeewww!"
Thanks for explaining about the photo, very endearing. That you both are laughing at your Mom's efforts to use the iPhone is evident in the very natural (unposed) expressions on your faces!
I've talked to a number of people about the value of getting older people to share their memories, either in formal, recorded oral history interviews or otherwise. As you note in your WSJ piece, some of them, such as your Dad, have valuable knowledge of a world "that has largely gone." Some will find it easier to talk than others (survivors of World War II and especially the Holocaust come to mind.)
Especially if you're trying to draw out a relative, someone you love, it's best to be considerate and to let the conversation flow at their comfort level. In old age, some people are looking for validation although in my experience, those who area, and not all are, won't admit that. Letting them share glimpses into their lives can be mutually beneficial -- you're so lucky that you're able to do that with your Dad still. May you be lucky enough to have your children treat you with the same kindness when you are old!
You wrote in your 2001 WSJ piece, while you still lived in NYC, that "it's impossible to imagine speaking of 'manliness' and 'virtue' in the world I inhabit now." Did you really feel that was the case?
Had you written that piece after 9/11, instead of before, you could have cited numerous examples of great physical courage and bravery by first-responders and by "citified" office workers, at the WTC and the Pentagon. I've read of commendable acts and sacrifices by men and women, who even with no training or preparation, showed great nobility that terrible day. There are many types of courage, physical as well as moral. America is as strong as it is because of people such as your Dad who lived in rural areas and worked with their hands but also those who lived in cities and made their livings with their minds.
Even now, not all of the latter would use air quotes in talking about manliness and virtue. Indeed, strength of character knows no gender or geographic boundaries. I have lived in cities all my life and my friends and I are not embarrassed by strength. Character will shine through, wherever someone dwells and how they support themselves and their family.
May you and your family enjoy precious moments eith your parents for years to come.
You are fortunate, Rod, to be able to enjoy having your father around at that age. Enjoy every minute of it, and make time for him while you still have it. That goes for all of you!
Rod,
Interesting to note that you wrote this article just a few months before 9/11. My son was 25 months old at the time. Little did we suspect in those halcyon days of fatherhood how dramatically life would forever change by summers end.
"More important, it troubles me that Matthew won't have Pawpaw as an example. As a new father, I am grasping for a way to articulate manly virtue for my boy in a way that doesn't feel phony."
I guess by now you've figured it out. It's less what we say and more what we do, being true to ourselves, our faith, and manifesting virtue for our children to emulate. Isn't that what your dad did for you?
You're blessed to have such a father. Your children are equally blessed with you as their father. A 'soft' man with a spine of steel.
God Bless
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