Dad and Me…

Donald Noel Howard Senior

When he passed it seemed sudden even though the doctor said that his cancer had spread, and he had less than a year left to live. We expected he would have at least six months but during the last visit he looked so very sad. While he didn’t say it, I could tell he was despondent. When I hugged him for the last time he had tears in his eyes. This from a man who rarely showed much emotion in his 74 years of living.

He used to dabble around with his woodworking tools in the garage during the day and then sit in his LazyBoy and read books with a cold beer or a Manhattan on the side table. He gradually became too weak to move around much and the radiation treatments affected his ability to concentrate, making reading impossible. Even watching television was difficult.

The call came in from my stepmother that he was gone. I asked when he had passed, and she said she took him to the hospital yesterday morning and he died that night. She was having him cremated. She was planning a service for the following week, and she would let us know the details soon. I was sorry I wasn’t there when he passed.

The family convened in Bradenton for the funeral service at the Presbyterian Church that my father attended for the past few years of his life. He had never been a religious man until later in his retirement years, but I believe he found comfort in the fellowship among the members.

Using his assembly line skills, he formed a church group of retired men who made toys for poor children. He designed the toys himself, then collected wood scraps from around town. He would cut out the parts in his garage using templates then bring them to the church where the ‘toymakers’ would assemble them and apply paint. They called themselves the Kirkwood Toymakers.

As the oldest boy in the family, I was asked to give his eulogy. It was a hard task for me. When someone dies the mourners come together to celebrate that person’s life. The friends and loved ones gather to express sorrow at the loss and remember all of the smiles and good times.

I didn’t have that many great memories to draw from so I spoke about his sense of humor, including a few of his favorite ‘Dad’ jokes. I mentioned his other personality traits both good and bad. It was hard for me to get through it, and I broke down two or three times. I hated losing my father but there were so many issues left hanging regarding my childhood and early adult relationship with him.

My earliest memories are of a dark and dingy house that our small family of five lived in for a while on Buxton Street in Granite City, Illinois. My parents met in New Orleans sometime around 1948. Mother was from an upper middle-class Catholic family and Dad was a Merchant Marine that shipped out to Central and South America from the Port of New Orleans. After marrying and beginning their lives together the first pregnancy ended in the stillbirth of a son. A year later my older sister was born healthy, and I followed after another two years.

The family was uprooted at my father’s insistence and moved north to be closer to his parents and four siblings in Madison, Illinois. He found work in the A.O. Smith factory and began expanding his family with the birth of a second daughter. Over time a third daughter arrived, and the family outgrew the little house. Across the Mississippi river, in a small town named Florissant, my father purchased a newly built three-bedroom home for $14,000.

Dad was a hard worker. I have vague memories of him working different shifts at the plant while Mother stayed home with the kids. On summer weekends Dad would work in the yard, mowing and trimming until the sun got too hot. Then he would sit in the carport drinking beer and listen to St. Louis Cardinals baseball games on the radio.

Mother kept house though she wasn’t much of a housekeeper. She would also cook simpler meals because she wasn’t much of a cook either. I remember Dad complaining quite a bit about her homemaker skills, or the lack thereof. There were arguments.

Dad had three brothers and one sister. His two younger brothers were officers in the Air Force. One flew the F-15 Fighter jets and the other flew refueling planes. They were stationed at faraway places and had begun families of their own. Everyone looked up to them and respected their patriotic service to our country. The older brother owned a small construction company and built tract homes. They had four children of their own all around the same ages as our brood.

On weekends we visited our aunt and uncle across the river in Granite City.  On a fairly regular basis we would load up in the 1955 Pontiac and make the 30-minute trip across the Mississippi over the Chain of Rocks Bridge. (That was one strange bridge. It didn’t run straight across the river. Instead, it had a sharp curve in the middle that required all vehicles to reduce speed to a crawl).

My dad had an uncle who was just a few years older and also lived with his family in Granite City. They too, had children about our age and when we all got together it was quite a gathering. The men would drink beer and ‘shoot the shit’ during the day while the women would sit in the kitchen drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. There would be a barbeque which usually included hot dogs and burgers for the kids and pork steaks cooked until they were like shoe leather for the adults. In the evening, after dinner the adults would play poker and drink more beer while the kids fended for themselves inside or outside the house. I remember catching fireflies and putting them in glass jars. We were amazed that crushing their tails between your fingers left the same shiny residue that stayed lit for a long time. We loved chasing our sisters and female cousins, threatening to wipe it on them and making them scream and complain to our parents.  

It was a long drive home after those all-day family outings. Sometimes my Mother had to drive since Dad had had his limit on cans of Stag beer.

Another girl was born, followed by a second son. At some point my Dad took a job at the Ford plant in Hazlewood, much closer to home and no longer had to drive across the river every day.

His lawn was looking good. He planted a mimosa tree in our side yard for my mother because she had had one at her house in New Orleans and it reminded her of home. He planted a peach tree in the front yard because she loved peaches.

We got a Toy Fox Terrier, and we named her Dixie in honor of Mother’s southern roots. No one ever took care of the dog or potty trained it, so we lived with the smell of dog urine in the house until my dad got fed up and relegated it to a doghouse that he built the fenced in back yard in. He even installed a makeshift heater made with a light bulb in a tin coffee can covered by insulation so Dixie could spend her cold winters in her house instead of our house. He never liked that dog.

Mother was the one who showed us that we were loved. Dad seemed aloof, distant and indifferent. I’m sure he loved us in his own way, but I don’t remember him ever holding us, hugging us or giving us more than a pat on the head.

I was a Cub Scout, but Dad didn’t participate with me like other dads did. He worked a lot and had other things to do when he wasn’t working. I do remember only one time when he took me to see the annual Boy Scout Pinewood Derby. I must have been about eight years old, and I was excited to watch all of the proud little boys and their fathers set their hand-built cars at the top of a ramp and see them speed down the track to the delight of all of the spectators. I told my Dad I wanted to do it and he bought me a kit. The kit was put on a shelf and sat there for a year. I forgot about it until the day of the next Pinewood Derby. I pulled the kit off the shelf and opened the box to find all of the parts I would need to build the car. Dad was at work. I remember getting a sharp knife and trying to carve the block of raw wood with tears running down my face. The parts went back into the box and the box was left on the table in the carport. I never got to participate in the Pinewood Derby. My dad never said a word about it when he found the box of parts and wood shavings that I left on the table.

I got a few merit badges while a Cub Scout but never became a Boy Scout. My heart wasn’t in it.

I’ve previously mentioned my father’s drinking. When he would drink, he would sometimes be playful but not always in a good way. I remember one Sunday afternoon on or about the 4th of July when he was throwing firecrackers into the side yard from the carport. At one point he thought it funny to light a whole pack and toss it under my feet making me dance and run away quickly. Funny stuff.

Another time after a night of drinking we played hide and seek with him in the totally darkened house. He had a lit cigarette in his mouth and would take a drag allowing us to see him as he moved around the house looking for us. We laughed and squealed as he would catch us and it was all in good fun until I said loudly, “You’re drunk.”  I guess that wasn’t funny and he said, “What did you say?” I said it again and he began spanking me as my older sister looked on. We never played that game again.

I played Little League baseball, but I went to practice and to the games with other players’ parents. I played third base, and I was pretty good. Our team went to the playoffs one year. I can’t remember either of my parents coming to any of my games…even the playoffs.

My father took me fishing once before my younger brothers were born. We drove down to Round Spring, Missouri where his Great Uncle had a country store and a canoe rental. We did a float trip down the Current River. The water was clear and cold, and I loved it. We stayed at my uncle’s house and the following morning we went down to the river to fish. Nothing was biting for a long time for either of us. My dad told me that I wasn’t holding my mouth right, so I made a conscious effort to change that. Soon I caught my first fish…a small Sunfish. I loved it. But we never went fishing again.

During one visit with the relatives in Granite City the brothers and uncle decided to go rabbit hunting in the corn fields. My brother and I were invited to come along. The adults had shotguns. My brother had a BB gun, and I had a pellet gun. Our job was to flush the rabbits out of the corn fields into the open area where they would be massacred with shotgun pellets. I remember thinking how unfair it was for those poor rabbits.

I guess the grownups got five or six of those little suckers and we went back to the house where my uncle tied them up on a clothesline one-by-one, skinned them and gutted them with the children looking on in horror.

Then it was time to cook them up for dinner. I remember picking shotgun pellets out of my piece of rabbit. And it did taste a little like chicken.

But luckily, we never went hunting again.

In grade school a boy named Dennis Beck was a bully. He was taller than most boys his age and he used that advantage to dominate others on the playground during recess. He picked on me continually as I was one of the smaller ones. I had never had a fight and like all of the other boys, just took the abuse.

One day after school I told my dad about Dennis and asked him what I should do about it. He said not to let him pick on me…to stand up to him. I told him that I would get beat up. He said that at least I would have stood up to him. I wasn’t sure that was good advice. I thought he might help me by reporting it to the school. He might have taught me how to fight. But maybe he didn’t know how to fight himself. I never asked him if he had ever been in a fight before. He wasn’t athletic at all. He didn’t participate in sports or work out to stay in shape.

I went back to school ready to get my ass kicked the next time Dennis and I had a face-off. I resigned myself to holding my ground, but it never happened. Dennis never bullied me again. In fact, he disappeared for a while. Apparently, he was in a terrible car accident and almost died. When he returned to school, he looked different. His head was misshapen, and he was much quieter. While I guess I should have been happy that my dad gave me some advice I always felt a little let down by how it was delivered and the degree to which he showed that he cared.

Mother was supposedly a good Catholic, and we all went to Our Lady of Fatima grade school. On Sunday mornings Mother would get the older children dressed and send us off to church, without her accompaniment since Dad was too tired and not religious, and someone had to take care of the smaller children.

A third son was born into the family and then there were seven kids and two adults in the small three bedroom, two bath rambler. Dad made a decent living as the Paint Department Supervisor on the assembly line and Mother continued to manage the household poorly. I’m sure the private school tuition for three children was a stretch for my father but Mother wouldn’t have it any other way.

Mother liked to dabble in the garden during the summer and loved purple and black pansies. As we played in the yard one Sunday afternoon she was crouched over her garden, planting some fresh new arrivals and she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Standing quickly, she went into the house and told my father about the severe pain and her light-headedness. He asked a neighbor to watch the kids and took her to the Emergency Room. They were gone all evening, and we all went to bed. My dad came home from the hospital late without Mother, and he too went to bed.

I remember our phone ringing in the middle of the night. Dad dressed quickly and called a neighbor to help with the kids and get us off to school that Monday morning.

Sister Francine, the principal of the school walked into my classroom that morning with a somber look on her face and whispered something to my teacher, Sister Mary Vincent. She came to my desk and asked me to come with her. We went to the office and my older sister was already there. Soon my younger sister arrived, and we were told that my mother had died.

We were hustled off to a neighbor’s house to be with the other children. This neighbor had ten children of her own, so it was a tight fit for the seventeen kids over the next few days.

Mother’s sudden death left a void in all of our lives. Where there had been a mother’s love, care, and daily affirmation there was only emptiness. My father swore to keep the family together instead of splitting the children up and sending them off to willing relatives to be raised. In fact, an uncle from New Orleans approached the father and pleaded with him to let the youngest child come live with his family since they already had two young children in the home. But the father was adamant that he could handle it on his own.

My older sister was fourteen at the time and was ill-equipped to assume motherly duties after the sudden death. When Dad went to work, he gave only basic directions about how to manage the day around the house without adult supervision.

Within a few months it became obvious that the father needed help in keeping house and raising the family. A relative from Granite City, across the Mississippi River knew of a young twenty-something female immigrant from Holland named Vera who needed a job. They met and after a short interview Vera was hired to watch the kids and do light housework while the father was at work.

With the older kids at school during the week only the four younger ones needed Vera’s attention. The father supplied Vera everything she said she needed which included cigarettes and ‘pils’, which we learned meant beer in the Dutch language. No one was really sure how much attention was paid to the youngsters during the day, but from the condition of the house when school let out and the father came home from work it appeared that Vera wasn’t much of a housekeeper. And when the older kids got home from school, she would send one of them out to the Quick Shop half a mile away if her cigarettes ran low. Dad kept plenty of pils in the refrigerator.

But young Vera was quite attractive in her high heels, tight halter tops, and short shorts. And the father was recently single. Vera lasted for a few months until the father’s prurient interests led to an overnight stay culminating in the older kids finding them partially naked in bed one Sunday morning.

Following Vera was a succession of more matronly housekeepers ending when the father settled on Mrs. Korte who lived only a few blocks away and had older children of her own.

During one unsupervised summer at about age fourteen I disregarded my father’s instructions and stayed out at a friend’s house all day when I was supposed to be at home. I was just discovering girls and was enamored by the prospect of getting my first kiss. It was this indiscretion that brought on my what I thought was my dad’s most severe cruelty. Long hair was becoming popularized by the hippie movement and my hair was growing. He sat me down on a stool with a towel over my shoulders and using barber’s sheers, shaved my head down to the nubs. That was a message that I never forgot and a punishment that he used several times on me and my brothers as we grew up when we disobeyed.

Dad was introduced to a junior high school gym teacher from Granite City who was divorced and had one child of her own. They began a short courtship and found they had a lot in common. Both were hard-working, organized, and disciplined; attributes that would certainly come in handy in dealing with a blended brood of youngsters. Within a short time, they decided to marry, and announced their decision to the family. Then our lives changed again completely.

The family of eight kids and two adults needed more space than the little three-bedroom rancher offered so the father and his new wife found a larger home with a fully finished basement a few miles away.

Our new stepmother had her own dog, Fritz, the Dachshund. Fritz got to live with us in the new house. Dixie went to the farm. We never knew where the farm was, but we hoped it was a nice place. To this day dachshunds are my least favorite dog breed.

After the move a new discipline descended upon household. The stepmother used her gym teacher skills to whip her small class into shape, calling them to dinner with the whistle she used at the Junior High School where she worked.

My parents established a merit/demerit system for doling out meager allowances. I remember that we had family dinner together many times at a table in the kitchen. On the wall just behind the table was the merit/demerit board that my Dad had fashioned in his workshop. Each of us had a column and at the bottom of the column there were two nails with their sharp ends pointing outward. One was labelled Merits. The other was labelled Demerits and as the week progressed my stepmother would affix little chits on the nails. Merits were worth five cents and demerits were valued at ten cents. If you did your chores successfully and on time you got a merit worth a nickel. I you failed to get them done or didn’t do them satisfactorily you would get dinged and lose a dime. My older sister and I rebelled and rarely got a payout, but the younger ones fell into line quickly.

My Dad always sat at the head of the table and had me sit to his left in front of the merit/demerit board. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I did have what he referred to as a ‘smart mouth’ and there were times when the threat of a backhand might shut me up. (My stepmother liked to say that I had ‘diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain’). Once I saw the backhand coming and quickly pulled back only to impale the back of my head on one of the nails. Luckily the nails were small, and the injury was minor. Lesson learned.

At one point while I was in junior high school my stepbrother and I decided to run away from home. We had about twenty dollars between us, and we grabbed two sleeping bags one afternoon and went to the playground of the local grade school. We were formulating a plan to steal a boat and float down the Mississippi river to New Orleans. A younger sister who had followed us to the playground overhead our plan and reported back to our parents, but no one ever came to get us that night. We slept on the playground in a large concrete culvert; the kind that kids used to climb on. The next morning, we were greeted by an officer from the Florissant Police Department who took us to the station.

The police sergeant at the station read us the riot act and called Dad, who came to the station to pick us up. There was no conversation during the ride home and we were immediately sent to the unfinished side of the basement where the laundry was done. Then we were locked in. He told us that if we needed to go pee to do it in the drain and run cold water into the drain to clear it. If we needed to poop we were to knock on the door and someone would escort us to the bathroom and back. Meals were put on paper plates and set at the top of the stairs. There was nothing to occupy us. We were there for three days and were finally released with the admission of wrongdoing and a promise not to do it again.

I’ll not delve into our Catholic school experience except to say that once I was given the choice of staying in a private school or going to public school, I chose the latter and never looked back. Dad gave me that choice just before I went into 8th grade and I think he was relieved that he would no longer have to pay tuition, especially since my older sister was now going to St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic High School.

In the summer of my fifteenth year Dad said I needed to get a job to learn about the value of hard work and to make my own money. A neighbor across the street had a friend who ran a low-end restaurant called Buckaroo Steakhouse. There was no interview necessary, and I was hired sight unseen.  

For my first shift after school, I got a ride to and from the restaurant. After that I needed to hitchhike to and from work. I worked four nights a week from 5:00 to 10:30 pm, for $1.00 per hour. From that point forward I paid for my own cloths and expenses and didn’t have to rely on my parents for support other than to have a roof over my head.

I was trained as a broiler cook by an old Navy cook named Eddie. He had Navy tattoos on both forearms, no front teeth and reminded me of Popeye the Sailor Man. Eddie told me which steaks to put on the grill. Top Sirloin. New York Strip. T-Bone. Filet. My job was to get ‘em on the fire and then flip them over when they were ready. Eddie would take it from there. At the end of that first shift all of the little blond hairs on my arm were singed off but that didn’t matter. I loved it.

My career in hospitality had now begun though I didn’t know it at the time. From this point forward I had a job continuously. In school I never participated in any of the normal student extracurricular activities that most kids valued. No football games, no basketball games, no school dances, no prom night. I worked. Thanks Dad!

Hitchhiking was pretty common back in those days and that’s how I got around until one day as I walked by Florissant Honda I stopped and eyed my first motorcycle: a Honda Super 90. I had turned sixteen and got my driver’s license after flunking the test the first time out. I convinced my dad to come back to the dealer with me and take a look at the bike. He did and we discussed how I was going to pay for it.

Dad said that his father had always told him never to do business with relatives. The price of the bike was $350.00, and I told him I had about $50 saved up but that I would pay him back over time if he would loan me the rest of the money. Grudgingly he agreed and we shook hands on the deal which included 5% interest. I don’t remember how long it took me to pay him back, but he got his money, including the additional $15.00 interest. And I no longer had to hitchhike to work.

As a young teenager I had a few friends from school who I hung out with, but it was a rare occurrence that they ever came over to our house. My parents had a reputation for being unusually strict compared to other parents. I suppose the convict-like crew cuts had something to do with it. I remember one time I did have a male friend with long blond hair come over to play pool in the basement. Dad got home from work and walked down the steps to find us with cues in hand. I introduced my friend and Dad asked, “Whose little girl are you?” He said his name and Dad laughed at his expense. I was embarrassed. I don’t remember the friend ever coming back to the house again.

My parents controlled everything by design. There were strict rules to be followed to the letter. There was no television without permission and permission was rarely granted during the week. If my parents left the house on a weekday evening my dad would always feel the top of the TV when he returned. In those days TVs had tubes and if it was warm, he knew we had been watching TV without permission. To combat this blatant violation of the rules he took drastic action. He cut off the plug from the end of the power cord and spliced in a socket. So, the only way the device could be plugged in was to have a small power cord that had a plug on each end with a switch in the middle. He kept this ‘plug’ in the top draw with his underwear and socks and the door to the bedroom was locked whenever our parents left for the evening.

That worked to control us for a long time until my stepbrother and I figured out how to make our own plug. Eventually we got caught using our own device when we failed to notice their return home one evening in time to turn off the TV and let the set cool down. Dad felt the top of the TV and knew that we had figured out how to circumvent his authority. Our punishment was jail in the basement again followed by grounding.

After her high school graduation my older sister was saved from the Florissant family turmoil by my grandparents. Mother’s parents who offered her an opportunity to move to New Orleans, live with them and they would pay for her to attend Loyola University. That worked well for everyone…everyone except maybe…me. I always wondered why she was the one plucked out and transplanted to a better world 750 miles away. But it wasn’t her fault.

I wasn’t really suffering in silence though. I worked a lot; almost what could be considered full time. I acted out a bit with my buddies while away from home, but it was just stupid teenager stuff. Nobody got hurt. Nobody went to jail, and best of all, the parents didn’t know about it.

Things came to a head one night when I got into an argument with my dad. I don’t remember what the argument was about, but I do remember him hitting me in the side of my face with his closed fist. It was a glancing blow, but I was knocked backward, more shocked than hurt. I stood my ground, and I told him that if he ever hit me like that again I would hit him back and I would knock him down. He backed off and we continued to argue until there was an impasse.

Life went on in a tense sort of way until one summer afternoon when I was riding my motorcycle with a friend on the back, and I got pulled over for speeding. The cop had me on radar doing 35 in a 25 on a residential street. I got my first ticket and went about my business.

Later that same day I had another friend on the back of the bike, just tooling down the road toward a local park when I got pulled over by the same cop. It was radar again, this time on a different street but in the same general neighborhood. He thought it was funny and gave me my second ticket for speeding…35 in a 25.

I was told to inform my parents and have one of them accompany me to court at some date in the not-so-distant future. Once informed my dad was livid. Two tickets in one day…by the same cop…in the same neighborhood? How could my son be so stupid?

He grounded me, took away the key to the motorcycle and told me to hitchhike if I needed to get somewhere. Then he took a heavy chain and a padlock and chained the motorcycle to a pole on the back porch.

We went to court and the judge showed no mercy. He took away my driver’s license for thirty days and warned me to adhere to the speeding limit. There was no further conversation about the incident, and I was back on the side of the road with my thumb out to get to and from work. But I was seething inside. I hated the lack of control. I wanted the freedom to do what I wanted to do.

Over the next few weeks, I decided that I would leave home as soon as I got my license back. I had been to New Orleans on a vacation earlier that summer. My older sister had found a place with my grandparents in New Orleans, and I was sure that they would take me in too.

It was now late summer and with a few weeks left before my senior year would begin when the thirty-day suspension was completed. I hitchhiked to the courthouse and retrieved my license, then I went home and sneaked into my parents’ bedroom. The key to the motorcycle and the padlock were together on a ring in Dad’s underwear drawer (Next to the TV plug). I removed them then waited until the following morning to ride away from home.

I took a few things with me…the important things like jeans, T-shirts, socks, underwear and my albums. I wasn’t leaving Black Sabbath or the Doors behind. It was all packed in the ends of an army duffle bag that was draped over the back of the bike.

I hadn’t told anyone that I was leaving. I didn’t leave a note. I just got on the bike and started the 750 miles trip on a bike with a top speed of about 50 miles per hour. I was free and began tooling down the highway like Peter Fonda from the popular movie Easy Rider (though I was on a Honda 90, not a Harley).

When I slipped into the backdraft of an 18-wheeler, I could reach speeds of 70 for about a quarter mile. I slept under a picnic table at a rest stop somewhere in northern Mississippi and continued my trip early the next morning, finishing the 22-hour journey mid-day.

I arrived at my grandparents’ house thinking that I would be welcomed with open arms but that’s not what happened. They were surprised to see me and a little shocked that I was putting them in a difficult position. I asked to stay with them, and they said that it wouldn’t work because my aunt, uncle and their four kids lived with them and my sister lived in the basement. They called my father, but I wasn’t in on the call so I’m not sure how it went. They said I could stay on the hide-a-bed in the sitting room for the time being until everything could be sorted out with my dad. The following day I was told of a solution that would satisfy everyone.

My mother had a best friend in college who was married but never had any children of their own. They lived in a small house off Canal Boulevard and had offered to take me in and let me stay in their spare bedroom. They weren’t asking for anything but wanted me to abide by a few rules and finish high school. I didn’t have much choice, so I agreed and moved in with them. I did not speak with my dad, so I assumed that he had agreed to all this and didn’t want me to come back home.

The woman somehow got me registered at a inner city public high school that was 95% black, 3% Hispanic and 2% white. There were lots of life lessons to learn during the next three and a half months in a public school in New Orleans.

At seventeen with some work experience, I found a job as a broiler cook at a Bonanza Sirloin Pit. I discovered a social life through a cousin who was involved in a high school fraternity. We smoked a little dope and drank a little booze in a city that needed no excuse to have a party.

But I got a little homesick as Christmas approached and I called my dad. He seemed amenable to having me come home as long as I understood and obeyed the rules of the household. I agreed, said goodbye to the people who had taken me in, and came home.

It was winter now and the second semester of my senior year was beginning. I also found a job as the Head Broiler Cook at a new Mr. Steak Restaurant close to home. Things were going well at home. I moved back in and continued sharing the basement bedroom with my stepbrother. Just like I’d never left.

I had a little cash and bought a 1957 Chevy station wagon that had a good engine but needed body work. After a few weeks I got promoted to salaried Restaurant Assistant Manager and got a sizable raise.

I celebrated my newfound success by going out to JC Penny and buying an 18-inch black and white TV and bringing it home to set up in my bedroom. That was a mistake. By doing so I had usurped my father’s authority. The other kids’ access to TV was restricted and if I had a TV set of my own, they would see that I was getting special treatment.

But there was no ultimatum that either the TV had to go, or I had to go. I just had to go. I didn’t argue. If he wanted me gone, I was gone. But it was winter in Missouri, and I had no place to go. With the temperature hovering around freezing, I packed up my things and moved into the Chevy. Unfortunately the TV did not work in the Chevy.

It wasn’t so bad except when the temperature dipped below freezing in the middle of the night. Then I would have to start the car and run the engine until it was warm enough to go back to sleep. That would occur at least three times a night.

I still had high school in the morning, and we were on split shift with the early sessions starting at 7:00 am. I wouldn’t get to take a shower, but I could take a birdbath in a gas station restroom before classes began. Then I would go to work after school. If I had gym that day I could shower. This went on for about three weeks. During that time, I had no contact with the family.

It was mid-February now and the parents of a good friend heard about my situation and offered to let me stay at their house until graduation in June. Their only requirement was that I had to follow the same rules that their sons had to follow. I agreed. I moved in and followed the rules. I’m not sure if my dad ever spoke to the parents that took me into their house. I never asked. I never spoke to my dad about kicking me out of the house in the dead of winter, but I did hold it against him for several years.

After graduating high school, I found a roommate and moved into an apartment. I lost my job but found another one quickly with the same chain. The Viet Nam war was still hot in 1971 and I was number 75 in the draft. I thought I’d be drafted so at the end of the summer I decided to join the army. That way I could pick my own job. Then I backed out just before I signed the three-year contract and I decided to go to junior college instead.

I broke down and called my dad to ask him if he’d help me pay for the tuition. It wasn’t expensive at the time, and I thought he’d want to give me a hand after what he did to me in January. He was not contrite or apologetic, as I thought he should be. But I wasn’t either. And he certainly wasn’t going to help me with school.

I enrolled at Florissant Valley Community College for the fall semester taking three courses. Halfway through the semester I changed my mind about the army and enlisted. I had no further contact with my dad directly but let the family know, through my sister, that I would be leaving for boot camp in January.

During my three years of army service, I came back to Florissant for Christmas each year. I called and spoke to my dad, asking if I could stay there for the holidays and he said ‘yes.’ I would arrive, have pleasantries with the family and then go off to hang out with my friends. There wasn’t much conversation with Dad about what my life was like or how I was doing. We did not write letters to each other. In fact, I didn’t write letters to anyone in my family during my three years away.

It was Christmas of 1974 when I returned. I called and asked Dad if I could stay at the house for a while after I got home and he said ‘yes’, but that I’d have to find a place to stay within a few weeks. He also told me to get a job as soon as possible because, in his opinion, I shouldn’t accept help from the government by collecting unemployment. I did sign up for unemployment because I swore I’d never work in a restaurant again and I wanted to take time and look at other options.

I had been an MP in the army, but I knew that police work wasn’t for me so without any other skills I was unsure of what to do. Two unemployment checks later I took a job in a new restaurant as a waiter. I found a roommate and moved out to be on my own for what would be the rest of my life.

After getting married for the first time and moving to New Orleans I struggled with a decision. I had enrolled in college at the University of New Orleans taking Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism classes. I was also working as a waiter at the New Orleans Hilton. Management was impressed with me after a made few suggestions regarding efficiency of service and they asked me to take a job as an assistant manager. I said ‘no’ because I was going to school. They asked me again a month later and I said ‘no’ again. The third time they asked me I called my dad for advice.

Dad had not gone to college, but I was sure he knew the value of a college education. We talked for about ten minutes, with me doing most of the talking. I told him I didn’t know what to do. I was three years older than other young people starting college because of my three years away in the army. But this was a good opportunity even though initially I’d be making less than I was making as a waiter. He was quiet for most of the call. I asked for his advice. What should I do? His best advice was to “do what you think is best.”

Well, I guess that was good advice. I finished the semester and took the job working 90 hours a week, making $9,600.00 a year. I never went back to school. Never got a degree.  But I did begin a moderately successful career in hospitality management. Less than half of all hotel managers had degrees back then. I never asked my dad for advice after that. I always followed my gut and did what I thought was best. I always wondered whether I would have gone farther in my career if I had finished college. Woulda, shoulda, coulda…

My father and I had a cordial but distant relationship for most of my young adult life until I was in my mid-thirties. We gave each other gifts at Christmas, and I sent birthday cards and Father’s Day cards, but we never talked on the phone.

I don’t recollect my father every telling me that he was proud of me or that he loved me until much later in life.

In 1989 my dad wrote me a letter in response to a letter I sent him. This was the very first time I ever received a letter from him. In my letter to him I opened up about my difficulty with relationships, and problems with alcohol and drugs. I questioned why our family ties are not stronger and that we have never been close emotionally. He wrote that, in retrospect, he made a lot of mistakes as we grew up and he could have done better. But, he said, that he always did what he thought was best and what was right, in his mind, and never compromised his principles. He said he raised his kids the way he had been raised. That was the only way he knew how to do it. We grew up. We were all independent and on our own and that was the way it was supposed to be. He was always there to help but only gave advice when asked.

Lastly, he said he had given my letter a lot of thought and had shed a lot of tears before answering it. I believe our letters became a watershed moment for him. From that time forward he and I had a better relationship. But I still don’t remember his ever calling me on the phone just to talk and see how I was doing. And even the birth of my daughter in 1993 didn’t spur him to try to have closer ties.

Writing this story has opened my eyes to the following:

My father was not a bad father, but he could have been a better father if he realized the effect that his parenting had on his children earlier in his life.

I was not a bad son, but I could have been a better son if I had been a little less self-centered and more thoughtful about the importance of family ties earlier in my life.

I am not my father.

It is what it is, not what we might wish it was.

EULOGY - Donald Noel Howard

On behalf of my mother and my brothers and sisters I’d like to thank you all for being with us to celebrate the life of Donald Noel Howard.

My Dad was a very UNIQUE individual.

That reminds me of one of his favorite jokes…

Do you know how to catch a UNIQUE rabbit?

U Neek up on It. 

Do you know how do you catch a TAME rabbit?

TAME WAY, Tupid.

Another favorite of his was…

Do you know how to make a convertible top?

You tep on da bwake, Tupid.

When we were young, he used to tell us

“You’re all full of hot air and pickle juice”.

And “I’m gonna jerk a knot in your tail”

and “Go tell your mother she wants you.”

When we dawdled, he’d say,

“You’re not very good, but you sure are slow.”

or

“Grandma was slow, but she was old.”  Sorry Grandma…nothing personal.

 We’d say, “Where ya going, Dad?”

…and he’d say,

“Goin round the corner in a row boat, both oars leakin’, ta see a man about a horse.” 

Who knew what that meant or why he said it?

As we were growing up, we heard some of these ‘groaners’ almost daily.  And after we grew up, we heard some of these ‘groaners’ on almost every visit.

Most of Dad’s kids have his sense of humor, though some of us like to think ours is a little more cerebral.

When we called to say HI we would invariably get Mom first, then have the phone turned over to Dad.  The stock response to our query “What have you been doing” was always “I do as I damn well please, when your mother’s not around.”

Don Howard was a lot of things…

• Son

• Father

• Grandfather

• Husband

• Brother

• Uncle

• Cousin

• Nephew

• Supervisor

• Curmudgeon

• Perfectionist

• Uncomplicated

• Direct

• Opinionated

• Intolerant

• Under-Appreciated Comedian

Dad was also…

• Hush Puppy Shoes

• Ford Cars and Trucks

• Ballentine, Stag or Miller Genuine Draft

• Cheap Burgundy Wine on Ice

• Liberace

• The Republican Party

• The Elks Lodge

• The Cabin at Linklater Lake

• The Workshop in the Garage

• The Kirkwood Toymakers

Dad loved his kids - and his grandchildren.  He was sometimes hard on us and on them.  To some he could be a little scary… Grace, my daughter, was always afraid he would stick his dentures out of his mouth and try to kiss her. 

He made us laugh and sometimes he made us cry.  But we know he loved his kids, even though he didn’t say it often.

Dad loved Mom.  How could he help it.  If she was Catholic, she’d be canonized St. Mary Lou.  Why would anyone with an ounce of sanity take on 7 additional kids, aged 13 down to 2.  They took care of each other, but I think Dad got the best end of the deal.  Mom was by his side through the last agonizing months until the moment he died.  June 25th would have been their 35th wedding anniversary. 

35 years of “how do you catch a unique rabbit…?”  Dad loved Mom. 

We gave her fits when we were teenagers.  Sorry Mom.  We all love you too.  Thanks for loving us back.

I’ve never been prouder of my father than I was a few months ago when we visited this church and my father was honored, along with the other Kirkwood Toymakers.  Dad was a perfectionist in everything.  This perfectionism showed in his devotion to the Toymakers and to the production of high-quality toys.  More than that, however, is that I believe that he just wanted to make fun toys for kids.  He loved his kids.

Don Howard leaves a legacy of these truths:

• Work hard and you’ll get ahead.

• Work smart and you’ll go farther.

• Children are to be seen and not heard.

• To catch fish, you gotta hold your mouth right.

• Keep red wine in the refrigerator – or put it over ice – it’s good for your heart.

• Never wear white socks with black shoes – although it looked good on him.

• And don’t ever wear dark socks with tennis shoes – which looked even better on him.

Cancer is a devastating disease.  It took my father.  It took his older brother Uncle Bill, and it took their father.  Each of us knows lots of people who have Cancer or have died of Cancer.  Dad smoked cigarettes and cigars most of his life.  The only people who would argue that his smoking did not directly contribute to his death would be tobacco company executives and fools. 

Even if they find a cure for Cancer tomorrow each of us should be wary of the causes of the disease.  If you smoke – stop.  If not for yourself – then stop for your family members who love you and want you to live forever.

We were all hoping Dad would win his battle with Cancer – But I guess he just wasn’t holding his mouth right.

Dad would be looking down on this service now wondering if it was “Miller Time” yet.  Pretty soon, Dad…

Let’s say a little prayer.

Dear God, thank you for giving us the opportunity to know and love my father, Donald Noel Howard.  Forgive him for his sins and welcome him into Heaven with open arms.  If you have a little extra space somewhere, can you set him up a little workshop?  He’s a really great toymaker – but I guess you already know that.  Watch over us now that he is gone.  Prepare a place for each of us so that we can be with him in heaven when our time comes to leave this earth.

Amen

We love you Dad - See you later.