Happy Birthday Daddy
I've known a few friends who weren't a daddy's girl, and that's okay. I loved both of my parents so much. Everything wasn't always perfect, but I knew I was loved. I had only one sibling, my brother Buddy. It was always just me and him. Buddy became closer to mama and I was closer to daddy. Nothing at all wrong with that.
I was always amazed at how my mom and my dad both worked before he became totally blind. But my Mom worked in a time when it wasn't cool for women to work. There were no daycare centers. Families took care of each other. Then, at times, we took care of ourselves and we helped around the house! She was an amazing woman.
But TODAY is my Dad's birthday and I need to acknowledge that he is a veteran!
I had to write a book about the bravery of my dad becoming blind after he received an Honorable discharge from the Army after service for 2 years, 6 months, and two days.
A true story about how I saw my dad suffer from gradually going blind and wanted no pity. He worked even after he became legally blind!
No one has the right to call any veteran a loser.
SO, Happy Birthday Daddy and I think you would be proud of the way I told your story as I remember it. Love you until after forever.
Lynn
My Dad. My heart. My hero!
Mother said to me “you were always a Daddy’s girl...
Your Daddy sounded like a wonderful, committed man...and a true Veteran...
How brave of him to still carry on working after he was legally blind...
The kindness and loyalty shines through from the photograph...
So I wish him a Happy Birthday in Heaven...
Love,
Diana...
I wish I knew the stories of my two uncles who came back suffering from PTSD that virtually ruined their lives later. One, after two families and a career as an alcoholic Chicago cabdriver, succumbed to emphysema in Phoenix for the air at a young age.
The second uncle came home a hero, but damaged one, who became a businessman who was failing and left his five children from two wives to run off with a barmaid with five children to a new identity in California, only to be discovered finally after he died with his paramore in Boise.
A third uncle joined the Army Air Corps in 1941 and left as a major in 1961. He never served overseas during World War II and wasn't exposed to combat. He and his wife lived a long life with their two daughters, a son and an adopted son. Unfortunately, the son flying a friend's experimental aircraft, crashed and died right in front of him. The adopted son recently stole $30,000 from them after taking care of them for a number of years.
My uncle died last week a few weeks short of 102. My aunt lives on at 96. I am unable to attend the funeral in Wisconsin, although he died here in Texas in College Station where his daughter brought them after the problem with their adopted son.
Ron
WWII was over on September 2, 1945. My dad was
home in 1943 and he was gradually losing his sight because
of that orange gas that burned the retina of his eyes. No one
ever found out what the gas was, but he got a non-service-connected pension for gradually losing his sight later.
That’s what they called it. To me, by giving him this
“pension” it had to be connected to the service, but the
Army said his blindness was caused by retinitis pigmentosa
which is hereditary. No one in our family was ever blind.
No one until today is blind. We knew it was the orange gas.
His brother who was drafted along with my dad
stayed in the Army and was eventually sent to Germany.
He was captured and held in a concentration camp for six
months until the war ended in 1945. When I was born, he
became my godfather. I never knew the story of how he
was captured, but I heard our family always saying, ‘if the
war hadn’t ended, would my uncle have made it out of that
camp alive’. Of course, no one could know that, but
everyone was back home.
It was 1944 when my dad met my mom. My dad
was from Lafayette, Louisiana. My mom lived in Mathews,
Louisiana, a distance of 110 miles apart. He left his family
in Lafayette and moved here to get work. I love the story of
how they met and got married.
My mom was 27 years old and still single. She
worked at the Georgia Sugar Refinery. Her three sisters all
worked there too. Her two brothers were home from the
Army, but they had not gone into any battle like my dad’s
brother. I didn’t like the service at all, but they went to fight
for this country. As I grew older, I understood.
Jobs were hard to find after the war. My dad had
one brother living here in Mathews. No one had a phone, so
he wrote him a letter telling him to come to the sugar
refinery. They were looking for workers. He needed glasses
and wasn’t totally blind. He answered the letter saying yes,
that he and his nephew would come down on a greyhound bus to work at the refinery. It was a decent job for little
money, but it was better than no money at all.
Both sides of my family were considered poor, but
they knew how to live off of the land. My maternal
grandma made sure that everyone stayed clean and had
food to eat. They raised chickens, which produced eggs,
and they also had a vegetable garden. My grandpa fished
and hunted along Bayou Lafourche. He also raised pigs. All
they bought from a local grocery store was mostly flour,
rice, and kerosine. No one had indoor plumbing or
electricity until the ’50s. They lived by kerosine lanterns
lit with what they called coal oil and had cisterns for rainwater. Everyone took baths in a long silver tub that was
placed in the kitchen area for privacy because that room
had a door. Everyone bathed in the same water, because if
there was no rain, water was scarce, anyway my grandpa
had a well. Clothes had to be washed once a week. Water
was rationed like food during the depression.
It seems so primitive, but it worked for them. I
know this because my mama told me the way they were
raised. No television. Only a hand-cranked Victrola record
player and my grandpa playing his harmonica.
When my dad’s work bus stopped at the sugar mill
to apply for a job, his brother was there to bring him and
his nephew to his house to live until they had enough
money to find a place to live, and maybe a wife.
The ladies who were working at the sugar mill
heard about a busload of men who were coming down
from Lafayette to be assigned jobs. Every woman wore a
scarf over their hair because it was hot in the sugar mill and
the sugar would make their hair sticky in the summer.
The work bus arrived and the story my mom told
me was that all of the women were watching as each man
got off of the bus. When my mom saw my future dad, she
told the other ladies that she wanted him. I still giggle at
this story. One of the other ladies said to my mom that “she
wanted his shoes under her bed”, and my mom said, “I saw
him first, and he’s mine”. She didn’t share any details after
she told me that story, but that’s how they met.
My dad liked her best. He said because she was the
prettiest. They dated when my dad got approval from my
grandpa. After that, his brother would drive him to see my
mama or he said he would ride his bike. He wasn’t blind
then, but he was losing his sight more as each year went by.
My mama knew the story of what happened in the Army
before they got married, but she loved him.
His service to our country made it a better place for us to live.