The scars of our fathers

 

I don't post a lot of material on my parents, but today would've been my dad's 86th birthday and it got me to thinking.  My dad was masterful at allowing people see what he wanted them to see in him.  He wanted people to think he was successful and that he was a good person.  He was a personality that loved telling big stories and he thrived on getting attention from his audiences, which is probably why I never acknowledged his passing in 2019 on social media and told very few people of his death.  As petty as it sounds, I simply didn't want any more of his lust for attentions to be fed, even after the grave.  

So why am I talking about him now?  Bear with me.

While my dad erected a fancy facade fabricated on fantasy, portraying himself as a committed family man and an expert on relationships, the the reality was he prone to wander.  Dad was very worried about appearances and did his best to impress his friends and extended family, but the depth of his concern on home front was another story.  

He would go away for months at a time and leave us to fend for ourselves, it was common for him to leave on the road driving his semi for several weeks in a row without returning home or sending any money home, once he was gone for a three month stint.  He would simply park his truck, whenever he felt like it and live his carefree life.  For example he would visit ranches, end up staying there for weeks helping them bring in their herds for brandings or to go to auction.  He did what he wanted when he wanted, and apparently forgot about his family at home.  Once he joined up with a documentary production crew to film wild mustangs in the desert, again while we sat back home with no groceries in the house or money to pay our bills.

It stings to this day, and I can see now that much of the acting out I did in school and the trouble I got into, and my run-ins with the law were a direct result of my father's distance, not being there when I needed him to be, to hear him say that he loved us but then to neglect us. 

In fact, when Tammy and I were getting married, dad was living in California with another woman while he was still married to my mom.  I called and asked him to come to the wedding, and to be my best man.  Why?  I still loved him, nearly idolized him.  He was my childhood hero, he could do no wrong, as a child I chalked up his absenteeism as part of the deal.  I didn't realize the void he would leave, the insecurity, the bitterness, the resentment he was generating in my soul, the scars he was leaving on my heart and soul.

My guess is he never realized his selfish nature or the damage he unintentionally inflicted.  Today there's a popular word for his personality type, a narcissist.  

The scars of my father made me want to be a more conscientious parent, I won't claim to be perfect, but I can claim I tried to be present and purposeful.  My dad missed Christmases, holidays, and major blocks of time with us, I wanted to be different.  Actually he never changed even into his latter years he even neglected to attend our oldest son's wedding.  I'm sure my children and grandchildren will judge me based on how well I lived up to my commitments, I hope not too harshly, and I hope the scars I leave behind will be thinner and smaller than those I have.  

We can hope to be better than our upbringing and we can talk a big talk, but it is our actions that will speak louder than our words.   Why bring up my disappointments with my dad?  There is a cautionary tale in the old song, Cat's in the cradle, hopefully more people will heed its warning, there is no rewind on the clock and the time flies by quicker than we realize.  Our kids deserve to be hugged, loved on, encouraged, uplifted, shaped, guided and developed, and to receive quality time from us, not just when it's convenient for us as parents.  

 

Blowout to burgers: merging several loves

Early one morning on the way to pump concrete I had a blowout on the pump, the durable trailer tire is rated for 10,000 pounds and when I pulled over to look, the remaining tire looked like a shredded sunflower hanging on the rim.

More challenges immediately followed.  I had to drop the pump and run home to grab the spare, when I got back, I tried to start the pump so I could lower its outriggers to raise up the rear to change the flat.  My battery was dead on the pump.  I pulled the truck around to the pump to jump start the pump, either my cables were bad or the truck battery wasn't strong enough to start the pump.

I called the contractor I was pumping for, explained through my embarrassment the situation and asked if his crew could try with their work truck to jump the pump.  They drove from the jobsite to me quickly.  

A momentary victory was short-lived.  We succeeded in jumping our pump with their truck, changed the flat, but then on the way to their job the pump died again.  I apologized once more, pushed back concrete at the plant once again, and ran to the parts-store for a new battery, which was out of stock.  

I went to the next parts-store, who had our battery, and when it came time to remove the old battery, we couldn't budge it.  I called our salesman who talked me through it, it required loosing the cold air return lines, which I didn't tighten the rubber boots back properly after we reinstalled the battery and each time the pump switched strokes the return lines on the diesel motor whistled loudly.  I texted the mechanic at the pump factory in California and asked him about the whistling, he texted "That is bad, you have to fix that immediately!"  I wiggled the rubber boot that goes on the metal pipe of the cold air return and readjusted the clamps and solved that dilemma.  

Of course at this point, it had to rain  We were pumping three sets of footers on the same street on adjoining lots.  When I say rain, I don't mean sprinkle.  It was a deluge.

  In my haste to get loaded up and strap down the hoses, I forgot to pick up the wooden blocks I set under the outriggers, these blocks we have had on the truck since our second job, I know it sounds silly to be attached to theses scrap 4x4 blocks, but they held a special memory too, I salvaged those blocks the day we pumped the wrong mix and it took two hours to prime out and another 7 hours to beat out the plugged up hoses.  Lessons were learned that day!

I decided quickly that I would not waste the challenging experience of the day I had a major blowout.  You've heard the old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."  When a concrete pumper has a major blowout that ruins the rim, instead of lemons to lemonade, I say "Blowouts to burgers!"  

This project is meaningful to me because it brings several of my loves together, woven like a quilt, first, the spare parts for making this grill are from the pump, namely the bent rim but the post for this grill is an old reducer.  For those who don't pump, the reducer attaches to the outlet on the pump where the concrete initially is discharged from the pump.    Concrete is what I set the grill in, in the backyard.

So far pumping and concrete, two of my great loves have been involved in creating a grill, and of course grilling is one of my loves, and then another love of mine is welding.  I took four years of welding in high school and had ambitions of welding as a career in my teens.

I can’t think of anything more rewarding than to recreate creatively taking ruin, salvaging the chaos and then utilize and cause something useful and productive from a discouraging situation.  I love this homemade grill that transformed an experience of being stranded to solving the solution of when we are starving!

A new addition to the homemade grill, a concrete table:

Star Spangled Success story

 

Here's a powerful story of overcoming the odds.  Two brothers who were orphaned when their parents overdosed, their grandfather took them in but he soon passed away, their high school teacher took custody, they have build a successful business from the ground up, there is a lot packed into this story:

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