I was going to write about my dad and his current life with dementia but I just didn’t want to do it this morning. One of my own struggles in dealing with his condition is rectifying his current condition with the image that I had of him from my childhood. I thought I’d run a post from back in 2010 that deals with that earlier image.
After the post is this week’s Sunday morning music, Mama Papa Twist from the Crazy Rockers. a Dutch Indorock group from the early 60’s. Indorock was a fusion of western and Indonesian music performed by Indonesian emigres in northern Europe in the 50’s and 60’s. It was pretty hot in its time and some of the bigger groups, like the Tielman Brothers, still perform. This doesn’t have a lot to do with Father’s Day but I get a kick out of it and I think my dad, especially in that earlier incarnation would as well.
Take a look and have yourself a good day.
This is a photo from back in 1963 or 64. We were living in an old farmhouse on Wilawanna Road, outside Elmira, just on the NY side of the border with Pennsylvania. You could walk over the hill behind our house and be in Pennsylvania. It’s a place that played a large part in my formative years.
We had a large chunk of yard to one side of the house that became a ballfield, a place where many of the kids on our road came to play baseball regularly and where Dad would often pitch to us or hit soaring fungoes that we would run under, pretending to be Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle. Dad is standing near home plate in this photo. That’s my brother, Charlie ( Chuckie back then), in the background.
I love this photo. When I think of images of my father this one is always first in line in my head. It was a Sunday morning, Easter if I am not mistaken but time has fuzzed that detail a bit.
It show my father at about 30 or so years of age, as strong and powerful as I would ever know him. I was four or five years old and he was larger than life to me then, could do no wrong. My protector and my boon companion. This view of him sums that all up.
The pose has a bit of the pride and arrogance of youth in it, still brimming with the what-if’s and what-can-be’s of potential. It’s not something you’re used to seeing in your parents and witnessing it is like seeing a secret glimpse of them, a side you know must have been there but remains hidden from you in your day to day life with your parents. Maybe that’s why I like this picture so much. It seems like a marking point between his youth and ours, his kids.
I don’t know. Like many personal things, it’s hard to explain. All I know is that when I see my Dad today or think about him, the image of this photo is never far from my mind.
happy father’s day…
Redtree Times 