I have never really subscribed to Hallmark holidays like father’s day that were created to sell greeting cards. For me each and everyday is a day to celebrate those that you love. I don’t need or want a day set aside that I am required by other’s to buy gifts, cards or to celebrate. Instead I would prefer to just remember or be remembered randomly throughout the year.
One of the reasons this is instilled into my very core of beliefs is that I once bought my father a gift for father’s day that was a wood plague that had some inspirational quote on it and a picture of a man fly fishing. My step mother at the time berated me for buying such a useless gift and made me return it. It goes without saying that I never really got along with her, but her lesson is still ingrained in me today, and I learned to hate most holidays because of her. Thanks bitch.
Now having said that, all the people here talking about their father’s has caused me to reminisce about my own dad and the love and joy that he raised me with.
He wasn’t my biological father, but rather my grandfather who legally adopted me, took me in and raised me as one of his own. Something he didn’t have to do, but something I am eternally grateful for, because I have met my biological mother (his daughter) and I can only surmise the life I would have been subjected to had she been allowed to raise me. Let’s just suffice it to say my life would have most likely ended down a completely different path filled with misery. Instead, this man who wasn’t required to raise me took me in and gave me a foundation for life that truly made a difference.
Conrad Keith Francis, my dad, was born in 1923, the youngest of six children, in fact way younger than his other brother’s and sisters. All of his sisters were born before 1900 and his brothers were born after 1900 with the closest brother to his age being 10 years older than he was. Which is a remarkable coincidence to the life I was raised. The closest of my adopted brothers to my age was eight years older than me, with the rest ranging up to 19 years older than me. Which should be expected since my grandfather adopted me. It is my belief that my dad was also adopted by his grandparents, although I have no proof of this and no one is around anymore who could bear witness to this.
OK, look at it this way: Dad was born in 1923, his 3 older sisters were at a minimum 24 years older than he was. If my dads mother started having children when she was 15 then based on the fact that she had 3 daughters before 1900 then the youngest she could have been when my dad was born was 41 years old (+ or - a couple of years), which basically was unheard of back in those days. It’s actually a pretty rare occurrence even now, not unheard of, but still rare, and we have a ton more of medical advances in the last 100 years.
This is something that has been running through my mind for years. I believe that my dad is more alike to me than anyone else ever considered, and because of that similarities in our lives (both adopted and raised by our grandparents) he treated me far different than he did any of my brothers.
Now we all have heard stories about the men and women who grew up and went off to war in the 1940’s and what a tough life they had. Well, I don’t believe that my dad has as tough a life as a lot of the other men of his day, or if he did, he didn’t let it decide who he was going to be.
When dad joined the Navy he already had three older brothers who were in the military, two in the Army and the third I have no idea what branch he was in, I have just always been led to believe that all three of his brothers were already in the military. I have also heard multiple stories about their time in the military and wish they were still around so that I could interview them. The stories go that Uncle Bill was one of the special forces members that trained in Colorado on skis along with the same guys who came back after WWII and started up such ski resorts as Vale and Aspen. It is said that he spent his time as a Special Forces medic in the Alps, racing down the mountain on skis with wounded soldiers strapped to a basket that he straddled. How true this was, I don’t know, but these are family stories passed from one generation to the next. My Uncle Walt is reputed to have been one of the glider pilots that flew behind enemy lines on D-Day while having to sit on his flak jacket to avoid being shot from the german soldiers shooting up into the night sky hoping to randomly hit one of the gliders. Again, no idea if this is true or not.
My dad on the other hand joined the Navy and it is thought that this was right after the Sullivan Brothers were all killed on the same ship, so the military now had a policy that if all of the male members of a family were in a war zone then the youngest was either excluded from military service, or kept out of actual combat. Which is why I think my father was stationed in the Alaska frontier. Dad often told stories about his time being stationed there at a remote outpost, the most common being that his job was to go out and hunt and fish and bring back food for their small unit. Which makes sense. Dad was from Idaho and was no stranger to hunting and fishing, and in fact was an avid fly fisherman his who life, a trait that my brothers and I all share from him. There are many times that I remember dad lamenting about how he should have never left the military, because he loved his assignment in Alaska so much.
After the war my dad went back to Idaho where he was a bartender for a short time in Council, Idaho. He met my mom who was a waitress at the diner across the street and fell completely in love.
Just to jump off track for a moment, my biological mom has claimed that after dad’s death she found a divorce decree in his belongings to a woman that none of us ever heard of at a time before he met mom. Anyway, just a curiosity and a question none of us will ever have answered.
Back on track.
From Council dad and his new wife spent a few years in the Idaho backcountry working at Stibnite mine as a machinist. Oh the stories he used to tell of his time living there, but each one of those is a writing in itself, so I will spare you the details here. During their time here mom gave birth to my two oldest brothers and oldest sister.
Somehow dad and mom went from there to living in Southern California and dad went to work for Lockheed. I never heard the details of what prompted them to move, but I suspect that it was because mom loved the desert and hated the snow, and dad loved mom and would do anything to make her happy. I know he hated the desert and the heat and always wanted to move back to Idaho. The next four brothers were born down here, I believe.
Dad was a harsh father to my brothers. He ruled a very strict household and wasn’t afraid to use a belt, nor was he remiss about using a swift backhand to knock someone in their place when they were talking out of turn at the dinner table. Or at least those are the stories that I hear from my older brothers. I do know he was especially hard on my oldest brother, and that brother still harbors resentment toward dad to this day.
In contrast, my life with dad was completely different than their experience. Dad rarely used a belt on me and I could see in his eyes how much it pained him to have to use a belt on me at all. To be honest the belt never really hurt me, it was the knowing that I had disappointed dad that hurt me more. Maybe it was because in his heart he knew I was his grandson, and he couldn’t bear to hurt me … or, the more logical answer was that my older brothers had put him through so much of the wringer of life before I came along that he had just given up and realized that young men are going to be young men and it doesn’t matter how much punishment you deal out, they are still going to do stupid things.
When I was older and nearly out of my teenage years I came to think of my dad less as a father, and more as a best friend. There were many things I never told dad about my life, and now I wish I had, because I know he wouldn’t have judged me. He would have understood and offered me up some cool advice or just given me a look that let me know what an idiot I had been.
When I finally became a father myself, my dad was always there for me and taught me good lessons on what a father should be, the main one was “just be there for them.” A lesson I have strived to do myself. I often wish that he had been able to be there for me just a little longer as I endeavored to raise my own small family, but cancer took him from us in 1994, not long after my second child was born.
I fondly remember getting to spend the last few days of his life with him as he laid in the hospital bed and his life slowly eroding away. He and I had some great laughs as he recalled stories and told anecdotes about his life, but his last piece of advice to me was one I will never forget.
“I know your brothers treat you like you are still a little kid, I know mine treated me that way all my life, but don’t let that stop you from being your own man. They love you and mean well, but make your own place in this world.”
I love you and miss you dad. No one could ask for a better role model to raise them or a better friend to have by their side.
