My father is 82 years old and will be 83 in May. If I don't do this now, I may forget until it's too late. My father is not in the best of health. He has had one testicle removed, one eye removed, hernias, strokes and at least one heart attack. He is deaf in both ears.
My father was born in Oklahoma in 1924. He lived before and through the great depression. He was drafted into the U.S. Army at the age of 19, assigned as a military policeman until he was transferred to infantry. He fought the Germans in Europe during World War II and spent the last three months of the war in a German POW camp.
I didn't see much of my father through 1973 because he was usually working either in another state or another country. It was hard feeding me and eight other siblings along with my mother. He was a water well drilling foreman since before I was born and that's what his job was when he retired. My family moved to join him in Hawaii in 1974 and lived there for almost four years. He signed the consent form for me to join the military at 17 instead of 18 because he knew I was mature enough to handle it.
I have only seen my father on few occasions since then because of where I was stationed, no where close by. When my own family finally settled in to a home 70 miles away from my parents, I still didn't have much time to visit until after I retired from the military. I didn't visit enough.
My father only hit me once, but didn't hurt me, when I was 15 years old. I deserved it. Neither of my parents were abusive, I'll make that clear, even with nine children to contend with.
I love my father. It's too bad he was already in his 80s when I told him.
