About My Father

My father was born in Russia, to German parents, and grew up in Poland.

After his father died from cancer and his mother remarried, he was kicked out of the house. His stepfather already had enough kids. He was about 12.

My mother was not his first choice. He was turned down by one of her sisters before he proposed to her.

He worked for a railroad before the war and drove an ammunition truck during the war.

On the battlefield, a dying soldier called out to him to come and pray with him. He did, and it was a good thing because the next bomb hit right where he had been.

After the war, he worked in a foundry.

He brought the family to the United States in 1952 and immediately regretted it, but there was no way to go back.

His first job in this country was shoveling manure.

The cousin who sponsored our family couldn't understand why he was in such a hurry pay his debt, leave the farm, and go to work for the lumber mill in town.

I don't remember this but he was very strict and once chased my oldest brother around the barn with a belt, trying to beat him for being late. It was a turning point. He had lost it and he knew it.

With me, the last of six children, he was always very gentle.

He liked to watch pro wrestling — cheering the good guys and booing the bad — and refused to believe the fights were fake.

He liked beer but preferred Coca-Cola.

He and my mother added a wing to my childhood home without the benefit of blueprints.

When the rest us were in the basement watching TV, you could find my father upstairs in the living room most nights, reading.

Like his father, he died of cancer at an early age. Fifty-three.

I'm fifty-two.