On this day, in the year 2018, my father lost his battle with cancer.
Dad was quite a guy. Born in 1935, to an auto mechanic father and a typical housewife mother, towards the end of the great depression, dad was the 2nd born of 4 children.
He was an ordinary kid, in an ordinary rural community. He lived an ordinary life, went to an ordinary country school, where he played baseball and basketball, chased girls, did daily chores, went to church on Sunday like everybody else. Ordinary, right?
But in my eyes, my old man was nothing but ordinary. On the contrary, I found him extraordinary. He was the guy I went to when I needed help. He was the guy I missed all week and couldn't wait to see on Friday nights and weekends, because he worked nights. He was the best man at my wedding because he was the best man I had ever known.
Dad graduated from high school in 1954. Then he joined the navy in 1955. Just after Korea, just before Vietnam. He came back home and met a carhop working at the Queen Bee and fell in love.
They dated for a year or so, then 4 months after she turned 18, they were married. He rescued my mother from a very abusive home. From that union, they had 3 boys, with yours truly being the baby of the trio.
Dad went to work for Phillips 66 in the early 60s, working evenings (3-11) on the Will Rogers turnpike for about 15 years at Claremore, Oklahoma. He finally got news of an opening at the Phillips 66 station on the Indian Nation turnpike at the Dustin/Hanna location, which was closer to where he was born and raised.
So in the fall of 1978 he had a house built on 20 acres of land he purchased from his father. The house was completed and we moved in during the summer of 1979. It was the summer before my oldest brothers senior year of high school, and boy was he pissed!
Dad continued to work there for the next 4 - 5 years or so, until T. Boone Pickens started taking over and closing most Phillips 66 stations in Oklahoma. Dad's station was closed in 1984 and he was forced to go to the station in Stroud. He bought a travel trailer and lived in it during the week and came home on the weekends.
I remember going to his trailor a few times, but one particular day was my 18th birthday, where he grilled steaks for me, my older brother and my mother and then we all went and played bingo.
In 1987, the Stroud station closed and he was offered two things; a position at the station in Vinita, Oklahoma or an early retirement at 80% full benefits. Dad said enough is enough and called it quits.
He spent the next 20 something years doing what he loved...gardening. He always had a shovel, or a hoe or a tiller in his hands. It was his passion. Then, in 2015 came the tragic news...cancer.
Dad fought it for a good 2 years, but in late 2017 it hit him hard. The dr. told him he simply had less than a year. 6-8 months tops. He could take a battery of chemo sessions that would extend that time a little bit but would make him miserably sick. Or, he could just tough it out, ride it out and see what happens.
Dad chose to tough it out and go out drug free.
I remember the night before he died saying goodbye to him and I told him that I loved him. By the time I got to the house that next morning, he was gone.
My hero had fallen and a part of me went with him.
Dad was quite a guy. Born in 1935, to an auto mechanic father and a typical housewife mother, towards the end of the great depression, dad was the 2nd born of 4 children.
He was an ordinary kid, in an ordinary rural community. He lived an ordinary life, went to an ordinary country school, where he played baseball and basketball, chased girls, did daily chores, went to church on Sunday like everybody else. Ordinary, right?
But in my eyes, my old man was nothing but ordinary. On the contrary, I found him extraordinary. He was the guy I went to when I needed help. He was the guy I missed all week and couldn't wait to see on Friday nights and weekends, because he worked nights. He was the best man at my wedding because he was the best man I had ever known.
Dad graduated from high school in 1954. Then he joined the navy in 1955. Just after Korea, just before Vietnam. He came back home and met a carhop working at the Queen Bee and fell in love.
They dated for a year or so, then 4 months after she turned 18, they were married. He rescued my mother from a very abusive home. From that union, they had 3 boys, with yours truly being the baby of the trio.
Dad went to work for Phillips 66 in the early 60s, working evenings (3-11) on the Will Rogers turnpike for about 15 years at Claremore, Oklahoma. He finally got news of an opening at the Phillips 66 station on the Indian Nation turnpike at the Dustin/Hanna location, which was closer to where he was born and raised.
So in the fall of 1978 he had a house built on 20 acres of land he purchased from his father. The house was completed and we moved in during the summer of 1979. It was the summer before my oldest brothers senior year of high school, and boy was he pissed!
Dad continued to work there for the next 4 - 5 years or so, until T. Boone Pickens started taking over and closing most Phillips 66 stations in Oklahoma. Dad's station was closed in 1984 and he was forced to go to the station in Stroud. He bought a travel trailer and lived in it during the week and came home on the weekends.
I remember going to his trailor a few times, but one particular day was my 18th birthday, where he grilled steaks for me, my older brother and my mother and then we all went and played bingo.
In 1987, the Stroud station closed and he was offered two things; a position at the station in Vinita, Oklahoma or an early retirement at 80% full benefits. Dad said enough is enough and called it quits.
He spent the next 20 something years doing what he loved...gardening. He always had a shovel, or a hoe or a tiller in his hands. It was his passion. Then, in 2015 came the tragic news...cancer.
Dad fought it for a good 2 years, but in late 2017 it hit him hard. The dr. told him he simply had less than a year. 6-8 months tops. He could take a battery of chemo sessions that would extend that time a little bit but would make him miserably sick. Or, he could just tough it out, ride it out and see what happens.
Dad chose to tough it out and go out drug free.
I remember the night before he died saying goodbye to him and I told him that I loved him. By the time I got to the house that next morning, he was gone.
My hero had fallen and a part of me went with him.
