Chapter 1: What was your dad like when you were a child?

It is difficult to describe my father. He grew up on a farm in Michigan. I met my father’s father only once when I was about 10 years old. My grandfather was very old fashioned and conservative. He didn’t believe in fighting. My father was a large person, but he was bullied in school because he wouldn’t fight back. He would go home and be punished for fighting in school even though he didn’t actually fight, he was beaten up by other kids. His father didn’t care – he was in a fight. Eventually, my father fought the bullies and won. He got punished again by his father, but the bullies left him alone after that. My father wanted to escape the strict upbringing and farm life, so he lied his age and joined the Navy when he was 16 or 17.

My father was somewhat strict with me and my brothers. If we were bad, we “got the strap.” If we cried while being “spanked” he would spank more until we stopped crying. “Men don’t cry!” Since my dad was in the Navy, we would see him only a few weeks a year until he retired around 1954 when I was about 8 years old. My father quit school before he graduated from high school. He wasn’t well-educated, but he could do anything with his hands. I remember helping him build a boat in our garage.

I feared my father for most of my younger life. It wasn’t until I was about 17 or so when I understood how he was raised by his strict father. I didn’t agree with his style of raising children, but I understood why he did what he did. I promised myself that I would never spank my children and I never have.

My dad loved shooting. He was the national champion pistol shooter in the year I was born in 1948. As part of his hobby, he would reload bullets and sell them to his friends to practice shooting. We would go to different garages/gas stations to collect used car tire balance weights. We would melt the lead and then make the bullets by pouring the molten lead into a lead casting tool, dip it into cold water, and then remove the bullets when it cooled. We would then remove the old primers from the casing, press in a new primer, add the gun powder and press in the bullet.

I never saw my father cry until the day my next older brother, Jim, left to go to Viet Nam. I am sure that he was having memories of fighting in WWII. A couple of years later, I left for Viet Nam. He didn’t cry this time, but I could feel that he respected me, but I am sure that he worried about me. After I returned from Nam, it was the first time that we talked with each other “man to man.”

Other memories are going fishing with my dad. We would either fish in Puget Sound or go salmon fishing in the Snoqualmie River near Carnation, Washington. I was bored by fishing. I never remembered how to properly tie the line to a hook, but I enjoyed being on the boat in the sea and hiking along the river.

As I got older, I learned that parenting is not easy. I am sure that my father tried to not make the mistakes his father made. I have made my share of mistakes parenting, and I am sure that my children will try to not make the same mistakes.

The following photos were taken in the early 1950s. My mom and dad, Grandpa and Grandma Herbert and Bessie Young and Grandpa’s farmhouse on Nickleplate Road in Ionia, Michigan.