They were hard working people whose livelihood depended on scraping together anything they could. Food had to be grown and preserved, meat had to be hunted or raised and slaughtered. Mostly meat came from hunting. You couldn’t afford to kill your layin’ hens. Eggs and milk were the only two things they had to barter with when the local trader came around to their house.
Daddy went to school until the 8th grade. That was as far as he could afford to go. Being born in 1924, he saw the Great Depression full force during his youth. As so many did during the Great Depression, Daddy, rather than go to school, and his father went North to look for work.
Fortunately they found work at the naval ship yards near Baltimore. There Daddy learned to be a 1st Class welder. (He told me the position title, but I never paid much attention. Yeah, yeah, heard it all before.) He worked in the ship yards until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
Then he joined the Navy.
In 1943, while on leave in Washington D.C. he walked up to a total stranger, a pretty young lady sitting on a park bench, and kissed her right on the mouth….and yes, 11 months later on June 10th, 1944 she became his wife.
On June 26th Daddy was shipped out with the 7th Fleet on the
USS Currituck (AV-7).
The Currituck saw combat action, as the Japanese were fighting to the very end. Daddy has told me many times of attacks from kamikazes. He personally saw ships sunk and airplanes blown out of the sky. His WWII stories are of having a bullet fly around his head in his gun turret, and seeing a buddy next to him get his head blown apart. Daddy sailed through the Panama Canal on to the Pacific Ocean and onward to the Philippines, China, Korea, Guam, Guadalcanal, and most parts of Indonesia. Not bad for a dirt poor hillbilly.
While not at battle station, he was the ship’s barber, and worked in the laundry. To this day he still gets out his barber shears to trim his beard. Not that he manages, but he tries.
Douglas in middle in ship's laundry
After the War, Douglas and his bride, Pauline left Washington D.C. to get their lives started. By 1951 they had their first child.
He worked as a real estate agent, then owned his own construction business, sold Ramblers, (the old American Motors product), switched to selling Fords, then decided to go back into business for himself selling mobile homes and Holiday Ramblers.
During the early 60’s Daddy raced speed boats, and ran a go cart track one night a week for the Rotary Club. As a kid, I thought that was pretty cool.
For not having much of a formal education, Daddy did pretty well. He didn’t get rich, but with Momma’s Government disability money and medical insurance they were able to retire in their mid 50’s. They packed up their toys and moved to Sunny Florida…where else?
While in Florida Daddy and Momma became regional shuffleboard champions. Daddy learned ballroom dancing and tried his hand at painting. They lived there until Momma died in 1997.
Daddy came to live with us that summer at my insistance, because Momma had told me the summer before that "something was not right with your Daddy". At first he would go back to Florida during the winters, but quit going by 2001. He met friends here, where he would go to dances once or twice a week, but that too stopped. He hasn’t gone dancing since late 2006.
2007 was been a steady decline. His walking, talking, eating, thinking abilities are almost gone.
Now, Daddy is mostly gone and Lewy is afraid of dying. He wants to get better, and believes that he will. On great days, Lewy says he wants to go dancing again.