I love Fall. It's a time of year for the best food ever and cooler days and unlike Spring which feels new, Fall feels more like a rest. A reprieve. It's also a time of birthdays in our family. Our daughter, son and most of our nieces and nephews were fall babies.
September 16th would have been my Daddys 91st birthday. This picture was at 22 yrs, after he returned from war and then married our mother. Handsome devil, huh?
He dropped out of high school at 16 to go to work and help support his mother, sister and little brother. One of eight children, he grew up in a time when everyone was poor. His father died of tuberculosis and he had no choice but to quit and go to work. Although, I never in my nineteen years of living with him ever heard him complain or lament.
Daddy had the brain of an engineer, proving it over and over as his career was shaped at Hayes International [Later to become Pemco Corporation] Daddy built airplanes, fighter jets and even helped design and build some of the equipment used in the early Gemini flights into space.
I was told stories by Mama of blueprints sent to Hayes and to daddy from the engineers. My father, this man with no formal education would send word to the engineers - "these plans won't work" The engineers would wait for daddy to redesign the plans which were sent back to the engineers and placed on new blueprints, then returned to Hayes for daddy to build. They received a contract during the war for eleven jets and it took a month to build each jet. Hayes built eleven fighters in nine months because daddy knew they could do it. He was not afraid of hard work. He was honorable, responsible and slow to anger. He had a dry sense of humor that amused me to no end.
And those pancakes? They were HUGE, he poured one into the skillet and he turned them perfectly every time. I can still see his calloused, rough hand on the skillet handle, humming and smiling, with a sparkle in his eye as he served up my pancake on the plate. My blue-eyed daddy was a good cook and although not perfect as none of us are, he was MY perfect earthly father.
Our Patrick, born on daddy's birthday bears his middle name, Warren. [Patrick, who also makes a mean pancake] Today this memory brings a smile to my face and warms my heart. Our little grandson Bryant, his birthday this month as well, also bears the same name. See what happened there? Memories have glimpses of sadness but most of all they are sweet and comforting. They remind us of the best of the people we loved and times long gone. Reminding us of where we come and what is expected of us still and even give us love deep in our soul long after they are gone. I see through the same blue eyes.
Happy birthday Daddy.
