Blue eyes full of mischief and curly black hair that was going white in
places. That was my Dad. He had a clef in his chin that I
inherited.
He was a man that like the simple things - meat and potatoes, bread and
butter and jelly. And he loved Mexican Food, especially
Tex-Mex. We would tease him that he got too grumpy if he went longer
than a week without it. The hotter the better - he ate salsa by the
spoonfuls.
He loved computers. I remember when they first came out.
Dad sat me down and told me "Shug, computers are the future.
Learn all you can about them." Dad was a database expert - he
collected them like some people collect baseball cards. He would sit
for hours working on his computer. He was the only person that I
know that was totally comfortable working in DOS. And he really
loved helping people understand and work through their computer
problems. If someone called with a computer problem, he would drop
what he was doing and help them.
Dad supported me in all my artistic endeavors. When I performed
on stage, he would come see me and announce that I was the best thing of
the entire show. Between he and my Mother, I had the best cheering
section. When I started beadwork, he would look at each piece and
point out the highlights of each piece. Everyone that he met heard
about my latest exploits, whether they wanted to or not.
Dad was the genealogical
expert of the family. He would spend hours pouring
through books and searching websites to find elusive information about our
family tree. All the information was kept in a very extensive
computer program, complete with pictures and little tidbits of info about
each person. Every new birth in our small and limited family was
immediately entered in that program.
He decided that it would be nice to
have the Comanche cemetery information available on the net. He
would spend hours pouring through the cemetery book and copying names and
dates to enter later in a database he had built on his computer at
home. He did this just because he wanted to - hoping that perhaps
this information would be helpful to someone looking for long lost
relatives.
He loved to help people. He
always said things like "Kindness never hurts" and "It pays
to be courteous". He was the one that would let you cut in
front of him in heavy traffic. He waved to complete strangers as he
drove or flash his lights to motion a 18-wheeler clear to move back in
traffic. He always went around and returned the neighbor's trash receptacle
back from the curb after they had been emptied. He
greeted people with a smile and a "Hello, my name is Joe" and
his parting words were always "Play Fair".
He was a sucker for
animals. All anyone had to say was "I've got this dog that I
can't find a home for. Think I'm gonna have to put it to
sleep" and the next thing we would know, some dog would be in
our back yard while he found a home for it. Dad loved dogs. He
went out and bought cat food when he saw some starving wild cats around
the neighborhood cause he couldn't stand to see things suffer. He loved
to sit on the porch with Mom and watch the birds come to the feeder.
Dad
was a strong shoulder to cry on, always ready to listen to your problems
and full of wonderful wisdom. He could rattle off a Carney patter,
or sing a song in a deep voice. And I miss him every day.
