Living Like My Father

Probably one of the reasons I titled this blog as I did is that at some point in my life I discovered that I was re-living the main outlines of my father's life. 

If you have read my earlier posts you know that there were some obvious similarities between besides simply being white, American, and Methodist.  (Dad was of solid German stock, not Anglo-Saxon.  His forebears had emigrated from Germany in the early nineteenth century to Big Pond, Pennsylvania on the New York border.  They lived there until my great-grandfather moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma, shortly after it became state capital upon statehood in 1907.  My grandparents met at the German speaking Methodist church a couple of blocks from my great-grandparents' home.)  Mother was the WASP -- her earliest ancestor arrived in Jamestown, VA, from England in 1619, a year before the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts.

When Dad and Mom started dating she was a fine physical specimen, but when they married she was damaged goods.  She had been playing basketball and fell and (unknowingly) broke her back.   The break was diagnosed properly after almost a year of pain and suffering she was hospitalized and it was basically rebroken to heal better:  she spent a Dallas summer in an un-air-conditioned hospital in a neck to groin plaster cast.  Ouch!

Despite her injury -- which would give her difficulty and pain for the rest of her life, Dad chose to marry her and he supported her and comforted her for decades despite her sufferings and the expense of her care.  (Example: for seven straight years she had a headache which was only resolved by a neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic.  For those seven years she had three boys in grade school and Dad was working six 10-hour days a week as a retail baker.  But meals were on the table -- we all came home for lunch -- the house was cleaned and our laundry was washed and ironed.) She set a high standard for pain tolerance, and he set a high standard for love and care.

When I met Karen Kay, she was in apparently fine health, but after we became engaged she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a disease which brought with it a high probability of colon cancer.  The summer following (and before our marriage) her father offered me two things:
1) If I wanted to call off the engagement, the family would understand and would not hold it against me.
2) If I wanted to go ahead with the marriage, they -- despite their limited resources, were willing to assist with the costs, even if it meant mortgaging their home and business.
As most of you know, we married anyway, and before our 16th anniversary she was diagnosed with Stage IV adenocarcinoma of the colon and had everything below her small intestine removed.  She was 38 at the time and our kids were in the 3rd, 5th, and 7th grade.  I was terrified (how could I raise them without her?!) but she fully recovered and for 37 years simply lived uncomplainingly with the difficulty of defecating into a plastic bag attached to her body. She too had a great deal of pain, suffering, and inconvenience

Both my father and I had made good choices, and neither one of us seemed to have felt any regret at the choice we made.

But the similarity doesn't end there.   Dad began working a shift in his father's wholesale bakery at about age 14.  He worked there until after he and Mom were married and they had had three boys.  Suddenly, at the end of WW II, his father decided to sell the bakery, leaving Dad without a livelihood.  We moved from Chickasha to Muskogee (Yes, I am an "Okie from Muskogee") where he worked at another wholesale bakery.  But shortly after that a loan from his younger brother enabled him to buy out the business of a Ponca City retail baker, and until all three of us were out of college, that Ponca was home to Mom and Dad.   But she always suffered from the high humidity of spring, summer, and fall there in the Great Plains, so after my younger brother finished at OSU, Dad sold the shop and they moved to Phoenix in 1967.

Just as Dad had to pick up and move and finally start his own business to care for his family, so did I.  After teaching at institutions in New York, Texas, and Indiana, the small institution in Indiana where I worked and taught went bankrupt.  Aa colleague and I founded the nonprofit Environmental Management Institute here in Indianapolis.  Tom moved on to other jobs, and despite many challenges, we became and remain one of the premiere asbestos and lead trainers in the Midwest.  Our doors have been open for 28 years and we have trained well over 40,000 clients.

All of this is simply a prelude to telling you that all good things must come to an end.  As many of you already know, Karen Kay finally gave up the struggle on November 20 of this year.   We had her service on December 15 (which she largely wrote) and I was humbled but not surprised by the many people from all over the country and all stages of her life appeared to pay her honor.  

Last summer she told me I had to give up my leadership of the Institute at the end of February, 2019, and tomorrow (December 21) my staff are having a retirement reception at the Institute from 2-4 p.m. (and I do not you to come). 

But the best news of all is that thanks to one hardworking member of my board, the Institute -- unlike the Tasty Bakery -- will continue.   The Indiana state community college System (IVTech) will incorporate the Institute into their operations.  My energetic co-Trainer and Training Manager Joan Ketterman will become a Faculty Member and lead the effort for IVTech, so they should have a good shot at getting it well-grounded.  

I leave you with one more thought.  Several years ago I suddenly realized that all that I have ever achieved I owe to bossy women.  I am basically lazy and extroverted, but they have insisted I will not be allowed to act that way around others.  You have now met three of them:  Mother,  Karen Kay, and Joan.  Maybe next time I will tell you about a fourth.