The Greatest Dad in the World

by Badger_29

Background
Previous Chapters deal with my childhood, my recovery, and my life in Sacramento, California~

Now, most people like to claim that they have the world's greatest dad, and they are certainly entitled. I may not have the "world's greatest", but I am blessed to have a father that loved me when I was growing up, and instilled in me the old-school values that were carefully reinforced.

These include, but are not limited to:

~Respect
~~Integrity
~~~Courtesy
~~~~Honor
~~~~~Honesty,

and a deep and insatiable curiosity and love for the many splendors of life itself.
I remain "rich" in these qualities.

Born in Martinez, California in 1936. He married my mother, and I am the third of his three sons in my immediate family.

I have a lot of fond memories growing up in Concord and Martinez CA.; Rock Springs and Green River, Wyoming.

One night he had gotten a promotion at work, and was excited. When he got home, he greeted my mother with a bottle of, let's call it "Martinellis' sparkling apple cider", to be politically correct.

She was busy with housework, my brother's homework, etc. and did not have time to join in his celebration.

So, we sat at the table across from one another, and proceeded to drink that magnum of "cider", while cheering with mounting gusto to:
George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln.

By the time we were done, I found myself singing, laughing, and splashing bath water on my mother, who was angrily bathing me and putting me to bed!

I am very fortunate to have been introduced to singing at an early age. From about the age of four, my dad would line us boys up by the amplifier to entertain and delight guests with Christmas carols. Now, singing and performing comes very naturally to me.

When I was about seven years old, my father had a bad accident where he worked; a large dryer fell, and when he deflected, it crushed his spine.

At one point in time, my mother was a nurse at Mount Diablo Hospital, in Concord. My father was there in traction, and I went in for an inguinal hernia surgery.
I had very bad asthma as a child. When I was gasping and coughing, I felt a stabbing pain in my groin. It was my peritoneum tearing.
So, my mom came and got me in a wheelchair, and I went and had ice cream with my dad.

They wanted to do "exploratory" surgery, and by that time he had been talking to a chiropractor, and he had had enough! So, he came home and was laid up in bed for a while.

It was the beginning of training in one of my many talents, massage therapy. I had to learn how to rub his back to ease the muscle spasms. It was difficult at first and in the process, it was necessary to apply great pressure with my elbows to key pressure points.

We had some great bonding times then, as he would tell me stories of his childhood, and I would share my thoughts about this and many other subjects while enjoying the finer art of sharing fine cheeses with more "Martinellis' ".

His Chiropractor got him back on his feet, and he has maintained a relationship with them probably to this day.

My father is a brilliant man of many talents.
He bought and restored a "Criss Craft Cabin Cruiser" boat, and we would go out in the ocean near San Francisco bay to fish. This would have been when I was about five or six.
He baited my pole, which had a "magical" rainbow fishing line. Well, it must have been some kind of magic, for when he taught me how to cast the line, and it went into the wavy water of the bay, I got an immediate bite.

I was so excited!

With a little help, I got my catch into the boat. It was a seven-pound flounder, and to me it looked like a flying fish with wings.

I was so proud and happy!

He instilled in us a deep love and respect for all living things, on the land and in the waters.
On our birthdays, we enjoyed trips to San Francisco, where we would enjoy the many sights, smells, delicious food, and vastly interesting life along Fisherman's Wharf.
Then we would go to Steinhart Aquarium, to see the many wonders there.

We got the opportunity to enjoy Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", which instilled in me a great love of science fiction.
I also at one point in time got to see "The Last Question", by Isaac Asimov, at a planetarium. I was completely mesmerized when the lights dimmed, and the seats mechanically reclined!

We lived at one point at the top of Main Street in Martinez, CA., in a Spanish style "adobe" with curvy red tile roof, and a large front sun window.
This would have been about my tenth year of life.

He always fascinated me with his way of putting things together to accomplish his many endeavors.
We had a back area, with a wooden gate. He made a stencil with cardboard of ivy leaves, and spray-painted the design on the gate. It was lovely, and we shared in his sense of accomplishment in these many "home" projects.

We had an Avocado tree in the backyard, and he helped me plant a pumpkin plant that I had germinated at school in the back area.
We had the opportunity to visit many years later, and there were still large pumpkins growing in back!

One Mother's Day there, he got my mommy a very nice gift, and proceeded to hide messages and clues in a number of places, that led to the surprise.
It was so much fun following this trail, and I realize was also a metaphorical learning game that I would incorporate into my CPU.
(central processing unit, or brain)

While working for Radio Shack, my dad instilled in me a wonderful interest in electronics.
He would buy us fascinating electronic projects, including "100-in-one" kits, where I learned about the functions of resistors, capacitors, transistors, and many other things.

This one-hundred project kit was an ingenious device that had components that were hooked to numbered spring terminals, which were easy to connect wires to to make a variety of DC circuits.
I made keyboards, AM-FM radios, and other interesting things with these excellent learning toys.

He always encouraged my pursuits, and I was able to astound him with some of my projects and observations. I had a solar cell, that turns light into electricity, a portable radio, and a flashlight.
I asked him if I could convert the audio signal into the light beam, and then convert it back into an audio signal.

So, with his encouragement, I hooked the flashlight in series with the headphone output of the radio, and pointed it at the solar cell, which was plugged into my guitar amplifier. It worked, and I could hear the music from the radio on my amplifier!

I was later to discover that this process is now used for communication through "fiber optic" cables.

He always seemed to have interesting ideas for making money, and besides working very hard all of his life (another great example to follow), he is a talented and accomplished musician.

One of these many ideas was raising worms for bait in the backyard of our house on Stafford Avenue, in Concord.

My all-time childhood hero is so proficient and professional playing the guitar that he fills in a three-piece band nicely, playing a very good combination of rhythm and lead.
The extra money that he brought in by playing gigs on the weekends really helped us make ends meet in a modestly spectacular way.
On certain exciting days, we joined him at "Jam sessions" in places like Pix Patio in Concord.
There would always be a lot of food, fun, and merriment.

I admired his position as Manager when he worked. He had great people skills, and was always admired by the many interesting people in his employ.
One was Ray G, who apparently had problems with alcohol. He killed himself while playing an inebriated game of "Russian Roulette"

Bill Wiley was another, who helped instill a love for poetry after reciting "The Jabberwocky", with great zeal and gusto. I liked it so much that I memorized it myself, and am going to include it here:

~~~~~

The Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carrol

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

~~~~~

When I was twelve, two marvelous things happened: my sister Sara was born, and my father made his dreams come true. He had gotten fed up with Tandy Corporation, who owns Radio Shack, and life in California. So he got three partners to go in on a business venture, and got to fulfill one of the great dreams of his generation: to own your own business.

In the summer of 1976, we packed up and moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming. There, we took an auto-body shop in Green River, about twenty-four miles west of our new home, and converted it into "Western Audio".

He made the sign for the store by hand with painstaking detail and precision which was well lit and decorated with the famous horse and rider, which is a symbol well known, and on Wyoming's license plates.

There we sold stereos for the home and the road, and other various electronic devices and components. I got to learn to install stereos and CB's, which were all the craze then, especially among "truckers", of which there were many, as we lived right on one of the main conduits of travel, I-80.

I did not care for Wyoming at first, but as time went on, I gained a tremendous love and respect for the "high desert", and for rocks and minerals.
We used to go up into the hills behind our trailer park (this is after we had moved to Green River), and dig fish fossils out of the sedimentary shale. It seems the whole area was an ancient sea bed!

We moved at a time when there was great growth, wealth, and prosperity. About five years later, that all changed abruptly. The business venture went bankrupt, but will forever be etched on my mind as a wonderful time in our family's history.

My dad went on to work hard in the oil field, and then moved back to California and worked there for the State for many years.

He separated from my mother when I was 18 years old, and has a loving wife, and a son and daughter from his second marriage.
He moved back to Wyoming, and lives there with my step-mother. He still works full-time at the age of eighty, and plays professional music.

A very driven and artistic individual, he has sketched, painted, etched on glass bottles, and written a great deal of very good poetry, prose, and stories.
You will be blessed, vastly entertained, and fortunate if you happen to get the opportunity to read his compelling writing.

We may not have been wealthy, but one of the many things that he taught me is to be able to enjoy
the "finer things in life", for which you do not have to have a lot of money, but are priceless in value.

He always provided well for us, and I had a magical, fulfilling, and wonderful childhood as a direct result of his desire to provide for us; above and beyond what a lot of my friends had.

That is the end of this Chapter, for now, but it will be added to in the future.

I am posting this today as an early Father's Day gift, and pray that it will be received with understanding, open mindedness, a love of good memories, and mutual respect.

Happy Father's Day!

Your Loving Son

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Recognized

Although we have both made mistakes, I like to accentuate the positive, and in the abounding love which I have learned from my Heavenly Father, to forgive, and humble myself, with undying love and respect for my elders.

Sure, I am human as is he, so there have been fluctuations, but the solid core of divine love is instilled and intact.

I will always love you, Dad!

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A tribute to my father

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The Greatest Dad in the World

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