My "old man" really was an old man. He was 48 when he married for the first and only time, and 52 when I was born. He lived to be almost 84. He was a decent, good man and devoted to my mother, who was 19 years his junior.
Before marrying he'd held a whole range of jobs, everything from railway mail clerk, to criminal investigator, tax collector, and even First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I. He sang in the church choir, did some hunting and fishing, and loved cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood which reminded him of a boyhood responsibility.
He taught me to use garden tools, to shoot a pistol, catch a trout, drive a car, build a fire, pitch a tent, and set a gopher trap. I learned from him patriotism, a love of reading, and a sense of things some folks might do but we did not because we were "better than that," I suppose you'd call those middle class values.
He never did manage to get me to be an athlete. And I never shared his love of baseball or golf. I was a bookish kid, in some ways more like his older brother, who was both a West Pointer and a PhD (I only did the latter).
My favorite anecdote about my father was the wisdom he imparted about women. They were, he said, very nice but their 'thermostats' don't work well. I find I agree with both parts of that assessment.
