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had a very large front oval bumper that weighed about 200 lbs. Built somewhat like a bulldozer, the chrome on the bumper wasn’t even scratched. Shook up from that near tragic surprise, I went to the local store and bought a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. I smoked one and then drove back home. Subsequently, I gave the car key to my father and said nothing about my carelessness. It wasn’t my fault I thought. “It was that Hank Williams guy on the radio.” Yes, I lied to myself. However, from that day forward until enlisted in the military, I drove the farm tractor... but not the Oldsmobile. As I think about that long ago event, and the way I’d carelessly treated my father and what he’d worked so hard to obtain, it seems to me now that somehow he knew something had happened. Dad wasn’t happy when I quit high school in 1959 to work on the farm. In January ‘60 he took me to sign up to join the Air Force. I served in the military four years, only seeing my father twice during that time. I also married, and was blessed with a child to raise. Within a year after my discharge, I got a job as a tool and die apprentice in the metal stamping plant where my father worked. We worked in the same place but did not see each other much. I worked a different shift. Long afterward, in the summer of 1966, my father drove down my driveway in a new ‘66 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Surprising me, he’d traded in his wide-mouth behemoth “88”. However, Dad wasn’t there to show me the car. He wanted to swap cars. When I looked oddly at him, my Dad’s voice trembled a bit when he told me that he and my |
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mother were in the midst of divorce. He did not want to be followed. With that shocking news said, he left me his new Olds and prepared to drive off with my ‘66 Mustang. He smiled a bit in spite of the weight of his announcement, and clearly said, “I won’t hit any poles.” With those words spoken, I knew what he knew. My father stayed with machine work. I didn’t. I went to night school and worked in ‘68 at an Olds dealer as a automatic transmission mechanic. Soon, thanks to a mechanic’s witness, I realized that I was very blessed by God in spite of personal sinfulness and became a Christian. I started attending a seminary. During those years my father endured his divorce and started anew. However, hard times were not far off. You see, the devil does not give rest to we wicked. Within a year, he was diagnosed with cancer. My father went through chemotherapy while that treatment method was still in its infancy. He also tolerated burns from radiation therapy. Within a month, however, he jaundiced. It was then that I worried about his stance before God. I thought, “If anyone is worthy to go to heaven it’s my loving father.” |
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But his health worsened, and I had not learned how to talk to him about his faith. I studied, but I could not see. I was spiritually blind as I searched the Bible. Finally, I sat at his bedside in Nazareth Hospital still unable to speak of faith to him. I watched him die. Though jaundiced by his illness laying there in death... he still looked like my father. He’d been a quiet man. He’d been a kind man. He was a firm but loving father to his children. It didn’t seem fair. I thought those qualities should count for something. Maybe God would |
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Old Cars Remind... |
