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served in the Navy during WWII. He was on the USS California during Pearl Harbor and was one of the many sailors whose families were notified of his presumed death before he was located safe and sound some three weeks later. i still have the original telegrams from the war department, clippings from the local newspapers in McAllen, TX, and the sympathy cards sent to his mother after "the loss of your darling Frankie." Later on he was on the USS Lexington when it sank in the Coral Sea.
My father trained as an electrician in the Navy and continued to work as an electrician on ships for most of the rest of his life. He was also an avid ham radio operator and model plane builder, a drinker, womanizer, and would-be miner. Our lives were periodically unstable and my parents' relationship was a rocky one.
For my 13th birthday he had flowers delivered. i still remember the card he wrote: :now you're a (yuck) teenager." Employment was spotty and all i wanted was to have my ears pierced. One Saturday morning around that time he put me in the car and stopped at a pawn shop, selling some of his ham equipment, then drove me on to a doctor's office where my ears were pierced.
Shortly after that he got a job in Hawaii and we were all to move there; it was at least a five year gig. He flew on ahead of us. Another Saturday six weeks later and some people came to the door. My father had dropped dead of a heart attack in Waikiki. He was 49 years old. As one person put it at his funeral, "he died in Hawaii 25 years ago, he went back to Hawaii and died again." I was still 13; my mother was 42. Twelve years to the day after he died, she passed away at 54. Now i have outlived both of them.
This is the first time in i don't know how long that i have written about my dad. Reading some of the other memorials on DU has inspired me today.
Happy Memorial Day DU. Peace.
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