Posted on 10/08/2003 2:10:33 PM PDT by John Robertson
While Dad was waiting to go in for testing in the hospital last Tuesday, he sent my brother Joe home to get his pens and legal pads, so he could work on his stories during what was going to be yet another hospital stay. He had been ailing for several days, and had difficulty breathing that day, but just then he was feeling pretty good. Didn’t want to waste any time when he could be working on his stories….
Which were loaded with characters, by the way, based on people from right here in town. And it’s not hard to figure out who inspired the various characters in his stories…because he just used everbody’s real name. I picked up one of his legal pads last night and there was Captain Bob Corello…Captain Ann Wheeler…and Sargeant Jim Hardy. I think Chief or Captain or Officer Kenny Night showed up in about a dozen stories. And there were more than a few Furillos playing parts in his many narratives. He filled dozens of legal pads—every line, every page—with characters and action and dialogue over the years, yet he fretted that he would never have enough time to get it all down.
My father’s health was truly horrible over the last few years—and it’s been just bad, overall, for at least 20 years—but I really believe that one of the things that kept him going to age 85½ was his desire to get down all the tall tales that he claimed were…”right upstairs.” He passed on his interest in, and gift for, creative writing, to his sons and his grandchildren, and that’s just one of the things we’re grateful for.
He was always churning out ideas, he was always interested in something new, he always wanted to learn new things—the quirkier the subject the better. If a subject came up, and he didn’t know what you needed to know about it right then…just give him some time, he’d look into it, and get back to you.
Of course, a few years might go by before he got back to you, and you wouldn’t know what the heck he was talking about, but he did follow through, in time. And if you had moved on to some other interest—or, more likely, just didn’t care anymore—he’d find a way to re-interest you.
Two days before he died, he looked out his front window and identified a car parked on the far side of the last pump of the gas station across the street as a 1929 Rolls Royce, which was owned by an Englishman before it was sold to an owner in the United States. I asked him how he knew the year, and he gave me an arch look and said, I just know these things. Then I asked him how he knew it was owned by an Englishman, and he just gave me an impatient snort and said, Look at the damned steering wheel! Well, I did, and sure enough, it was on the right side of the car, not the left, which proved it was made for European use first. All this at a glance, from about 125 yards, through moving traffic and with several obstructions. At age 85.
He was sharp, but his body just couldn’t hold up anymore. Heart condition, emphysema, one of the worst arthritis conditions some doctors have ever seen. And that’s just the big stuff. He didn’t always suffer without complaint, but for someone with his manifold ailments, he bore up rather well, I think. That he went on as long as he did is certainly a testament to a certain physical courage. Most of us here, if pressed, would admit to being surprised that he kept on living, year after year, when seemingly heartier souls fell by the wayside.
In the early 90s, he made a trip to Los Angeles, to see my brother Tim and me. He wanted to see where we lived, how we lived, to see California. And, we found out soon after he arrived, he wanted to see the Redwoods. He thought we could drive to them in 20 minutes. It takes 20 minutes to get on the freeway that takes you to the freeway that gets you to the freeway that gets you to the redwoods, but okay, we set out on a trip to see the redwoods, about five hours away.
Not 30 minutes into the trip, he had us stop so he could use the bathroom. Relieved, he suggested we get a cup of coffee. Dad loved coffee, and never met a cup he didn’t like. We get the coffee, we get back on the road. Thirty minutes later, he has to make another pit stop. Okay, he’s our father, he’s 72, if he wants to take a break, who are we to argue? We stop. He’s relieved, he suggests we enjoy a cup of coffee.
We get back on the road…40 minutes later, he needs to stop. We do, he does…then he wants coffee. Well, Tim and I, using our combined brain power, had spotted the pattern by then. Dad, we said, if you’d stop drinking so much coffee, we wouldn’t have to stop so much for you to go to the bathroom, and we might get to the redwoods before they fall over from old age!
But I thought you enjoyed having coffee with your father, he said. We sighed and said, Okay, let’s get another cup of coffee. It was a very lonnng trip.
But we finally got to the redwoods. We parked, we walked up the path to the biggest stand of redwoods in this state park, and Tim and I looked up at these trees, just marveling. Well, Dad, we said, Here we are, what do you think? I can’t see them, he said. We were standing amidst these monsters, they reached hundreds of feet into the air—how could he not see them? He was actually a little embarrassed that we had made such a big trip for him, and now that we had gotten there, he literally could not look up into the trees. His arthritis kept him from raising his head up. He could look straight ahead, at eye-level, and see the massive trunks, but he would never be able to look up to the treetops.
Tim and I combined our brainpower one more time, and we went to Dad and said, We brought you to see the redwoods, you’re going to see the redwoods. We positioned ourselves to either side of him, and he anticipated what we were going to do, and he just relaxed. We put our arms under his arms and his back and just lowered him straight back onto the ground, so he could look up and enjoy the treetops. He lay there on his back for several minutes, smiling as he looked up, and we just stepped aside, letting him take his time.
Now when we stepped aside, we left his field of vision—with the arthritis, he couldn’t turn his head. After a few minutes we heard him say, Are you guys still there—you’re not going to leave me here for making you drink all that coffee, are you?
He was a joker and a prank player, a tireless worker—when we were very young, and very sick, he worked as many jobs as he could, to help pay the medical bills—a hunter and a fisherman, a soldier, a friend to so many, a loyal husband, a great father, a loving grandfather, a concerned father-in-law. He prayed endlessly for his family and friends. I swear he wore out a few rosaries in his time.
He was flawed—as most of us are—but he still always seemed to have an inherent dignity, a real class about him, an intelligence that could be more than a few steps ahead of you. He had a very hard start in life, but he forged ahead, accomplished much, made a family, made many loyal friends—and was truly a loyal friend to many. If I had ever told him the following he would have been incredulous, because for all his gifts he was still rather insecure…it’s this: If I were half the man he was…I’d be twice the man I am.
And while he was sitting in a wheelchair in the hospital last Tuesday and thinking of a story—in which at least one person here would have had a significant part, maybe you, maybe the person next to you—and sending Joe home to get the tools of this trade he’d taken up late in life, and the attendants were looking the other way…he slipped away. He knew it was coming, and coming soon. He spoke frankly of it, and with almost no fear. He was ready. And now what we can do is send him with a prayer, and think of him from time to time, knowing that when he thought of any of us, it was often with a prayer for us, too.
Thanks for posting this, we're all a bit better for having had your dad among us.
Ditto . . .
How unfortunate. Dad probably was equally torn up. Still, there were good times I am sure. Lovely tribute. Stay strong and live to make him proud...
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