GOOD FATHERS NEVER STOP BEING DADDIES

All human being learns things from their fathers, either how to be a good dad, just like their dad was, or how not to be a bad dad, just like their dad was. As a girl, I learned so many things from my daddy, Leonard Wieland. First of all, my Daddy was comical, a real character, although my sisters and I didn’t see that part of his personality unless we were around his siblings and his mother. They all had a gift of comedy and we joined into the laughter on those occasions. Later in life, when we had our own children, Daddy showed that part of his personality to his grandkids and great grandkids. Several years after his death, we all still repeatedly relay to each other the entertaining things he did, laughing at them like it is the first time we have heard them or told them. Daddy had a marvelous work ethic which will always be part of my personality. He loved to work. He started many businesses, made successes of them, sold them, then went on to start other businesses. During my infancy, he owned a service station where we lived in the Panhandle of Texas while it was enjoying an oil boom. He made a success of the service station, bought another service station, then sold it. From there he started a real estate company and a used car business with a friend. That was a prime time for my oldest sister and me, high school age by then, because we had our pick of the cars to drive off the lot when needed. Those businesses were very successful. While still owning those businesses Daddy built a combination appliance and tire store in another town. He hired a man to run that store and it became successful. However, Daddy never seemed to receive any money from that business because he found out later that the manager was robbing the profits from him. The solution to that problem was to move our family to the other town and have Daddy run the appliance and tire store himself. So we moved while I was getting ready to begin my junior near in high school. My oldest sister was going to college, the two youngest sisters were in grade school, so it was a good time to move. The appliance and tire store flourished under Daddy’s management, so he established a furniture store in the same town. A year or so later he added a small service station to his collection of businesses, which he sold at a profit a short time later. Daddy was a successful businessman, even though he only had a fifth grade education. He was a voracious reader so he got an education on his own. He never forgot a person or the person’s name and that’s what made him a good businessman. His memories of events were unshakable and his details relating to events were perfect. His grammar was horrible, having been raised in the farming fields of Arkansas and Oklahoma, but his personality made up for his bad grammar. During the 30s, 40s and 50s very few women worked outside the home and men were the breadwinners so Mother stayed home with us. She also kept books for Daddy part-time. Because of Daddy’s frugality, he did his own janitor work so he left early in the morning, before we left for school, and he came home just in time for dinner. We had that small slice of time at night with him and we had weekends with him when we would usually pile in the station wagon and either drive to visit relatives or just take a Sunday drive, which he loved to do since he was a real “car” man. He loved cars and we always had the newest ones. The ideal would have been for Daddy to be a hands-on father, taking an intimate part in the lives of his daughters but that wasn’t the norm in those days. The men were too busy providing for their families. They left all of the nurturing up to the moms, which seemed to work out okay. However, there was always a little place inside of me which needed to be filled by a one on one relationship with Daddy. I thank Daddy so much for the work ethic that I have. He mowed his lawn religiously until he was in his late 80s, loved doing it. As a child I used to beg him to let me do it, but he refused because it was relaxing for him. I understand now because I am the same way. I call my lawn mowing time my Disneyland time, even though my lawn is huge. It’s my time to meditate and think about writing another story. When I finish the lawn, then shower or jump into the pool, I think about Daddy and his love for yard work, matching it with mine. After I hop out of the shower and dress, sit in my recliner while reading the daily paper, a magazine or a book, I think about Daddy and the depth of pleasure that he felt in the same situation, doing a job right, looking back at it and seeing its manicured beauty, finishing the job, showering off the sweat, then sitting quietly in his chair, and I know just how he felt. Rewarding and satisfying are my description of the feeling. As a child, missing out on having a close and personal one-on-one relationship with Daddy because of his work schedule was a reality; but I’ve decided that when, of necessity, men do that, they later become wonderful grandfathers, giving to their grandchildren the time and devotion for which they did not have the time with their own children. It’s like spending time with the grandchildren not only made up for the time that was lost with his daughters, but giving extra doses of love to our children was his way to make up for his lack of attention to us when we were children. I saw a side of Daddy with his grandchildren that warms my heart. He was his true self, comical, talkative, generous, entertaining and loving. He was still the rock that we always knew he was, but he was also the true person, the loving and entertaining one. It’s clear to me now that men who miss out on a close relationship with their own children always become wonderful grandfathers because they pour extra doses of love on the children of their own children, making up for the losses that were created by having to make a living and provide for a family. My Daddy was a fabulous grandfather. By the time he had grandchildren he had sold all of the businesses and had built a bowling alley in another Texas town. That necessitated another move for the family but worked out great for my younger sisters. The bowling alley was the center of entertainment for young people as well as families and the senior crowd. On our visits to Texas, My own children spent hours and hours with Grandpop at the bowling alley, not only bowling but playing the pinball machines, for which Grandpop was an endless supply of money. Their fondest memories are of the years with Grandpop and Grandmom at the bowling alley during the summers. That was over forty-five years ago, but our children still laugh at the events that happened at the bowling alley. Daddy was a hands-on father later in life. He relished visiting with the families of my sisters and me. Three days was the limit. He came, we laughed and ate for three days, but three days later he and our mother left to go home. We all laugh because his habit was to get up early on the day of departure, usually before we were up for the day, and sneak out to their car and get on the way home. His bed at home seemed to beckon him after three days. Did I miss the hands-on, personal involvement of my dad in my young years? Sure I did, but it was a necessity at the time for Daddy to be involved in his work. He had a large family of four girls who needed the best of everything. We never lacked for pretty clothes. The family always had the nicest cars in town, and our family had a good reputation in the business community because of Daddy. Daddy’s comedic streak in his personality are what we talk about the most when we are remembering his attributes. He seemed to make a comedy out of every situation with the grandchildren. We relish the stories about that part of his personality. When Daddy was in a nursing home the last year of his life, he was only there because of some fainting spells, some episodes which caused him to collapse in a heap on the floor of the apartment, in the elevator or wherever else it was prone to happen. He never lost his big smile while in the nursing home. When we would walk in the front door to the lobby, he was always there to meet us with a big smile on his face. Daddy was convinced when he was about 85 years old that he had won the Publishers Clearing House five million dollars. He called me and told me, “We’re rich.” He didn’t say he was rich, he said, “We’re rich.” That shows his generous nature. I told him that we’ve always been rich with laughter and happiness, but he persisted that we were now financially rich. He said my youngest sister had checked the letter and sure enough, it said he had won five million dollars. Doubting that he was the winner, I told him that my husband and I would drive the eight hours to their town in a few days and check out the veracity of the letter. He was glad to have us participate in the joy. After arriving there, we went over the letter word for word and discovered there was an “if” involved. The letter cleverly concealed the “if”, meaning if he had the right numbers then he had won. He didn’t. Daddy was devastated because he had told all of his highly educated friends at the Senior Citizen’s Center and at their senior swimming classes that he was now a millionaire. He felt like a fool. He stopped attending those venues because of his embarrassment. It took at least five years before we could joke about the fact that he had been deceived into believing that he won the Clearing House millions. Being the good sport that he was, he finally began laughing about his gullibility. Daddy lived until he was 95. Like the title of this story says, good fathers never stop being daddies. Daddy never stopped being the comic, the entertaining one. The night that my sister called to tell me that he had died, my husband and I laughed and cried together for hours because Daddy was more of a father to my husband than his own father had been. They were great buddies and we traveled a lot with my parents on yearly trips to see the aspens change, plus summer trips to California to see my children and grandchildren. His death was a sad occurrence, but we were at peace that Daddy was with Mother who had died two years earlier. We were glad that we had driven the five hours to be with him the previous Saturday and had bought him some Crispy Crème donuts of which he ate five with gusto. Good fathers never stop being daddies, for sure. Daddy proved it to me in a very unusual way. The night we received the news that he had died, I only slept a couple of hours. About 4:00 in the morning I decided to get up from the bed and go to my computer to do some computer work since I couldn’t sleep at all. I was perusing a court case that I was editing when a strange thing happened. I say “strange” because I had previously engaged pop-up blockers on the computer so I wouldn’t be interrupted with unwanted pop-ups while working on the court cases. I had not had pop-ups appear on my computer since I engaged the blockers about five years previous to Daddy’s death. Suddenly, in the middle of the court transcript there appeared a pop-up. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to blink several times to believe I was really seeing what I was seeing on my computer screen. In the same and usual format of many letters we all get in the mail, the pop-up on Publisher Clearing House stationary said “Congratulations. You are the winner of five million dollars.” It was exactly the same letter that had fooled Daddy into thinking he had won the money many years prior. I had never gotten that pop-up on my computer before this event and I have never gotten it again on my computer. I immediately started laughing and I said, “Daddy, okay, I know you are behind this little trick. Your attempt to let me know that you are still with me have done what you desired. It gave me a huge laugh.” Then I said, “You can go on to be with Mother now. You left us with a laugh, which has always been your desire.” I knew that no one would believe me unless I had a witness to Daddy’s parting message to me, so I yelled for my husband to immediately wake and rush into the home office where I was working because I knew he was not going to believe what was happening. I didn’t know much about pop-ups but I was worried that the Publisher Clearing House notice would disappear as quickly as it had appeared. As I suspected, my husband was astonished, just like I was. He stood with his big eyes blinking as if to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing. He kept saying, “I’m not believing what I’m seeing. I am NOT believing what I’m seeing.” We laughed and laughed. My husband said, “I didn’t know he had that kind of spiritual influence to do that.” It happened just like I have described. Leonard Wieland, my father, left a memory we will never forget, one that results in a laugh every time we tell it. Daddy’s memory has been kept alive with that experience because of the supernatural way that it happened. My father became a good friend later in life. He is still a good friend because I tell his jokes and antics over and over again. The experience we had with his parting gesture was so outstanding that we will never forget it. He’s still alive in the spiritual dimension caring for us the way he did when he walked the earth. Daddy is a partner with God in making sure we stay safe and prosperous in this life. My wonderful father, Leonard Wieland, will never, ever stop being a daddy to me. He proved it in so many times, even after the death of his body. I’m spiritually rich. I’m sure I’m the only person who ever got a Publisher Clearing House letter with such meaning from heaven.