The man in the middle.

Soon after this photo was taken, by whom I do not know, he became my father. But I digress. If you read some of my earlier stories, you might recognize the photo above. Perhaps your imagination or curiosity compelled you to read further, and wonder about various characters or times pictured there.

I did of a course not know my father or his extended family then. But I would. The story below came directly from his lips; near the end of his life he answered my question: what did you want to be when you grew up?

He sat in a lawn chair on my patio in Michigan His eighty-year old father had sat there too and told me some of his stories. Both men were somewhat bent over, getting weaker, living on oxygen supplied by those tanks familiar to many of us with aged parents. Dad would turn eighty-three that summer.

However, in the photo he was around sixteen, tough as nails, and spent much of his free time in his grandmother’s bar. He drank there. His neighbors did too. He never did tell me a lot of stories about those days. His choices later in life played a role in his rejection of and his disavowed childhood and teenage years. He decided though this time to answer my question; something of a surprise to me. We were not the best at communicating with each other. He struggled with his past, parents, and family place. And with me. As I do too.

His near west side Chicago neighborhood was tough, changing, and in his mind full of tension. He and his father were not “close”. One story my father did tell me was that his father broke promises: “I will wake you early and take you fishing with me”, he had told my dad as a youngster. Grandpa did not wake him that morning. My father was crushed and held a grudge about it his entire life. More than once I heard my father say to me: Do not trust your grandfather. He lies!

My dad did take me fishing, in contrast. Mostly the type we did was quiet, pretty calm, and uneventful. We did a lot more fishing than catching! I am his youngest son; my older brother and dad often caught more and lager fish than I did. They both had a knack and feel for it. But, again I digress.

My dad had a knack for knocking people to the ground. He bragged that no one had ever hit him hard enough, or hit him in the right place (his face or head). As the youngest of three sons, he learned to give and take punches. He spoke one time about a fight he had with an older brother: I stood on the landing of our second story apartment and dropped a large piece of coal on my brother, squarely on top of his head. He told me about the blood that gushed out of the wound. My father’s pride was evident.

I learned too about the wars of words, the tools of sarcasm, and the pain that looks could inflict on anxiety unsuspecting and weaker opponent. I was the brunt and target of some of his impatience and anger. He must have learned it somewhere.

So Dad, what did you want to be when you grew up? His answer came quickly and without a second thought: All I ever wanted to do was hit people, to hit them hard enough to knock them down.

I do not recall him ever hitting me. He knew his strength, and he the damage he could inflict on another person. I recall a coworker of his telling me that my dad was the strongest man he ever knew. A powerhouse of a man.