I remember the seesaw he built in the back yard for us. He hadn't finished but we wanted a ride "right now!" so he served as the fulcrum himself. He built an enormous brick barbecue out there too, which I only remember us using a couple of times to cook hotdogs. He planted geraniums and roses, kept the lawn mowed and later, after he and my mother divorced, started a Japanese rock garden. He was bringing back rocks from the beach for that garden when a heart attack caused him to pull off the road, and he never made it home. He was younger by four years than I am now.
He took us skating every Wednesday night for years and sat watching us. When I was six he patiently walked up and down the street steadying my new bike while I tried to pedal it. He taught me to swim, and when I finally got it, he was the one I wanted to show off to. When my sister and I sold Buddy Poppies for Veterans' Day, he was the one who waited for us and kept an eye on us.
Once he took me out on a motor boat to go fishing and when the motor failed, we were stranded after sundown out in the Gulf and he got us rescued by another fishing boat.
I always thought he looked like Humphrey Bogart. His hair never went gray or receded, and he always looked fit. He was never without his khakis and a perpetual sunburn from his work outdoors operating a dragline for construction crews. He had a hard childhood on a farm in the Midwest, growing up with immigrant parents who considered him, as the oldest of six, only a laborer who didn't need to go to school. But he loved to read and use "three-dollar words" and I wonder what he might have done with more education.
He was reserved with my sister and me, and I don't remember ever having a long conversation with him. He didn't seem to notice me much. My mother said he was disappointed we weren't boys.
But one of the sweetest moments of my life was when I dressed up in a yellow organdy gown for a junior high school dance and went to find him working in the yard. He looked at me, surprised, and said, "Why, you're beautiful!"
Thanks, Daddy, I needed that.