I Finally Know How He Feels

Baton received
In what has now become somewhat my custom, I am once again taking a break in my current series, paying tribute to my recently-departed Father In-Law (an intermission, BTW, brought about by more than just the specific occasion of today’s post — and I’ll explain more about that later on), in order to pay a different kind of tribute; one marking what I consider to be somewhat of a watershed moment for me.

Today is Father’s Day; a day of wildly conflicting emotions for your truly.

Dad’s Day has always been an occasion in which I’ve spent time reflecting on the relationship I have with my own Father, one that has grown so much closer in the past ten years or so since the passing of my step-Mom, Maxine.

I can’t accurately describe just how special it’s been for me in recent years to receive the love and focused friendship that I have from the man whom I worshipped from afar for so many years, but whose attention seemed so unattainable when I was growing up.

Hmm; I guess I need to explain that last statement.

My Dad and I weren’t particularly close when I was a kid, although I never had any doubt that he loved me and appreciated me for whom I was. It’s just that there wasn’t enough of him to go around, what with him being virtually a single parent to five boys throughout much of my early childhood. And given my somewhat introverted personality, I was never the type to openly vie for his affections or attention.

He coached my elder brothers in Little League as well as being highly involved their Cub Scout troop activities; heck, he was even the president of the PTA for awhile. But by the time I had reached the age to be involved in those types of activities, my natural Mother was already well into the throes of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease. We were all in flux; those extra-curricular activities no longer had a place in our family’s life.

Within the next five years, my Mom passed away, my Dad remarried, and we moved to Southern California. My life underwent changes too numerous to recount here. I suffered considerably at the hand and tongue of Maxine, and my Pop was never the wiser. He was under enough pressure to keep a roof over our heads; I was more concerned with keeping mine, which I might not have if I made trouble for Maxine. I just decided he didn't need to know. I just kept quiet and lived with the abuse.

Ours was the quintessential Cats in the Cradle kind of father/son relationship. He wanted to spend time with me, but just couldn't find the time. But it was okay, really. I was realistic.

As time passed the passive nature I inherited from my Dad began to kick in and I grew surprisingly comfortable with the fact that he simply was who he was and never held him in contempt for it. In fact, I believe it was just that firm belief that he really did love me that kept me from going off the deep end during those confusing and emotionally-charged early teen years dealing with Maxine. However as I entered high school things slowly began to change.

I became involved in gymnastics in 10th grade and in relatively short order began to emerge as a successful athlete. My Dad attended nearly all of my local competitions in high school, sometimes with my step-Mom, but usually without. However when it came time for the CIF* Finals my senior year — the highest wrung in the ladder of high school athletic competition to which I could attain — he wasn’t there.

*_{California Interscholastic Federation}

Unfortunately for me, CIF Finals were scheduled the same week as Maxine & Dad’s fifth wedding anniversary, which they’d planned to celebrate in Hawaii.

Sure, I understood; the arrangements had been made; the tickets purchased well in advance. It was Cats in the Cradle once again; but this time it really hurt.

I took first place on rings that night, and for all intents and purposes, validated my existence as a significant human being; I was no longer the under-achieving, pint-sized, boy who Maxine routinely told, “you’ll never amount to anything.” I was a champion; I had now accomplished something that no one would, or could, ever take away from me.

Call me narcissistic; call me overly-dramatic, but that moment, I believe, set the tone for the rest of my life. I won more than a medal that night; I won my dignity.

And the woman who branded those words into my young brain, along with the only man I’d ever wanted to emulate, weren’t there to see it.

What a bittersweet moment that was, and how sobering it is to realize only now that I have come full circle in understanding its true meaning in my life.

It’s important for me to note that unless you’ve read my blog for awhile, you may not realize that I don’t hate my Step-Mom, but have completely forgiven her for the way she treated me. And contrary to the tone of the last few paragraphs, I don’t blame her for anything, but in fact, appreciate the many lessons and practical applications she taught that have stayed with me throughout the years.

Old emotions, however, no matter how distant in the past, don’t exist in a vacuum. They may become augmented over time and/or diffused by forgiveness, but we never truly divorce them; they never truly go away. Some of them we even keep around like pets, feeding and nurturing them on a daily basis. However sometimes they need circumstances to resurface; sometimes reinforcing the forgiveness that changed their previous destructive course in our lives, other times, simply floating just above the brink of consciousness, soothing or tormenting our psyches, whatever the case my be.

Such is my frame of mind this Father’s Day.

It’s in the cards.
I’ve said it so many times it might as well be my mantra: I’m a lucky guy. Lucky to have had a taste of success in this life on a variety of levels; lucky to have a pair of kids who are well on their way to leading happy, successful lives in their own right; and damn lucky to have a wife who not only puts up with my shortcomings and goofiness, is simply a superstar in the eyes of nearly everyone who knows her.

Like most men, I’d like to think that I’m the go-to guy in my household, but I know better. I’ve never had a single worry about what would happen to Michelle if I met an untimely demise; she would be fine; she would be taken care of, financially; she would no doubt live out her life confidently and in full charge of her faculties. That’s just the way she is: a take-charge kinda gal; a scrappy, yet incredibly generous and giving soul. Apart from certain members of her family (whom like I said earlier, I’ll talk about another time), I’ve never seen a person who’s had any chance to known her who hasn’t felt completely at ease. I’m obviously biased, but I’m not stretching the truth here — everybody loves Michelle.

And while I am obviously buoyed by that fact, I’d have to say that I’m just as proud — or even more proud of the fact that so much of her has rubbed off on our kids, particularly, our daughter, Amy.

One of Michelle’s most astounding traits in my estimation, is her ability to procure greeting cards that offer the coolest design as well as the most poignant, heartfelt, perfectly worded sentiments. I honestly don’t know how she does it. I do okay in picking out cards, but every now and then I just have to settle for ones that are ‘okay’ and then attempt to offset the ‘cheese’ factor with a more appropriate hand-written addendum on the card.

But she never needs to resort to such unnecessary extra effort. She just signs ‘I love you’ and her name; the card says the rest — every.freaking.time.

Well, the good news is, she’s somehow mystically transferred that power to Amy. My daughter already had a string of greeting card hits several times over coming into to today, but this morning, when Michelle presented me with an envelope adorned with an Atlanta postmark, I knew it would be more of the same. What I didn’t know was that this time, Amy would truly hit it out of the park.

It’s little things
that make Dads heroes,
Things not seen…
Sacrifices made
while living out
each day’s routine.
It’s the little things a father does,
the things he knows he must,
the ‘being there’ when each day’s through,
the love that builds up trust.
And though there’s not a list
of everything he’s done,
the heart remembers
and gives thanks
for each and every one.

You’ve always been there for me —
and since Father’s Day is here,
I wanted you to know
how much I admire you,
how much I love you,
and how proud I am
that you’re my Dad.

My heart melted as I read those words, despite the sappiness, because I knew they were true.

And as if that wasn’t enough, she, unlike her Mother, didn’t stop there. She took a page out of her Pop’s book and added a lengthy, wonderful, killer hand-written note about how well she appreciated the bond that we share, and how every year that passes, our relationship grows stronger and stronger. I mean, for gawdsakes, how can you beat that?

Say what you mean to say
I started out this story with a point to make, and it wasn’t to rattle on emotionally about my bragging rights as someone lucky enough to be a part of a great family.

What I had today was an epiphany; an ah-ha moment. And I didn't arrive there by accident. I was preceded there by my Father; I just never realized before today how similar our respective paths had been.

I finally understood why my Dad responds to our relationship the way he does; I now know why he repeatedly reminds me that he loves me each and every time we talk on the phone.

Back in 2004, in my first and most prolific year of posting to this blog, I wrote a three-part series in response to the question asked by a dear friend and fellow-blogger, “Who was your Father?” In that story I explained in detail much of my early relationship with my Dad, as well as the basic gory details of my misadventures with Maxine. It was the first of my oft-mentioned allusions to Harry Chapin’s seminal 1974 hit Cats in the Cradle.

It’s highly unlikely I need to explain the gist of song’s message, so very apropos to father/son relationships in our day and age. But just in case you’re unfamiliar with it, simply put, its moral is that of the irony of learned behavior — more specifically — if you think you don’t have time for your kids now, beware; they probably won’t have time for you later. The concept that, ‘we all eventually become our parents’ plays a particularly key role in Chapin’s wonderfully astute but simply-crafted object lesson.

After I turned 40, my life changed a great deal. I did a lot of soul-searching; a lot of prospecting for perspective. A few years later, my StepMom, Maxine passed away, and I began to search my heart for how I truly felt about her. During that process is when I rediscovered my Dad.

Unfortunately for both of us, due to the overpowering strength of Maxine’s personality, my relationship with him had remained basically unchanged since the time I’d lived at home — warm, but still distant. It was nobody’s fault; it just was.

But now I had the opportunity to really get to know him; to truly know and appreciate him for the man he was; I finally began to see the similarities in our respective personalities — the good as well as the not-so-good. I could for the first time in my life say with conviction, “If there’s anything you like about the person I am, you can thank my Pop.” I was proud to realize how much we had in common.

As mentioned in that story I wrote five years ago, in a Father’s Day card I sent to my Dad sometime in the early 2000s, I added a hand-written sentiment, similar to the one Amy included in her card to me today. I transcribed the chorus from the song, Wind Beneath My Wings, not because I’m partial to cheesy songs, mind you, but because of one eloquently-crafted line from it that perfectly emulated the sentiment I wanted to deliver to my Dad that day:

Did you ever know you are my hero; you’re everything I would like to be?

I’d been thinking it for years, but was totally unaware that I’d never actually said it to him before. The next day he called me in tears. “Did you really mean that,” he sobbed, “Am I really your hero?”

I don’t want to take even a moment of your time here psychoanalyzing that moment in my father’s life. I don’t know if was really that surprised at the notion or merely caught off-guard that after all those years I would suddenly offer such a compliment. But I do know one thing; it changes a man when someone truly regards him as a hero, especially when he really doesn’t believe he’s earned the title.

I finally know how my Dad felt that day. I know what a humbling thing it is to truly experience the Biblical concept of having one’s children rise up and call you blessed.

Like I said, I’m a lucky guy.


finis

The Eagle Has Landed (Epilogue)

The Right Stuff
There are — thank you, Jesus — a number of things in my life for which I feel very proud. Most of them are privileges I have been given, not necessarily of my own making.

I feel as blessed to be me as I could possibly imagine any man could feel. I am humbled by my fortune in this life.

Among my proudest and most honored moments came when Michelle’s Mom asked me to deliver the eulogy at her husband’s funeral. It was an assignment I received with gladness.

I can’t say that I was quite as nervous as I was almost exactly nine years earlier, when I delivered my Step-Mom, Maxine’s eulogy. However this one held added meaning to me.

Not only was I honoring a wonderful Father to my wife, Granddaddy, to my kids, and friend to me, but also a great man, whose humble service to his country — and really, to our society — cannot be easily measured.

I’d like to close this tribute to my Father In-Law with the text to his eulogy, which I delivered on Wednesday June 10, 2009 at Williamson Memorial Funeral Home & Gardens, in Franklin Tennessee.

But before I do, I kinda need to explain one more thing; not because I’m worried no one will ‘get it,’ but rather to underscore the way I feel about this man; something even now I’m a little shocked at myself for feeling.

Right now, even months after his death, I actually, feel closer to my Father In-Law than I ever did when he was alive. And as you might imagine, I feel a little guilty about that.

Is it only now that he’s gone that I realize what a special guy he was? Did it take losing him to make me realize how valuable he was, not only to his family, but to me, personally? I mean c’mon, I’ve never been ANYONE else’s freaking ‘guru.’ It’s always been me who has pursued relationships with others — never the other way around.

But he valued me. He appreciated what I knew and who I was. Why the HELL didn’t I appreciate him more while I had the chance?

Why didn’t I make the effort to spend more time with him individually — particularly over the past year, when we actually lived in the same state; when the distance between us was only 30 miles instead of 650?

These are always questions that have no answers; that are always asked too late; that will haunt us if we let them.

He called me ‘Fell’r’ — you know, the country equivilent of ‘fellow’ or ‘fella’ — a term of endearment.

I really liked that.

And I really miss him.

My Father In-law had the right stuff.

No, he wasn’t an astronaut, or even a test pilot; he wasn’t ‘Scott’ Carpenter, or James Lovell, or Neil Armstrong, but he knew them all, worked with them all, and ALL of them trusted him with their lives.

Someone once asked if he ever wanted to trade places with the astronauts whom he helped send to the moon. He replied simply, “No, I don’t want to go…I’ll just make sure that all who DO go are safe.”

My Father In-Law was a significant spoke in the wheel of U.S. History, but he’d never tell you that. “Just doing his job,” he’d say. I never once remember hearing him brag or boast about the work he did in the Space Program, or the fact that the GPS navigation units we all consider a part of our lives exist in significant part due to his efforts.

Nope; he wasn’t anything special.

The heck he wasn’t!

His dedication and excellence as lead test-conductor for the second stage of the Saturn V rocket that powered Apollo 11 to the moon wasn’t his only calling card. My Father In-Law was everything to his family, because his family was everything to him.

He learned that from his parents, Bill and Louise, of Pensacola, Florida. Born in 1931, Edwin and his younger brother Larry enjoyed a happy childhood, despite beginning their lives in the latter years of the Great Depression.

Ed’s father was a mechanic at the Naval Air Station there in Pensacola, where his impeccable work ethic and sense of dedication in supporting his family during those lean times heavily influenced his two boys.

In his teen years Edwin was fascinated with all things mechanical and especially, all things electronic. He and Larry were grease monkeys, always working on boats, cars, motorcycles — and Edwin’s newest fascination — radio and television sets.

That fascination with electronics would serve Edwin well, as when he entered the Army in 1949, his superior test scores landed him the role of radar technician — stateside, instead of being a soldier ‘over there,’ fighting in the Korean War.

His career as an electrical engineer was a direct result of that experience.

Ed joined North American Aviation as a technician in 1955, launching a 35-year career with the company that would eventually become Rockwell International, arguably the largest and most important technology contractor in the history of the Space Program.

The key word was LAUNCH.

His integrity and attention to detail as an engineer won him the respect and admiration of both his military and civilian managers, from his work on the Hound Dog Missile project, to the Saturn V Rocket that helped place the first man on the moon, to the Navstar Global Positioning System initiative that sent the first round of GPS satellites into orbit around the Earth.

And when the U.S. Space Program’s proudest moment arrived, on July 16, 1969, it was my Father In-Law who was asked to give Apollo 11’s final launch countdown to zero before turning things over to Mission Control in Houston.

Just another day at the office for the man who one day, correcting me for introducing myself to someone as his ‘Son In-Law,’ said, “No, he’s my ‘Son in-LOVE.’ Sure it was embarrassing…but I know why he said it; he said it because he had so much love to give.

My Father In-Law loved his family, and his family loved him just as much.

He met Mary Ellen Collier quite by accident one afternoon, when she accompanied a family friend to his parent’s house. It was truly a love-at-first-sight circumstance, as 8 weeks later, Ed and Marian were walking down the aisle, and would remain by each other’s side for the next 55-plus years.

Eleven months later, a daughter, Vickie, was born, followed by Michelle and Kal. Their life together as a family was a celebration of all he knew and believed in.

My Father In-Law LOVED his family; in 1979 when I married Michelle, I found out how much (in no uncertain terms either, buddy). But I soon learned that this was a man with a heart as big as all outdoors.

Today, his loss leaves us with a hole in our hearts that’s about the same size.

He is survived by his brother, Larry, his wife, Mary Ellen, their daughter, Michelle, son, Kal, and three grandchildren: Trevor, Shawn, and Amy.

My Father In-Law LOVED the Lord, and served dutifully and humbly as a Baptist Deacon for many years.

But while we’re all feeling a little lonelier at his passing, he no doubt has plenty of company there in the presence of our Heavenly Father.

His Mother, eldest daughter, and Father preceded him to Heaven and there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re all here with us today, celebrating the life of a great man; a great American; a man who made me feel like a son to him; a man I loved and will miss very, very much.

Thanks, Fell’r…

finis

The Eagle Has Landed (Part IV)

Enter the ‘Son In-Love’
In 1973, Rockwell transferred Ed to their new base of operations in Seal Beach, in Orange County California, just south of Long Beach where I lived. He was hand-picked by the U.S. Air Force to be the launch propulsion test expert on the initial round of the top-secret Global Positioning Satellite initiative.

I obviously didn’t know him during his days at Cape Canaveral, and I’m sure he was wound fairly tight back then as well, but dude, I’ve gotta tell ya, he was a pretty imposing figure when we first met in 1978.

Maybe it was the pressure of keeping a lid on the details of his work — still years away from becoming the household name that GPS has now been for more than a decade.

Perhaps it was that the stress of his job was being multiplied by the constant travel to and from Vandenberg Air Force Base — all the way up in Santa Barbara County — the site of the testing and initial GPS launches, and more than a one hundred fifty-mile trip, one way, from his home North Orange County.

All I knew was that he was a big, intimidating man, and it was in my best interests not to piss him off.

Ours was the typical ‘prove-to-me-that-you’re-good-enough-to-marry-my-daughter’ dynamic early on (or at least that’s the way I perceived it), but thankfully, things got much better a few years into the relationship, sometime after he and Michelle’s Mom were transferred back to Cape Canaveral in 1982, where Ed would finish out the remaining five years of his career before retiring at age 55.

We talked about that during our extended time together, that Sunday, a week before he died. Although any tension between us had long since passed, I’d always wanted to know what he really thought of me back then.

I knew that they accepted me, but I always sensed there was something about me that Michelle’s parents just didn’t trust. No one ever said anything to my face, but I sure as hell felt it.

I now wanted to know if the vibes I had received from him in those early years were real or just an emotional mirage on my part, exacerbated by my own raging insecurity and me-against-the-world attitude of my early adulthood.

He hadn’t minced words at any point during our five-hour confab, but in this particular instance rather caught me off-guard when addressing the question of how he first assessed his new son in-law.

“I saw you as a guy who worked in a grocery store, and I was concerned about that,” he said matter-of-factly.

In all fairness, Ed had no reason to see me as anything else back then, as it was more than ten years after Michelle and I were married before I actually went out and got a ‘real job’ — the Art Director position at the Record Company I held from 1990-92. If the shoe had been on the other foot — particularly in view of what I now know from my 15 years’ experience as a freelancer, I’m sure I would have felt just as — if not more — uneasy than Michelle’s Dad did.

However, happily, the apparent uneasiness on either side of the relationship would fade as the years passed, particularly so following Ed’s retirement and subsequent heart attack (resulting in the first of two bypass procedures that he would undergo).

I don’t know if it was the relief of the pressure he felt previously in such a high-intensity job, now mitigated by retirement, or if perhaps it was meeting death squarely in the face by virtue of the heart attack that changed him, but by the mid-80s, Ed was a different man; a kinder, gentler soul; a man I could now identify with and friend instead of fear.

I guess, to be absolutely fair, the process began even before Michelle’s folks returned to Florida in 1982, on Ed’s final reassignment to The Cape. It was sometime within a year prior to their departure from SoCal, when Michelle and I attended church with them one sunny Sunday morning — the same church in which my bride and I were married.

I don’t remember whether it was before or after the service, but we were outside in the courtyard, mingling with the other parishioners, being introduced to friends of Michelle’s folks. At one point, I made the proactive move of introducing myself to one gentleman while everyone else was otherwise occupied. As I was shaking his hand and introducing myself as Mr. & Mrs. C’s Son In-Law, Ed turned to the two of us just in time to correct me, mid-sentence, in trademark Big Ed style, booming, “No, he’s my Son In-Love.

Yeah. He really said that. And yeah, I >really was floored.

Was it for show; something to say that sounded ‘right’ on a Sunday Morning at church? Perhaps; but in the nearly 30 years that have passed since, I don’t think he was just making nice — not based on the man would come to know in later years.

It took a long time for me to completely overcome the inferiority complex I felt around my In-Laws, but If they truly hadn’t accepted me, I’m quite sure I would have known it in no uncertain terms. I believe the perceived ‘problem’ was much more about me than it was about them.

And things would indeed get better; much better.

An Unlikely Guru
In years of observing not only my own circumstances, but that of other married men I know, there’s a single consistency in most Father in-Law/Son In-Law relationships: The FIL wants his little girl to be protected — regardless of how independent and capable she might be — and the SIL wants to prove that he doesn’t need to be told how to accomplish that task.

It’s a Battle Royale of male egos, no matter how amiable things appear on the surface. I’m sure it goes the same way on the opposite end of the gender scale with Mothers and their sons. But unfortunately, since my natural Mother was gone and the relationship between my Step Mother and me was still distant at best at that time, I only saw one half of the equation. And it really ate me up.

But then in the late 80s, something happened that changed everything: Personal Computers.

I began working with computers at what nowadays seems like an ancient age of 34 years old. My friend, Randy had offered to set me up, support, and train me in a desktop publishing business he wanted to try to develop In Southern California. Attempting to scratch his own creative itch; he only needed an artist, and believed that the two of us could make it happen.

I hadn’t done anything to deserve the favor — the least of which was show and aptitude for computers. In fact, we weren’t any more than just ‘church friends.’ I didn’t even really like the guy all that much; I thought he was kind of a blowhard. But it was just another example of why you should never judge a book by its cover.

I’ve written plenty about my gratitude to Randy for launching my career as a graphic designer, Art Director, and later, Web designer. However I don’t think I’ve ever given him proper credit for also providing the means for the relationship I would later enjoy with my Father In-Law.

Yep. Hard to believe it, but if it wasn’t for what Randy did for my career, my relationship with my In-Laws might have been completely different — I know my friendship with my Father In-Law would have been.

Sometime in the late 80’s-early 90s, Ed bought a personal computer. Now I would have thought this to have been a marriage made in heaven, Ed and his PC. After all, we’re talking about a rocket engineer who was among the first class of people to even work with computers. I would’ve thought he’d know ‘em inside and out, but surprisingly, no, no he did not.

In fact, the computers that he knew and used — you know, the big ol’ UNIVAC-type — the kind that filled up an entire room and worked with punch cards and tapes? Well apparently those things were a lot bigger in size than they were in computing power.

I was absolutely floored the day that Ed told me about those late 60s-early 70s computers that he and others worked with to send the Apollo astronauts to the moon. My jaw hit the floor when he revealed that they in fact had LESS computing power than a circa 1989 IBM 386 PC.

By the time we moved to Tennessee in 1992, I had been building my own PCs (with plenty of telephone support by MY guru, Randy), for more than 3 years. I was fairly competent, but no expert by my own estimation. My Father In-Law would beg to differ.

He would call me constantly to ask how to do this or that, and how to deal with the sometimes buggy Windows 3.1 operating system. I would walk him through steps in DOS to partition and/or reformat his hard drive. I sent him boot-up floppy disks to use whenever his system would crash — which happened at an alarmingly consistent rate.

He just seemed amazed that I nearly always had the answer to his computer problem. I was glad to help, and more than just a little embarrassed by the fact that he seemed so helpless on his own. Had he not lived in Florida at the time we would no doubt have spent hours on end together at his house, troubleshooting his ‘puter.

But to his credit, although it never seemed to keep him from having more (and sometimes, the same) problems again later on down the road, he was usually able to resolve the problems on his own, after a little coaching from his unlikely guru.

Diff’rent Strokes
That, I believe was the breakthrough in our relationship. He never looked at nor treated me the same after the mid 90s, following the dawn of our ‘new’ roles. He finally seemed to respect me for who I was now, rather than who he thought I should have been earlier.

And please understand that I have never held any avarice or cynicism toward Ed in regards to the ‘computer guru’ thing. I was and always will be grateful to God (and Randy) that there was something — anything that could develop a true common interest between us.

We were, quite frankly, cut from completely different cloths. He was a self-starter, having forged his career out of a love and interest in electronics as a boy in the 1940s. He studied, built crystal radio ‘kits,’ became an aficionado of early television technology, and then parlayed it all into an Army career as a radar technician.

Following his four years in the service, in which he served at the top-secret Nevada Proving Grounds, where he was engaged as a ‘Ground Zero’ atomic test soldier, he stepped right into the new and burgeoning U.S. Space Program, and began a 35-year career with the company that would become Rockwell International.

Compare that to me: a passive, shy, athletic-but-non-aggressive artist/introvert, who’d never had a full-time job (and never wanted to), who was somehow going to supposedly support his stay-at-home wife and two young children.

I’ve been an athlete and a pro sports fanatic my whole life; Ed never played any kind of organized sports, and was much more at home doodling in his garage than watching a game on TeeVee.

Ya see what I mean?

The fact that we were ever friends was really a minor miracle. Oh, I could be cordial with a turnip, but to say that we actually enjoyed hanging out together…well that’s a pretty amazing statement right there.


Next: The Right Stuff

The Eagle Has Landed (Part III)

Ed WHO?
I had known him for 31 years, but really knew very little about him. But there, on a sunny Sunday morning, May 31, 2009, I would have a unique opportunity.

Ed had arrived at the hospital early Saturday evening, following a visit he and Michelle’s Mom made to our house for dinner; a dinner of which Ed would not partake. Hw was already in too much pain by the time they arrived at our house. Michelle took him immediately into the front guest bedroom where he could lay down, hoping that he would soon feel better.

But nothing would assuage the knifing pain he felt in his lower back; every movement was agony for him. He’d never complained about anything quite this severe before. We all grew concerned. Finally Michelle insisted that her Dad be taken to Nearby Williamson Medical Center, where the doctors could perhaps get a gauge on what was going on and help relieve his pain.

As I described previously, that trip to the hospital was the beginning of the end for my Father In-Law. He would early the next morning be diagnosed with a cancer that was no longer operable, but which had spread like wildfire all over his body. He was given weeks to months to live, but death would instead come just a week later, on Sunday morning, June 7th.

However that morning as I came to spend what would be the most wonderful five hours we would ever have alone together, I would leave with answers to questions I’d had about him our relationship began.

I knew a little about his accomplishments, but there were a lot of holes in the scant few stories I’d ever heard him tell on his own behalf. We had a great time together, and he seemed genuinely happy to finally get through an entire story uninterrupted.

He also told me about how he felt toward me — at the beginning of our relationship and now. These are the things I’ll always treasure. This is how I will always define him as the man he truly was.

He was a significant part of the Apollo Space program. He was a pioneer in the testing of Atomic and Nuclear weapons. He was the man responsible for getting the first GPS satellite into orbit.

And though I knew a little about all of these things, I never knew what he really though of his accomplishments; I never knew how they impacted him as a man.

But I’d find out over the course of those five hours we had together.

Pop History
To channel Magnum P.I., “I know what you’re thinking…” Most of you who know me are already aware that I’m telling the truth here about my Father In-Law, but some of you may be thinking to yourself, “If this guy was so great, how come I’ve never heard of him? Why can’t I find him ANYWHERE — on Google, Wikipedia, or even the Rockwell/Boeing Corporate web site?”

It’s a valid question; the same one that could be applied to my own claim to having won the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) Men’s Gymnastics Still Rings title on back in 1976.

If you knew my real name and Googled it in relationship to the NJCAA gymnastics finals (held at The College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL that year), you wouldn’t find word one on that meet or anything else about me. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen — only that there’s no record of it on the World Wide Web.

Y’see — and I KNOW this is gonna come as big a shock to some people — not EVERYTHING is what I refer to as ‘Pop-History’ (i.e.: stuff you can find on Google and other search engines — the vast majority of which has found its way onto the Inter-Webz only in the past 15 years or so). The reason for that is simple. In order for something or someone to become immortalized on the Internet, somebody has to consider it important enough to write about first. And unless that writing takes the form of a blog, whitepaper, or online news/periodical story, I’m sorry to tellya, but you ain’t findin’ it, folks.

So how disappointed do you think I was a few years ago to discover that even on the NJCAA’s official website, not only is there nary a mention of Long Beach City College’s 1975 Team National Championship, but no mention of mine in ’76, nor any information at all on LBCC Men’s Gymnastics. I could only conclude the reason being that gymnastics is no longer listed as one of the sports the NJCAA sanctions for competition.

To be fair, however, I did see at least scant recognition of past gymnastics championships for existing NJCAA member schools, found in their various collegiate profiles on the website. However, LBCC itself no longer has a gymnastics program and is no longer is an official member of the NJCAA; hence, no online profile and no love for AJ and his teammates.

So you’re gonna have to just take my word for it — at least until the time someone makes the effort to go back and transcribe 33 year-old stories from Long Beach Press-Telegram sports sections.

Don’t hold your breath.

And while the fact that the information isn’t readily available does wonders for my online persona’s desire to remain anonymous, it DOES kinda shoot my real-time ego all-ta-hell.

But anytime you ever want to come over to the house and see my gold medal, I’ll be happy to show ya — although it may take me some time to unearth it; I’ve had my trophies packed away for years now.

The bottom line is, recorded human history didn’t start in the late 80s — or whenever it was that Al Gore invented the Internet. And even as it is now and has been since the dawn of the Internet age, history is still subjective to the point that humans decide what gets recorded and how that record is couched, slanted, and vetted.

There were thousands of people who played important roles in the success and safety of the Space Program; they are all to be honored and congratulated. I’m just a little biased because of what I know my Father In-Law was responsible for — and the seriousness with which he took that responsibility.

On the other hand, I’m sure my Father In-Law, wasn’t bugged (assuming he ever even cared to check) by the fact that his name wasn’t plastered all over the history books and on the Internet. Although he was active online, he didn’t participate in any of the hundreds of Space Program-related message boards, crowing about his participation the historical events that surrounded his career — that’s not what he was about.

As a matter of fact, being low-key was the way that he and so many others of his generation preferred things. They didn’t need to see their names up in lights to know that what they did was important. The work was their reward.

And given that the men-behind-the-scenes have never really been granted much of a fair shake in the historical record (quick — tell me who was Christopher Columbus’ first mate on his 1492 voyage to discover the New World? There…told’ja!), unless someone who has a vested interest in honoring such a person steps forth and offers that information, the chances are we’ll never see it — that is, unless the person in question goes out and toots his or her own horn. But that’s just not the kind of man that my Father In-Law was; not by a long shot.

However as lead Test Conductor for the second stage of the Saturn V rocket so crucial in transitioning the Apollo 11 spacecraft from mid-launch into orbit, he was indeed on that last line of defense for the lives of those three astronauts, as well as for the success of the mission. He was more than just a cog in the wheel, in my opinion.

No one who was ever involved with my Father In-Law would say, “Ed Who?” It was more like, “Ed — well, who ELSE?”


Next: Enter the ‘Son In-Love’

The Eagle Has Landed (Part II)

I Plead, ‘No Contest’
Okay, before you start going, “Hey, nice to see ya again, AJ, what’s it been, eight and-a-half weeks? Back to your old habits, aren’t ya — starting a series then either never finishing it or stringing it out for so long that people need a freaking compass to find their way back to the storyline?

*sigh* Guilty, as charged, your honor(s)…but with explanation…

I posted the previous installment of this series the day of my Father In-Law’s funeral, which in addition to the emotionality such a day would hold on its own, included me delivering his eulogy.

No stress there, right?

I had used the first two parts to this story about my Father In-Law as the subtext from which I would derive his official final tribute. And after that I honestly felt as though I needed to take a step back for awhile. I needed to place a little bit of emotional distance between myself and the event. It was already a much tougher circumstance to deal with than I thought it would be; and even more so for Michelle’s family.

Yep, the emotions at my house had been pretty close to the surface. Funny thing, emotions; just when you think they’re going one way…

Soon after the funeral, something happened that made absolutely no sense and actually left me with little to no motivation to even finish this story. I was so steamed that I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops. Now two months later, I’m really glad that at least one cooler head prevailed (namely, Michelle’s).

To put it mildly, my wife had a falling out with her Mother and only remaining sibling, her younger brother— and we’re talkin’ a top-o’-the-Empire-State-Building kinda falling out here, folks. The two of them basically declared civil war on the two of us. It was been beyond belief how quickly things turned, and for how silly a reason, apparently.

However that’s all I’ve decided to say about it. This is obviously something that’s literally too close to home for me to go into detail about here, although. I may eventually write about it sometime; perhaps when enough time has passed to sufficiently distance the hurt. Needless to say, I was completely disgusted by the way this incident ripped my wife’s family apart at such a fragile and obviously sensitive place in time.

It’s like Festivus…minus the Pole (and the Feats of Strength)
The good news is, after a six-and-a-half week standoff, apologies were delivered and received, and grievances were calmly aired (and all I wanted to do was pin somebody). However now that everyone is once again on speaking terms I’m obviously happy that nobody wants to do anyone bodily harm, and I’m even happier because now I can write about it, and finish up my tribute to a truly special man, for whom I still feel a great deal of respect and admiration, my late Father In-Law.


Next: Ed WHO?

The Eagle Has Landed (Part I)

♫ What a drag it is getting old... ♪
I apologize in advance if at first blush I appear a little narcissistic here, but that’s really not what I’m going to say is about. It’s not about me; it’s about reality; a reality we all avoid but will never escape, no matter how far into the sand of our youthful lives we bury our heads.

Getting old really does suck — especially when you don't feel or ‘think’ old. But none of that matters when you're knockin’ on the door of 53 trips around the sun (like yours truly and his wonderful spouse); it may be nice to hear that you’re regarded by your co-workers as “the youngest old guy” they’ve ever met, but that doesn’t mean beans where the rubber meets the road; it doesn’t change the one specific reality, that no matter how young you think or feel, 53 ain't young, baby. And when you're 53, that means your parents are probably 25 or so years older than that, which means that they're in a place in their lives where time is the most precious — and fleeting.

It means that they're in a place where they can leave you — for good.

And no matter how prepared you think you are; no matter how tough you think you might be — and especially in my case — no matter how emotionally indemnified from loss you assume your heart is (because after all, they're not your parents), I’m here to tell you that you are NEVER ready.

You can NEVER really handle it ‘like a man.’

You can NEVER stiffen your gut enough to withstand the punch that knocks the wind out of your sails.

You can NEVER know how horrible and helpless it feels to realize a relationship you've had with someone your entire adult life is coming to an abrupt and very final end, until it’s there, staring you in the face.

That’s how my week was.

Interview with an Unsung Hero
The only bright spot in my week from Hell happened seven days before my Father In-Law died, the morning following his first night in the hospital. It wasn’t exactly a day filled with good news. We had already learned that Dad C. was losing his race with cancer.

But while Michelle and her Mom were out Sunday morning picking up some things that Mom would need while spending extended time in the hospital with her husband, I had five hours alone with my the man — more concentrated time than we’d probably ever spent alone together in the 30-plus years I’d known him.

I realized this was an opportunity I’d likely never have again.

Y’see, I had questions; questions about this man I’d known for so long yet knew so little about. I wanted to know more about his career — a subject that I could have easily spent hours talking with him about every single day, but which it seemed we’d actually only spent minutes over the years discussing.

My Father In-Law was a significant cog in the wheel of U.S. History, but he’d never tell you that. “Just doing my job,” he’d say. I never once remember hearing him brag or boast about the work he did in the Space Program, or the fact that the GPS navigation units that are a now such a common part of our lives exist in significant part due to his efforts.

Nope, he wasn’t anything special.

The HELL he wasn’t!

I was a Space Program nut growing up in the 60s. The Apollo Program’s execution of President John F. Kennedy’s mandate to put a man on the moon before 1970 was the most compelling event of my early lifetime.

When Michelle and I got married I was totally stoked to learn of the fact that my new Father In-Law’s career was so closely tied to one of my all-time childhood passions. Nonetheless it was sometimes difficult (if not impossible) to get Ed to talk at length about his career.

In addition to his natural aww, shucks humility was the fact that most of the of the projects he worked on involved the military, and as such, many were classified. In keeping with his sense of duty he held the oath of secrecy he took on behalf of those projects in the very highest regard. He was truly a man of honor and integrity, and he flat-out didn’t give away secrets he was sworn to protect — even years after the fact.

But as much as I wanted to know more about the things he’d worked on in our early years together, you didn’t want to press the issue with this guy. He was the epitome of the “I could tell what I do, but then I’d have to kill ya” sort. And he said it with that glint in his eye that made you think, “yeah, he’s yankin’ my cord, but then again…maybe not…” And given that attitude — particularly back then — I wasn’t about to give him any push-back.

Smarter than the Av-R-age Bear
When I first met him, my Father In-Law was a bear; an intimidating, burly, booming-baritone-voiced, walking figure of authority. He was also the father of the woman I wanted to marry. And though he granted my request for Michelle’s hand, throughout the first few years of our marriage, we generally spent very little time together. Frankly, I was terrified of the guy.

He was an important man with an important career in the Space Industry; an engineer for Rockwell International, arguably the leading technology contractor in the history of the Space Program, but particularly so throughout the 60s and 70’s. Rockwell was the primary manufacturer of the ginormous Saturn V rocket that powered all of the Apollo Program missions to the moon — including the all-important second stage (S-II), on which Ed worked.

He was the lead Test Conductor for the Saturn V’s S-II; which you’ve no doubt seen a million times over the years depicted in the NASA mission video as seen below. The S-II was responsible for a pivotal part of the rocket’s flight, allowing the space craft to climb to an altitude of 115 miles into the atmosphere, before the single S-IV engine cut in to actually break the Earth’s gravitational pull and power it into an orbital trajectory.

This was his Baby

Above is the famous mission video taken on unmanned Apollo test flights 4 and 6. The ‘Apollo—Saturn V S-II Interstage Staging’ and ‘Apollo—Saturn V S-IV-B Staging’ depict the portions of rocket that my FIL was responsible for the success of (from either side). It was YEARS after the fact that I knew this famous piece of filmography was of his work. He just NEVER talked about it, voluntarily. Can ya believe THAT?


And in the above clip, the previous ‘Apollo—Saturn V S-IV-B Staging’ scene is shown in a rare and extended real-time version (the original video was filmed in slow motion), showing the S-II’s roll and descent toward the Earth.

And just in case you cant view the video, below is the action sequence referred to previously as screen capture images, as the Saturn V’s S-II Interstage Ring separates and tumbles back to the Earth. This famous scene was used in the Star Trek Enterprise TeeVee series’ opening credits. It was also used in an episode of the Star Trek original series. If my Father In-Law had residual rights on that piece of film, he’d have died a very wealthy man.






This was the part of Ed’s career that he was most proud of — and with good reason. And despite the fact that he still didn’t care to talk about it all that much, it was the one thing he would talk about, if pressed, simply because so much of the Space Program is now in the public record, making it pretty much all fair game.

However, there were bookends to his Apollo career about which he wasn’t forthcoming at all. These were the stories I really wanted to hear; the things that you can’t learn much about no matter how much you Google or scour Wikipedia.

I didn’t get much on those subjects during our five-hour conversation one week before he died, but what I did get answered a lifetime of questions for me.


Next: I Plead, ‘No Contest’

The Eagle Has Landed (Prologue)

Welcome to Hellville
There is no joy in Mudville...Nashville...Nolensville, or whatever the hell, ‘Ville’ it is in which I live. As a matter of fact, ‘Hellville’ is probably the most apt description of the place in which my family and I have resided over the past week and-a-half.

The bad news we received a week ago last Saturday came to fruition in the wee hours of this past Sunday morning, June 7, 2009, and the way it has affected me makes me feel even worse than I could have imagined.

My Father In-Law moved on from this world, to his new digs in Heaven, sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 A.M. CST Sunday morning, ending a long and painful battle with a variety of cancers that began sweeping his body about three years ago. He would have celebrated his 78th birthday next month.

Having successfully battled various skin cancers throughout his adult life, Ed was no stranger to a disease, once quite accurately referred to as ‘consumption.’

He was a tough cookie; a real fighter. But this was one battle he just wasn’t destined to win.

Skin cancer couldn’t stop him; two separate heart bypass surgeries couldn’t knock him down. He took a lickin’ and kept on tickin,’ y’all.

However three years ago, he noticed some blood in his urine. Cancer had this time established a foothold — one that it would never relinquish.

No matter how aggressively or quickly the doctors moved to get ahead of and treat his disease, Ed’s cancer always seemed to be one step ahead of the game.

It started out in his prostate and bladder; they irradiated this and scraped that and thought they'd gotten it.

Then it showed up in his colon; they opened him up, cut it out and thought they'd gotten it.

Then it returned once again to his bladder and also latched on to one of his kidneys; they were preparing to go in and surgically remove those infected organs, hoping to finally catch up with this Speed Racer Cancer, but then came a week ago last Saturday.

Hell Week Begins
Michelle’s parents were experiencing a trying time. Ever since Ed’s colon cancer surgery in February, his overall health had rapidly regressed. His sudden back pain, continued weight loss and overall weakness were becoming an increasing concern.

In order to even survive this proposed bladder/kidney surgery, it was imperative that Ed at least make some strides toward strengthening his constitution; instead, however, it appeared things were going in the opposite direction.

But even prior to his colon surgery, the indicators were there. Just before that time he had developed what was diagnosed as shingles, an extremely painful viral nerve-related disorder that made his shoulders and back painful to even the slightest touch or pressure.

He’d also recently begun experiencing what was thought to be sciatica, bringing with it a burning pain that shot down through the hips and into his legs. But to me, someone who has been no stranger to back pain or sciatica, it all seemed too sudden. Why now? Why would he be having all these problems at once? It just didn’t make sense.

Before they scheduled the surgery, his bladder oncologist, who would be performing the organ removal, wanted to call Ed in for a bone scan and hopefully surmise the source of his back pain. The diagnosis was acute arthritis, which sort of made sense, but not enough to convince me that his problems weren’t being caused by something more serious.

A week ago last Saturday, in an effort to give her Mom a break from cooking, Michelle invited her folks over to our house for dinner. However her Dad was already feeling so poorly that by the time they arrived, he had to go straight to the front bedroom and lay down. He was in excruciating pain. His back hurt so badly that any movement for him at all was nearly unbearable.

Michelle and her Mom were obviously worried. That diagnosis of arthritis rang more hollow each minute we witnessed his pitiful condition. We all began to see the handwriting on the wall. Ed was losing the race.

Michelle suggested that we take him to the hospital, where at least they could make him comfortable, and hopefully figure out what was going on with his back. They took him on while I stayed behind at home.

Michelle and her Mom stayed until he was finally checked in to the ER, which was unusually packed for a Saturday night. I waited up until they arrived back home well after midnight. They were obviously drained, both emotionally and physically. I told Michelle I would stand wait for the call that was to come from the hospital, giving us an update on her father’s status.

About 4:30 A.M. that call came, and it wasn’t good news. The nurse reported that the CT scan they took indicated that the cancer had spread, but that we would need to wait until later that morning to get the specifics from the doctor.

Uncomfortably Numb
When the horrible truth was revealed, I remember the feeling as being somewhat similar to that of the time I broke my back in a gymnastics meet and was myself rushed to the Emergency Room. I had suffered a compression fracture of my fifth lumbar vertebrae, near the tailbone. Ironically, they gave me morphine, just as they were now giving it to my Father In-Law. However it wasn’t the circumstantial coincidence that I was thinking about at that moment, but rather the memory of the sensation.

I just felt numb, but not to the extent that I couldn’t feel the pain of my injury; the experience was much more akin to a feeling of helplessness. I was comfortably numb, as Pink Floyd might say — but certainly not comforted. The pain was still there; I could definitely feel it, but it was sort of like listening to on-hold music; you can hear it, but it’s somewhat masked; muffled; you recognize the melody, but you can’t quite connect with it — as if it were just out of the reach of your senses. It’s a weird feeling, but the most important aspect of it to me was that while I may not have been fully aware of my pain, I was still very well aware that something was wrong — very wrong.

Ed’s cancer had now spread throughout his body. In addition to his bladder and kidney, it was now in his liver and spine as well — the latter of which was indeed the source of his excruciating back pain.

The surgery was called off. The race was now hopelessly lost; the cancer had lapped the field and was heading in for the checkered flag. They gave my Father In-Law 4-8 weeks.

It turned out to be 4-8 days.


Next: What a drag it is, getting old…