Thursday Thoughts: Pop's Birthday

Today would have been my father’s 97^th birthday. I recall my rather brief summation of him from my autobiographical effort, What Happened: “There was Pop, a.k.a. Elthor Edgar Gustav Babel Jr., more sensibly called Buddy: a country boy of German ancestry, a Korean War veteran, a fisherman, bowler, and baseball player, sometime owner of a beer joint and now a truck driver for SMI, the local steel mill.” To that I might add a voracious consumer of Westerns and country music, a humorous man who enjoyed the classic 1940’s comedians, an appreciator of mysteries from Perry Mason to Columbo. In many ways a reticent man; it was hard to draw out any personal anecdotes, though he was never shy about giving his opinions about anything. His revelations about his life were mainly through his actions; if you ever got any story out of him about his old days, it was generally astonishing. When you consider that he was already 41 when I was born and nearly half his life was already past (and it would be at least 13 years before I would feel up to asking any questions about his life – and much longer before I would ask them right to his face), it was no wonder that there would be much of his history that is still a mystery to me. Mom loved to tell stories about her life, Pop – not so much.  Most of my good memories about Pop are from my childhood. Riding on his shoulders and touching the ceiling, presents when he came back from his trucking runs (at least usually a stick of gum), trips fishing or camping, or long family drives in the country. There was a long stretch when he was getting more tired, and I was (I know) getting more disappointing as I failed to buckle down to life. Then there was a long stretch after he retired and my usefulness as a caregiver became more apparent as he and Mom aged. The last years after Mom passed away were in some ways the best with him; without a buffer zone between us and an increased mutual reliance on each other, we were led to a new closeness. I think some of my favorite times in those days were when we’d watch Perry Mason together. It reminded me of older days from my childhood, of perhaps a Saturday afternoon when we’d watch a monster movie or an old comedy. Happy Birthday, Pop. I made a carrot cake so we could all celebrate.