HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DADDIES!
The following poem is in memory of my father,
Frank H. Walsh...
 |
| Frank H. Walsh This photo was taken on the day my parents were married.
THINKING ABOUT MY DAD
In memory of Frank H.
Walsh ~ 1912-1985
I went to see
The King’s Speech
the other
night
This started
me thinking about my father
who became a
stutterer
as a result
of nervousness derived
from his childhood
battle
with crippling
poliomyelitis
With child
eyes
I never saw
him crippled
though he
walked with a pronounced limp
one leg being
shorter than the other
He wore a
heavy soled shoe
reinforced
with steel with a metal brace
attached that
extended up to his knee
I didn’t
think of him as a stutterer either
though he had
great difficulty
saying what
he wanted to say
stammering
over, over and over
trying to get
the words to spring
from his
tangled tongue
To me, he was
just Dad
…ordinary Dad
Looking back now, I think of him
as extraordinary
and tenacious
a “can-do”
kind of father
…even an
overcomer
Handicaps
never seemed
to handicapped
him
never kept
him from doing
anything he
set his mind to—
He wasn’t a
builder, but
he built the
house we grew up in
and a
bungalow next door for Grandma
did all the
plumbing, electrical work
installed the
drywall, spackled, painted
built
porches, set the sidewalks
climbed a ladder
to the roof
He built a
patio with an outdoor fireplace
and a cement wading
pool, too
He erected a
coop for chickens
which he
raised from fertilized eggs
He
slaughtered them
mom cleaned
and we ate them
for Sunday
dinner
He also plowed
the backyard
and planted a
big vegetable garden
You name it,
he did it
and usually did
it well
He sang “Heart
of My Heart” and
“You Can Have
Her, I Don’t Want Her,
She’s Too Fat
for Me”
without any
stammer at all
danced to a
rollicking “Beer Barrel” polka
with his
heavy shoe thumping the floor
and I’m told he
even pedaled
his bike once,
all the way up Skyline Drive
Dad took us on
vacations every summer
usually tent camping
at Bear Mountain
or the
Adirondacks or Truro at Cape Cod
setting up
camp and cots mostly himself
He built
outboard motor boats,
Water Lily
and Water Lily II
and a blue
egg-shaped camper trailer
which he
hitched to the back of our car
He brewed
root beer
bottled it
and we drank it
even though
it was flat and fizz-less
and he brewed
beer beer
I can still
remember the smell
of it
fermenting in a huge crock
in our spare
room
When I was a
child
I thought all
daddies did those things
And when I
got married
I thought
husbands did those things
To say he was
remarkable
seems an
understatement—
I only hope
some of the stuff he was made of
has worked
its way into the bones and marrow
into the
blood and sinews
into the gray
that matters
into our Walsh
family genes
Maude Carolan
Pych
|
No comments:
Post a Comment