Dad

It was a busy fall the year I took the job at the Health Department and had to deal emotionally with all the sad stories and the feeling of being helpless. Maybe by staying super busy it was a way to try not to think about it. I was also beginning to gain a reputation for never saying no when asked to do something.

Since the job was only part-time there was still time to be active in the New Neighbors League. My six month career as the editor of the newsletter came to an end and I was appointed Vice-President in charge of activities. The club had some fifty activities for members to participate in every month including Bridge, Racquetball, Knitting, Dining In and Dining Out, Tennis and on and on. There were always requests for new ones and I started a Stock and Investment Club not knowing a thing about it.  Thank heavens Barney helped me out there since he had worked on Wall Street and led the group along. The other one was a Mom and Tots roller skating event one afternoon each week. Here I was a little devious in that it gave me the chance not only to put Wally on skates but also to skate myself. 

The best way to get something done around the house was always to invite two-hundred people over for a Wine and Cheese Party.  The basement needed to be finished so somehow I managed to paint, wallpaper and carpet the basement by the time the party rolled around.
The party was a huge success judging by the ten garbage sacks of empty wine bottles lining the driveway the next morning and the fact that the floor upstairs did not fall through as dear husband, Dennis, had projected. It also turned out to be a very good advertisement for my little decorating business since the house looked pretty good.

Wally turned five in October and  I had some drapes to take to Mother's in Oklahoma City so Wally's birthday party was a family gathering with my brothers and their families. Those did not happen to often.  Maybe we just never learned how to spend time with relatives except for Uncle Tom who was the only one who lived close.  I can count on one hand the number of times growing up that we ever saw any of our parent's families. I don't think we ever thought that was strange - it was to us just normal.

I had not had much time to spend with my Dad since my parents divorce in 1966.  He had worked and lived in Kansas City for many years before he met and married Mother.  During a lot of phone calls after I moved there he told me a lot about the city and there was a hint of him wanting to visit so on the way home from Oklahoma City we swung by Muskogee and picked him up.  Dad was seventy-four, remarried, retired and you would not trust him out on the road by himself as he was always directionally challenged and a terrible driver. For the first time in my life I had my Dad all to myself.

Dad was forty-two when I was born and being of blond Danish decent he was gray headed by the time I was in school.  I can remember being embarrassed when other children would think he was my grandfather. By the time I was in high school I had changed my opinion to being very proud of him as he was so intelligent and kind.  That was probably about the same time I began to realize that my parents should have never been married.  They used to tell me when things were not particularly great around our house that all families argued, didn't speak to each other for weeks or avoided being around each other.  When they divorced they never mentioned the other one and my brothers and I were very careful to not do it either.

So I had my Dad for a week and I had great misgivings in the beginning about what to do with him since I had not ever had the chance to spend that much time alone with him.  Those thoughts went away very quickly as we never ran out about things to do or to talk about.  Uncle Tom had told me stories about Dad going to speakeasies during prohibition and he finally fessed up to all of Tom's stories.  We visited places where he had lived when he was married the first time, by the building where the Katz Drugstore had been, a fun drive to Lawrence, Kansas where he had gone to college and to the cemetery where his parents were buried.  He would sit at the kitchen table while I cooked or while everyone else was watching television and we would just talk.
If I was busy he would sit and read all my medical textbooks from college and then we would have long discussions on the medical profession and pharmacy. 

My Dad never trusted any doctor except one so when we were growing up Nurse Mary, as we called her, would come to the house for vaccinations or shots for tonsillitis.  The only doctor I can remember was Dr. Hewitt, the local neurosurgeon, who took stitches out and treated me for mono.  Dad never went to a doctor that I know of but must have been pretty good at diagnosing himself since he had any medicine he needed at his fingertips and was never sick even with a cold.  I did notice while he was visiting that their were several times when he reached into his shirt pocket for a pill.  He told me they were nitroglycerin tablets which was the end of the conversation.  I knew enough to know that taking those meant serious heart problems but I also knew enough not to question him.  I did not think even at seventy-four he was going to start going to the doctor.

Hans Lloyd Hansen, which was his full name, was never a Dad who sat on the floor and played games or taught my brothers how to play baseball.  My best guess is that his dad had not done that either.  He did love to play Canasta and was hard to beat.  He loved Studebakers and drove them until they quit making them.  We grew up learning to have an immaculate automobile as he wiped his off with a chamois every night and checked it into the local Studebaker dealership on days when he thought it might rain or snow.  The guys at the dealership always knew his car would show up if the weather was bad with some non-existence complaint. He wore a suit, tie and wing-tipped shoes everyday and only in later years owned a sports coat.

The most important thing he and mother taught us was the value of work.  He was a practicing pharmacist for fifty-two years and there were many a night he would get out of bed and go to the drugstore to fill a needed prescription for someone. He set a great example by working long hours six days a week and my brothers and I all had jobs by the time we were fourteen even if it was only throwing newspapers.
He never raised his voice or complained and only spanked Paul once which was really hard for him.  Of course I knew when I was very little that I was "Daddy's Girl" and I did try not to take advantage of how easy it was to get a new dress for a party or something to stop diarrhea when I was on my way to play in a golf tournament.  He attended every dance or piano recital, play, talent show or girl scout award ceremony that I was ever in. In most ways he taught me how to be a good parent in ways mother was not capable of.

He and I had a great trip back to Muskogee stopping in Branson before it became a huge tourist mess and seeing the places we had driven to on our family Sunday drives when I was little. It was a week I have always been thankful for.