My Old Man

Whenever I get really bummed out about the world situation I end up thinking about my old man. I somtimes am just awed at the things he lived through. I've seen a couple of recessions. He lived through the depression. He fought in WW II. When he enlisted, he had a state side assignment, but he worked out a switch with a guy who was being sent overseas. The other guy had a kid. So Dad spent the war in India. Legend has it he never told his mother about the switch. She would have killed him.

When he came back, he got married and started his family. Then it was the Civil Rights movement. The war in Vietnam, hippies, drugs, riots in the streets, Watergate. There were many political discussions around the dinner table as I grew up, and I don't remember him ever saying it, but I'm sure he must have wondered: "We beat Hitler for this?"

He and my mom raised nine kids. He died too young but still outlived three of his children. The thing is I never once heard him curse God, and I don't think he ever missed a Sunday mass in his life.

When I compare my life to his, I feel like I've only seen half the trouble. But then again I feel like only half the man my Dad was.