Our Dad Was a Renaissance Man – Part One

Dear Readers:  I have asked each of my daughters to write about their dad.  This is the month of the year when he lost his life to sepsis.  Today’s post is from Daughter #3; Daughter #1 will pos, next week.  These reflections are long; but, one cannot write about such a man in a few words.  The Cranky Crone.

Daughter #3 Speaks: 

 My Father, Larry Becker, Renaissance Man!

Several months ago, my mother asked me to write a little something about my dad for her Cranky Crone blog.  This is no small task for me.  The death of my father has affected me greatly, and it’s still hard for me to think of him without my eyes wetting.  But I look at this request from Mom as a cathartic exercise and, perhaps, you will get to hear some stories about him that you’ve never heard.  My Dad really was a Renaissance Man, a Jack-of-all-Trades.

Let me start by assuming many of you already knew my dad.  He was kind, thoughtful, gentle, extremely hard-working, and giving of his time and talents to more people that we ever knew he did.  He was smart, a businessman and trustworthy salesman, and he had the work ethic of the Lutherans from which he was raised (work, work work!).  He NEVER stopped!

You may know Dad was a gardener, but did you know he was an inventor, a car mechanic, a roofer, a builder, a cook, a mentor, a mover, an electrician, a plumber, and a carpenter? He was the rock of our family.  He was always there.  We could count on him to listen, to do the right thing, to give good advice.  He was the most honest man I’ve ever known.

When I wanted to move to Los Angeles after college, he really didn’t want me to go; he told me I should think about it and, even though I learned a lot about growing up and taking on responsibilities in LA, I should have listened to him and not gone.  But he did help me take my boxes to UPS which I sent on ahead of me, and then gave me a hug and cried a little.

Much later, when my husband and I moved to San Diego, Dad helped us move.  He and my husband drove the big truck while I drove the car.  My husband and I had purchased a small condo with very narrow, steep stairs, and a nasty corner turn at the bottom.  The two bedrooms were in the basement and; when we couldn’t get the queen bed foundation around that sharp corner, he figured how to cut it in half, move them, and then reassemble the foundation with hinges.  Of course, not before a hole was banged into the drywall by the movers.  Dad taught us how to fix that, too.  However, the thing I will always remember most about Dad’s trips to San Diego, is when he’d look around at the weather, the flowers, the trees, and tell us how different it was in “this country of yours.”  We had to remind him every time that San Diego was in his country, too.  “Well,” he would say, “I’m not so sure about that,” and then he’d smile with a twinkle in his eye.

Dad was funny, stable, reliable, and very patient.  But if we pushed him too far, his eyes would get as big as quarters, and we knew we were really in trouble.  He was a fierce Monopoly player.  He had to win!  And, when he played against his sister (who was equally as fierce) – oh boy, leave the room before they really started the battle.  Of course, he NEVER EVER allowed his children to win unless we deserved it.

Dad was a person who pondered projects before their execution: what color of paint for the wall; how to arrange the front garden; what vegetables to grow this year; how to build the bookcase Mom wants with the drawings she made for him; should the girls be able to drive this car or that car.  He pondered for a long time, and, at times, the amount of pondering would drive me crazy, but it stopped me, sometimes (just sometimes), from jumping in too quickly.  He could be contrary at times, and pessimistic at others, but he usually came round in no time at all.  If we really wanted something, we’d plant a little seed in his mind, and let it grow a while.  I’d say it worked 80% for me, but more like 95% for Mom.

When I was born, my family lived on South Logan Street in Englewood.  The house was owned by Dad’s parents, and we rented it.  I have a photo of Dad working in his backyard vegetable garden when I was about two.  I was in the photo, as well, playing in the dirt – “helping.” I don’t remember that time of my life, but I do remember all of the other times with him in the gardens at the last house in which he lived.  And when I was married and had my own gardens, he gave me advice of what to do – and not do.  Dad helped me recover some of his mother’s irises.  You see, Iris is my favorite flower.  After he died, my mother managed to send me several of his Iris.  I hope I’m doing them justice.  Of all the points of garden (and carpentry) wisdom that Dad gave me, the most important thing was to “clean your tools before you put them away!”  I still say that to my own kids, today, and I tell them to remember what Grandpapa says,  “Take care of your tools and your tools will take care of you.”

While we still lived on South Logan Street, Mom worked up on the hill at an elementary school.  Dad’s day off was Wednesday and, subsequently, my grandmother, who took care of the house and the kids, had that day off, too.  At this point, I was the only kid left at home.  I must have been about five.  Most Wednesdays, Dad would make us lunch.  It was typically either Campbell’s tomato soup and grilled cheese, or sunny-side-up eggs on toast spread with butter and jelly.  I loved watching him eat those eggs on toast.  First, poking the egg yolk and spreading it all around the toast, making a big mess, and then eating the meal slowly, while reading the newspaper.  After lunch, we’d head outside, me to play in the playhouse he bought and moved to our backyard, and him to his garden or to some other work that needed his attention.

Sometimes, we would drive up to have lunch with Mom at the school.  At this time, we owned a Studebaker Station Wagon.  One day Dad let me ride in the back with all the seats flat.  We were able to do that sometimes, but not often (our parents were strict seat belt enforcers).  I was sitting toward the front in the middle of the car when we went around a corner with a little more speed than expected.  That’s when I fell to the right, the door opened, and I almost fell out!  If Dad hadn’t corrected the curve and grabbed my arm, I would have tumbled out.  Scary, yes, and I still remember it 55 years later.  Another time on our way up the hill, a police car pulled us over, and like most children, I started crying because I thought they would take my dad to jail.  It turns out he hadn’t used a turn signal, or had a rear brake light out, or something like that.  I don’t remember because of the trauma, but I do remember he received a ticket, and we were sent on our way.  I loved these times with him.

He was a fisherman, a hunter, a motorcycle/dirt bike owner and rider, a lover of the outdoors, a bird watcher, a squirrel catcher (a release man), a great neighbor, a painter of walls and of canvas, and a Superman.

Fisherman:  he and Grandma Bundy would take us girls fishing in the mountains.  We liked river fishing, not lake fishing.  Dad was a very patient fisherman.  I was not!  (Later, he would take the Grands fishing at a lake that was stocked with fish.  He was very patient with them too.) One time, we were in a very small place called Tin Cup, high in the mountains of Colorado.  Several of our cousins met us there in a two-bedroom cabin, with a kitchen and an outhouse.  It was our family’s tradition to play canasta every time we were with our Grandmother Bundy.  It was no different on this trip.  We all played after dinner, but I became ill, and my dad decided to go to sleep at ten, so neither of us was in the kitchen while the game continued.  If you’re not acquainted with canasta, the winner is the one who reached a certain count, or when the group decides to stop the game.  Well, on this night, Dad was fast asleep in the bedroom with the door open, when he heard someone at the table declare, “230!”  Their count was 230 for the hand, but when my dad heard that, he sprang up out of a dead sleep, and yelled, “230!  230! You’re still up and playing at 230 in the morning!”  Laughter rang from the kitchen.  It was only 11:00 or so.  He never lived that down.

Superman: during the summer of third grade, I learned a valuable lesson, as well as how strong my dad was.  My father had found this unique lawn watering gizmo to easily water the grass without having to go out to move the sprinkler repeatedly.  (Our backyard was, and still is, HUGE!  Watering took ALL DAY!)  It was called a “traveling sprinkler.” Some of you might have had one of these.  It was like a little tractor and train combined.  The hose would be laid out in the line you’d want the device to follow, and then it was set at the end of the hose, turned back on itself, and with the turning of gears, following the hose, it would progress back to the water shutoff at a steady pace.  A friend of mine and I were playing in the backyard while the traveling sprinkler was doing its thing.  It was a HOT day.  And there was the sprinkler.  (You see where this is going?) Shoes off, we started jumping across the sprinkler, and not before long, there was blood on the grass, blood on my foot, blood on my leg, and blood on the spikes of the sprinkler.  I had split my left foot open.  Calling for my dad and mom, he came running, picked me up and took me to the ER.  I can remember my dad carrying us from the car to our beds when we were three and four, but this is the time I really thought of my dad as Superman.

Dad was a proud father.  He attended our concerts, football games to watch the half-time performances, marching band parades and contests, high school and college graduations, awards ceremonies, 4-H fairs (some were projects he helped create), but Dad was never prouder than when he met his children and grandchildren for the first time.  We brought Grand #1 to Denver from San Diego one month after her birth.  When he arrived where we were staying, and I greeted him warmly, he simply stepped in, literally pushed me out of the way and said, “OK, where’s my granddaughter!”  From then on, I was meatloaf … as it should be.  When Grand #2 was born, we were already in Denver.  He came to the hospital (the same one I was born in, as he kept telling whoever would listen) and just couldn’t get enough of her.  Holding, kissing, smelling, just giving love like only he could.  Now, he was a proud Grandpapa of two.  He loved All of His Girls.

When my husband and I took the girls to Germany for a short sabbatical in 2010, Daughter #1 and Dad came to visit us.  It was the best of times.  Dad’s family had come from Germany, but he had never been there.  He took it in stride when we had to have him sleep on the floor in the living room.  We had been renting from a couple while they were out of the country, and they had insisted no one sleep on the couch.  Thus, Dad had to sleep on the uncomfortable and hard-to-get-up-from floor.  He was a trooper about it.  Just shows what a great man he was.

We were able to take trips to a variety of cities and places, including the major trip to the “Home Place.”  Several years earlier, my husband and I lived in Germany and had taken a trip to the small village called Nieder-Gemünden, the origins of Dad’s family.  That trip is a different story for a different time, but let’s just say, it gave us the opportunity to take Dad back there, where he had always wanted to visit.  This village is so small, that when we crossed the bridge and stopped to point out the house where Dad’s ancestors lived (the “home place”), a van pulled up next to us and asked if we were lost.  When my husband explained what we were doing there, the man seemed to remember my husband and me from thirteen years earlier, and then reintroduced us to the descendant who still lived in the house.  We went around the village showing Dad other homes and meeting some descendants or current inhabitants of family homes.  The girls were able to ride a tractor of one of the family members, and as I watched Dad while they did this, the farmer in him had a big smile the whole time.  We even took him up to the cemetery so he could look at the family headstones.  It feels good knowing we could give him that adventure.

Mostly, Dad was a family man.  He loved unconditionally.  He loved thoroughly and without question.  And, like his work ethic, he never stopped.  He never stopped loving even when he was so tired from his illness, so sick he could hardly get out of bed, and in so much pain.  I still feel his love now, six years after his death.  I feel it in the way I parent my own children, in their faces when we talk about him.  I feel it every time I look at flowers and can name them because Dad taught me.  I feel it in my relationship with my spouse, having learned by his example of forgiveness and understanding.  I see it in my sister’s face when she reminisces about her time with Dad when Mom needed to be away.  I hear it when Mom talks about him and the wonderful things he did for her.  He created me and helped me grow into the adult I am today.  He has never stopped loving.

Be Safe and Be Well

The Cranky Crone

Thoughtful comments are appreciated.