"I wish you knew my father"

Today is Father's Day and many of you will celebrate it with your father, some of you will not be able to visit with your father, but will celebrate the memory of him. This has been on my mind lately, since my father is getting older and not always in the best of health at times. I've thought many times in the last several years about life and frailty of it and I've come to the conclusion that "I wish you knew my father".
My father was born in Flushing, New York, 1 of 3 children. He was the youngest of the three and was raised there by Grace and Russell, my grandparents. He enlisted in the Air Force in the early 60's and met my mother on the beaches in Florida. He told me the story the other day that after he met her that he got on his Indian motorcycle and rode all night from Pensacola to Sylacauga, Alabama. He said it was raining and he would ride awhile until the rain caught him and he would stop under an overpass till the rain passed and he'd get on his way again repeating this process all the way there. He tells me that his financial situation was such that when he arrived in Sylacauga he actually slept propped up on his motorcycle until the town got to stirring around and then he asked where she lived and paid her a visit. Now I don't know, but I'm not sure many men would go to that length to see a woman they had just met and didn't actually know her address. By the way, they will be married 50 years in December. I wish you knew my father.
They married while he was in the Air Force and they traveled to Japan where they had my sister Lisa and a bought their first furniture, a console stereo with an record player and radio. They had no chairs to sit on so they and their friends would sit on the floor and bed and listen in the evenings as their entertainment. The stereo is still resides at their house. I once saw Patty Duke buy the same stereo on a TV episode that was filmed in black and white. They eventually were transferred back to the states and I was born at Eglin Air Force Base. My mother eventually moved back to Birmingham because my father was sent to Thailand as the Vietnam War began to heat up and eventually after 8 or 9 years of serving his country my father got out of the Air Force as a Buck Sargent and returned to Birmingham, Alabama. He got a job with Drummond Coal where he started working at the coke oven (a process that requires superheating coal to around a bizillon degrees and then cools it quickly). He once told me that he wore long johns in the summer because they helped keep him sweaty and more cool during work. He once helped my bother-in-law lay sod in 90 degree weather drinking a cup of coffee while the rest of us were about to pass out, we were all in our twenties at the time! He worked there for a couple of years and then was in a bad car accident. He was out of work for 18 months, he had over 20 operations during that time to repair his right leg, chest and face where he suffered the most injuries. I remember the first time he was allowed home and he went to sit down on the toilet and his repaired femur snapped and back he went to the hospital. Eventually, he returned to Drummond Coal and the first week on the job a piece of railroad tie was kicked up by a coal car and hit him in the face. He required several more operations and I'm told has mostly wire and very little bone in his facial area. He recovered and went back to work. He mananged to work there for 1 month shy of 40 years when he retired several years ago. I wish you knew my father.
Of course I've skipped many things during this time. He and my mother had two more children, both girls. He coached baseball for me, softball for my sister, worked the swing shift for around 20 years while doing this. He became a deacon in the local Baptist Church and I can't remember a Sunday we didn't go while I was growing up. He lost a daughter to suicide when she was twenty and without hesitation adopted her 5 month old son and raised him. Bobby is twenty-one now and hiking the Appalachian trail. My father is recognized by almost everyone who knows him because he has had a handlebar mustache for around 30 plus years. I've never met a man or woman that didn't love him or respect him. I wish you knew my father.
Around 6 years ago he and my mother were driving back from a high school basketball game where they lived and their car was struck by a drunk driver. It nearly killed both of them and they probably only lived because they were rescued by an incredible man that pulled them both from their burning car. My father sustained two broken legs, burns to his face and multiple other injuries and was life flighted to the hospital. I met the state trooper that worked the accident and he told me that my father might be the toughest man he ever met. When I asked why, he told me that when he got there my father was laying on the ground saw the state trooper, rolled over, took his wallet out of the back pocket of his pants and handed his license to the state trooper. I wish you knew my father.
If a man is measured by his friends, then I can tell you that after the accident they came out of the woodwork. They brought every meal for my parents for one month, every meal. The church men showed up on a day's notice to build a ramp for them be able to get in the house in their wheelchair. They had hundreds of people visit them and I do mean hundreds. My father has had 5 or 6 additional surgeries since the accident, several resulting in a couple of strokes, a period of time where he went blind and a seizure disorder that affects his life. Yet, when I call and ask him how he's doing his reply is the same, "I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in." I wish you knew my father.
I'm very thankful today that I can post a blog that says I still talk with my father and tell him I love him every time we get together. I hope you had a father alot like mine growing up, loving, hard working, a good provider and a faithful husband. If you did I am sure you understand how I feel today and if you didn't "I wish you knew my father."