When Mom & Dad met in the late 1960’s, they were both recently divorced. Mom, pregnant with me, had had just moved to the West Coast with her eight year old son and was looking for work. Dad had a mountain of debt created by a home he was slowly renovating and by his former wife, Betty, who spent money faster than his two jobs could support.
I’m sure friends and family thought Mom & Dad had zero chance of making it after their Vegas wedding. Especially if they stopped by to visit our home which was missing a few exterior walls. Mom could stand in the kitchen and enjoy a view of the backyard without using a window. Same story with one bathroom and a bedroom. Obviously Dad’s home renovation project was going slowly. He was working most of his waking hours just to pay bills. You’re in a deep financial hole if stucco, drywall and paint are luxuries. One of their biggest fears was Dad getting sick or injured. They just couldn’t afford it. They knuckled down and lived by the motto, “If that’s what it takes, you do what you gotta do.”
Mom was standing in the kitchen preparing a bottle to feed me when it started to rain. Not a problem when you have proper walls. I have no doubt she’d mentioned the “wall problem” before. She gets creative and determined when she feels ignored. She was feeling ignored. He walked in to take a shower the next morning and yelled out, “Well I’ll be go to hell!”
Now she had his attention. She had torn out what was left of the wall in the bathroom. She informed him, “Until you fix the walls around here, if you decide to take a shower then the neighbors will know it!”
He replied, “Betty didn’t have a problem with the house!”
Mom has a face that tells you she’s about to nail you to the wall with her next words. He eyes narrow and her jaw tightens. She had that look on her face when she said in a low tone, “Have a look around this house. Take your time. When you find Betty in here you let me know! “
Dad fixed the walls.
My little brother, Keith, was born and we moved to a trailer park along the Brazos River in East Texas. If we kept an eye out for water moccasins then we could swim in the river. It was safer to just fish and watch the barges travel by.
Our front yard had a huge pit dug into it. Why? This was where the residents of the trailer park dumped garbage. Once or twice a week they would burn the trash in our yard. You haven’t lived until you are dodging your neighbor’s exploding cans of Right Guard and Cheese Whiz!
Mom & Dad struggled like that for nearly a decade. I don’t include us kids in that struggle because we never noticed it. They didn’t talk about their challenges with us. We were safe and happy. We had bikes, Kool-Aid, Little League, bologna sandwiches and help with our homework if we asked. They loved us. What more is there?
Mom felt comfortable returning to work once Keith was old enough for school. They had two incomes and eventually paid off the last of their debts. Mom & Dad splurged a little on their housing budget so we moved to Deer Park, TX. Our few years in Deer Park & Baytown are the reason I know when certain types of factories are upwind. The oil refineries give the town a strong chemical smell like chopped garlic mixed with propane or butane. Yes, childhood memories flood my mind when I’m near a petroleum plant. This is not a complaint. I didn’t really notice the smell until I returned out of curiosity about 15 years later.
Fast forward a little to the late 1970’s. Mom was out shopping in Houston when something caught her eye. Dad loved watches and she spotted a ‘self-winding’ gold Omega Seamaster Deville.
The watch had a clear back so the gears, swivel-weight, and flywheel could be seen at work.
She said to herself, “I have no business spending this kind of money on a watch but he really deserves it!”
He loved it! For the rest of his life that was his go-to watch. It represented a decade of working really long hours; sometimes through sickness and fatigue. Things were starting to get a little easier and they could see even better days ahead.
He was wearing it when they would take us all out to eat somewhere nice and proudly pay the check with a smile. When Mom & Dad stood at the entrance of a mall in Salt Lake City and vowed, “This Christmas we are going to buy whatever we want for the kids and each other without worrying about the cost for once” he was wearing that watch. It was on his wrist nearly 20 years later when he was walking my little brother around the recently poured footers of the lake house Mom & Dad were building. He wore it while working for years in the heat and danger within Algeria, training locals in Bangkok. He had it when overseeing the overhaul and enhancement of a GE electric plant near Baghdad that had been neglected for decades during the reign of Saddam Hussein. He deeply enjoyed the work and the travel.
For Christmas Mom gave me Dad’s watch. I’m very proud of them and it means so much to wear it. It reminds me of everything they pushed through to make a happy life for us kids and themselves.
