Sitting here in a hospital room alone with my dying father, I realize once more, as I often have through much of my adult life, but especially in recent years, that I have become the outsider, almost a stranger, in the family. There are many reasons for this feeling of estrangement, and most of the reasons lie beyond anyone’s personal control. Born into my parents’ middle age, very likely the result of an accidental conception, I grew up almost as an only child, since my two sisters had married and left home by the time I reached puberty. Thus during much of my childhood and all of my youth Sister and Agnes seemed more like aunts to me than siblings. By the time I reached my thirties and forties, of course, our age differences didn’t matter as much, but by then geography had conspired to create another kind of distance between us. For all of my professional life I have lived out of state and come home to visit, for some stretches only two or three times a year. My children barely know my sisters’ children: they pronounce words differently, they have different friends and hobbies and values and life styles—distances that are far greater than mere geography. And much too great ever to be narrowed by only occasional visits at Christmas time, or over summer vacations, or, as now, for family emergencies or funerals.
Such situations, of course, are now commonplace, almost the norm, in an American society that has become more mobile and cosmopolitan, less settled and provincial; but these changes, I think, have proven particularly difficult for Southerners of my generation, who were brought up to believe in the inviolable unity and trust of the family circle, in the respect and care that children owe their parents and grandparents, especially in their old age and infirmity. Both my sisters have been faithful to this responsibility, but I have not. It is they who have visited our aging parents daily, taken care of their physical and emotional needs, driven them to doctors’ appointments and emergency rooms, looked after them, loved them. By contrast, I am the voice on the phone, the occasional visitor, when required the name on the check.
My sisters never reproach me for not being there for my parents as they are; they are too kind and good for that. But they must sometimes, when the burdens of parental care interfere with their work or pleasure or their attention to their own families, resent my detachment and freedom. Do they know, I wonder, that I often feel guilty that I am not with them in their need? And do they know that sometimes I am jealous of the close relationship they have with Mama and Daddy? And that I feel a second guilt because of that jealousy?
*****
Much of Daddy’s talk at this stage is nonsense. The doctors explain that older people often become disoriented and confused when they are removed from their familiar surroundings. And, of course, there are the terrible side effects from the drugs.
Taking my cue from the doctors and nurses, I ask simple questions, seeking to ascertain the degree of consciousness, awareness, clarity. “Daddy, do you know me?” I ask. He nods, slowly, eyes staring past me, through me, into the distance. “Who am I?” I ask. “Harv Wallace,” he replies, naming the fishing companion who has been dead for five years.
Other questions evoke, if any, similar responses. All except one. “Daddy, how long did you work for Standard Oil?” I ask. “Twenty-six and a half years,” he responds immediately, hitting the number right on the dot.
Does he also recall, I wonder, that he worked five and a half days a week, with only Saturday afternoons, Sundays, and Christmas Day off? In all of my childhood memories, I do not remember my father ever taking a vacation. His was a hard, laborious life, with little time for the leisure activities his children prize so much today.
Despite its difficulty, Daddy was prouder of that job with Standard Oil than any of the various ones he held throughout his life. He drove one of two small tankers (Dan Owen drove the other), delivering gasoline, oil, and “coal oil” (as kerosene is called in that part of the country) to service stations, general stores, and farms throughout a three-county area. I was eight or nine years old when Daddy took that job, and occasionally, on Saturdays or during the summer months when I was out of school, he allowed me to ride in the cab with him as he made service calls to neighboring towns and communities. Kirksville, Marietta, Pratts, Guntown, Saltillo, Cedar Hill, Bethany, Jericho, Frankstown, Geeville—the names are still, and always will be, magical to me, no less exciting to me as an eight-year-old than London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, and Vienna would become for my adult years.
Most people, I’m sure, find the smells of oil and gasoline to be unpleasant. But I always associate such aromas with my father. Through all my years of growing up the smell of gasoline permeated his clothes, his cap, his hair. The creases in his hands and the grooves under and around his fingernails seemed always filled with grease and grime. To many individuals, I suppose, Daddy gave off an offensive odor and appearance. But not for me. Even today, these many years later, I can never pump gas at a convenience store or add a quart of oil to my engine without being reminded of my father—and of those boyish summer days when, proud as a prince, I would sit beside my father, high above the world in the cab of the huge truck, and watch the days flow past my window as peacefully as a summer stream.
By most people’s standards, Daddy’s was not a good job, as I later figured out for myself. A salary of $100.00 a month with no paid vacations or fringe benefits could hardly be considered a good position, even in the late forties. But my dad loved his work. He liked being on the go, meeting people from one county to the next, pleasing his customers, “working for the public,” as he defined his job.
Though I was unaware of the situation at the time, in retrospect I came to appreciate the courage it took for my father to accept the job with Standard Oil. He had only a fourth-grade education—actually not even that since, by his own admission, he played hooky almost every day that last year, leaving home each day to walk to school but, in those non-compulsory attendance days, spending most of the time hiding out in the woods or roaming the countryside. I was a teenager before I realized that the reason my dad asked me to read the newspaper to him was that he could barely read. He always said it was because I needed the practice.
Neither had he adequately mastered the multiplication table. This deficiency, which he must have managed to conceal in his job interview, presented a real difficulty for him, since he would be required to calculate his customers’ bills and collect the money for the petroleum products upon delivery.
Daddy had a ready solution to his problem, though. Since Mama had acquired a good rudimentary education, having attended school through the eleventh grade, he asked her to write out the tables for him on a set of three-by-five-inch note cards. Daddy carried these in his shirt pocket for several months, referring to them as needed in figuring his customers’ bills. After a time, having memorized the tables, he was able to dispense with the cards.
Hearing my mother tell this story in later years, I understood why Daddy took such pride in his “bookkeeping” abilities. Each Saturday at noon he would report to the office of Prather Auto Company, the Standard Oil distributor he worked for, and turn in the tickets and cash receipts for his week’s work. Never once, he boasted, in all his years with the company did his accounts fail to balance when it came time to “settle up.”
Today, sitting beside the bedside of a dying man who, as the world judges the matter, failed to make even the slightest scratch on the history of his time, I reflect on the embarrassment and shame that Daddy had to overcome even to attempt to secure a job for which he was only marginally qualified—and then retain it with an unblemished record for twenty-six and a half years.
What I wouldn’t give for that set of worn-edged, grease-begrimed index cards which gave him his start.
Beautiful reminiscence of a beloved man by a loyal son. What wonderful memories to carry with you.
Very loving and thoughtful account. I came home to be with my mother which is the main reason I ended up at Southeast. I was the only daughter and it was expected. I handled the local pieces of life. My brothers were only too happy to let me!! I took it on willingly, as I am sure your sisters did. No need to feel guilt or responsibility on anyone's part. My father smelled of soybeans alot because he sold grain and Bean insurance! Giggle! You have a way when writing to leading others into a walk down their on path of memories. I really enjoy your writings ALOT!!