This past Sunday, one of the songs Fred Migliore played for his father’s day show was Cliff Eberhart’s song (the one I used as the title of this musing). It’s from an album of his called The Long Road which, if you’ve never heard is an absolute must. It is also one of the three songs from that album on one of the playlists on my H20 swim earphones, and today it showed up at around lap 48, here are the opening lyrics:

I would be thankful for the gifts that were given
I will not turn my back on the past

As usual, I do my best reflections and thinking while either running or now while swimming…my head is clear and I can just let my thoughts drift…so this is a little of what went on:

My dad was a “working man”, a member of the “greatest generation”. His father was a NYC policeman who received a medal for capturing John Dillinger while he was in NY (one of the many pieces of memorabilia that was lost, along with all of the 8mm movies and many pictures, when he and my mom passed and the breakdown of the house was not as well watched as it should have been). His mom died in childbirth as he was being born and his dad remarried someone who resented both my dad and his older sister, Alice. When my dad was 18 he signed up for the Navy as soon as Pearl Harbor happened, and during his time (all spent on a Destroyer Escort a ship smaller and slower than a Destroyer that was optimized for antisubmarine warfare) would send most of his pay home since he was at sea for the majority of the conflict with little use for it. When he was discharged after it was all over, he went “home” to find that his father and step mom had moved, left no forwarding address and had decided to “make use” of the funds he sent home. There was an almost 20 year gap between contact and toward the end of his father’s days we did see them once or twice. To say their issues were resolved would be a lie, I think he did it more for me to simply meet his father.

This is the lone remaining photo of the three of us from one of the two visits to his house: My dad on the left, me in the center, my grandfather on the right.

My relationship with my dad was, by and large, very good. We did, of course, have our issues over the years and there was a two year period where we did not talk (yes, I regret those two years a lot). But we were fortunate toward the end of his time to spend an afternoon, just the two of us, to really talk through the 41 years we had together at that point and nothing was left unsaid or left in anger. [Between his time on the DE and his time in bus garages, along with his constant smoking (unfiltered Camels) the exposure to asbestos and sub standard medical care, gifted him with lung cancer that was misdiagnosed until it was too late to even attempt to mitigate…8 months from actual diagnosis to transitioning].

All of this is by way of bringing me to the point of my thoughts in the pool this morning..about what gifts I was given from him in particular. We were not, by any classification lucky in finances. Both my dad and my mom (who went back to work as a secretary when my 5 year younger sister when to school full time) lived paycheck to paycheck. We lived in a second floor walk up in the Bronx, right at the end of the D-train line. But we never wanted for anything and the two of them found a way, from the time I was 13, to rent a summer bungalow in Far Rockaway so that we could have that experience (still in my Mt.Rushmore of life experiences). Neither he, nor my mom, was highly educated in a formal sense and certainly it was apparent to me from the jump that there was no fall back cushion when I became an adult.

So with all this what were the “gifts”…actually with all these years behind me it’s a pretty simple answer: I was gifted with love, trust, encouragement and freedom. If I expressed an interest in something I was supported, if I wasn’t sure where I was headed or what I wanted to do I was allowed to make my decision without any pressure or, unless I asked for it, any input. What HS to attend, what College to attend, having graduated college and still not “having a clue”, to be told that it was ok to wait it out, think it out and find my way. I always worked (his work ethic was yet another gift though it was not talked about it was just something he lived that I observed) so waiting to settle on an adult path was not an issue. I decided to try my hand at teaching as my “second dad” Uncle Dom, was a teacher and seemed to love it. My did did offer me the opportunity to get a union job as he, by that time, had a lot of connections in the city, but when I told him I didn’t think it was something I’d enjoy, he never once pressed, he simply pointed out all the advantages and did say that (at least back then) I could retire after 20 years on the job (would have been at 41 at that point…not coincidentally that age I was when he passed) and taken on a second career with a second pension. I did think about it, but I never wanted to stay in the NYC proper area so that was a downside as well, and he not only accepted but encouraged me to keep moving forward. He did rarely miss the opportunity to remind me how much less I was making as a teacher than I would have been making as a union guy, but it was always in a gentle, joking fashion…usually surrounded by “so, you have a degree and are making less than the guy fixing the subway fare boxes??”

It is that gift, the gift of freedom that I am most thankful for. I have had a very, very nice adult life. Not a lot of $$ (see the teacher choice of a career) but there are so many things that cannot be measured in funds and I have an abundance of all of those while still, by a lot of years of work and some happy accidents, with enough funds to be comfortable.

I may not have walked, as he would have preferred, in my father’s shoes, but I don’t know that even now I have been able to fill them with my own kids as he did for me. I guess only time and history will tell…

Will close this with another few lines from another Cliff Eberhart song….(also on that playlist and equally appropriate)

I can hear your voice in the wind
Are you calling to me? Down the long road
Do you really think that there’s an end
I have followed my dreams, down the long road