My Dad, the Wild Man Part III: Baseball, Band and the Dream Job

From 1976-1980 we lived on a military base in the Pacific, in the Marshall Islands.  More about that later. But it was a small community and softball is what everybody did -- middle school all the way up to adults near retirement.  My dad was an excellent ball player and had a bag of probably 50 softballs.  We’d go to the soccer field near our house and my dad would would pitch all the balls to us as we practiced batting.  Then we’d practice throwing and fielding.  I loved that time.  He’d come home after work and we’d spend an hour out there, just playing softball.  Daddy time. It was just fun.

I wanted to be in the school band, but I was already taking piano lessons.  So my mom got me drumsticks and a drum pad because it was the cheapest option.  I loved it.  By the time we got back to the states, I was all about drumming.  Note that drumming is just math and practice (developing your chops!).  Then when I was in middle school, I kept talking about wanting to play the drum set.  I wanted a drum set.  He actually heard me on that. 

One day in my 8^th grade, he took the day off work and kept me home from school, and we went and he bought me a drum set. I had no idea he was planning this. A thousand dollars. In 1981. In retrospect, he knew I was never going to be a rock drummer; I was really a marching band kind of gal.  But he took me seriously and did that for me.  I didn’t think anyone was listening or that it would ever happen, and yet Daddy did it.  He heard me. I was stunned that he would spend the money, and was blown away that he just decided to do this for me.

A senior pic with (part of) the drum set my dad bought for me.

In high school, my dad came to most of our football games and watched me play in the band. He also liked the football, but it meant the world to me.  He came to college games as well; at UCLA, band members always got two free tickets, and a number of times he’d drive out to Pasadena, in 100°+ heat, sit in an upper row of the stadium so he could watch the plays unfold, but also he was there to watch his little girl play the drums.

But I’ve rushed ahead.  When I was in the 9^th grade, my dad got a job offer.  He was still at McDonnell Douglas doing secret military satellite launches.  He was great at what he did, and was incredibly meticulous.  (Both his stock broker and accountant have said he is the most meticulous client they’ve ever had.  He would do a full estimate of his taxes in June and December so there would be no surprises in April.) That applies here, because when you launch anything into outer space, there is a book of instructions that has been compiled by everyone who has worked toward the launch, and the chief engineer has to sign off on it. It’s 8.5x11” and about 3-4 inches thick.  Most guys would sign-off, trusting that all the others had it right.  But not my dad.  He would read through the entire book and think about every.single.instruction – which wire went where, how long the screw needed to be, who knows what else.  Because it’s high-dollar and potentially dangerous stuff.  He always caught a few errors, and he always had successful launches. Not everyone did.

Something secret and military. I don't know what.

There was once on someone else’s launch where the instructions on two wires were crossed, and a guy was electrocuted to death.  Then there was the one that got him the job offer:  the chief engineer didn’t catch something and the satellite blew-up on the launch pad.  That’s a several hundred million dollar mistake.  They reached out to my dad to see if he was interested in being Chief Engineer for Military Satellites down at Cape Canaveral. Wow.  What a HUGE professional opportunity.  Dream job.  He was the perfect man for it.  Nothing would blow-up and no one would die on his watch.

My parents got all of the information about moving there – what town we’d live in, what the schools were like, etc.  Basically I knew that it would be hot, humid and sweaty, that there were alligators, and that the high school didn’t have a football team, thus no marching band.  We talked about it as family, but then my dad came and talked to me on-on-one.  How did I feel about moving to Florida? I told him that I liked my friends and school here, and that I loved the marching band.  I really didn’t want to move.  But, if he felt that God was leading him to go, I was on-board. 

We didn’t go. He declined the offer. I still can’t believe it.  It was his dream job, but he asked me what I wanted.  Clearly he didn’t feel that God was calling him to go.  But the long and short of it is that he asked his daughter and sacrificed that dream job because I was happy where I was. He put his family ahead of his personal desires and fabulous professional success. How many men would do that?  Very few, I bet. I cannot express how much love and respect I have for him on that.

Some sort of launch. No idea when or where.

My dad was the kind of guy who would paint the house himself.  Change his own oil. Do all the yard work.  He’d feed and mow the lawn, put down weed killer, trim the plants, put in his own sprinklers.  Well, one time he put down some weed killer and the next day it all looked fine.  But the day after, we were playing outside, doing cartwheels and handstands out on the lawn, when my dad got home.  He and my mom stood on the front porch looking at the lawn, thinking it didn’t look so good.  At first my dad thought that maybe he had just put on too much weed killer and it had burned the lawn a bit.  Maybe they should run the sprinklers more.  But then he decided to check the bag to see how much he’d gone overkill.  He dug the bag out of the trash can.  Ooops.  He’d used grass killer instead of weed killer.  By tomorrow it would all be dead.  Any my dad’s reaction?  He laughed. He didn’t stomp or curse or even get mad at himself. He and my mom just stood on the porch and laughed and said, “We’ll, I guess were putting in a new lawn.”  And a couple weeks later he laid new sod. I loved that he just laughed.

The front porch of the house where he laughed after killing the grass!

And related, I don’t think I ever heard my dad say a bad word. Not once. He would say shoot.  He would say Good Grief (like Charlie Brown, because he LOVED Snoopy). I never even heard him say “Damn.” And while he would have a glass of wine on special occasions, or a mimosa if we (rarely) went to a Sunday brunch, I think I only saw him have a beer less than five times in my entire life.  He was not a drinker. But as we said, candy was his vice.  But I have to say, that staunch Presbyterianism ran deep.  My upbringing was almost puritanical in some ways, but it was also very good and true and virtuous.  Sounds boring but it wasn’t.  Puritans get a bad rap, but we had so much fun, and love, and adventure. 

I remember when I told my dad that I’d been elected to the Board of Deacons at church, an ordained position.  I made a joke about not wanting to be a part of any club that would have me as a member.  He looked at me seriously and said, “Don’t you say that,” indicating that I should be there, and that he was proud of me and my faith and my serving.

How could I not completely love and respect my dad?