Dad's birthdays always were low key...he never wanted the attention really. And it used to be a struggle (at least for me) to try to come up with something that he'd really like. He never really wanted anything in particular and somehow always seemed to be content with what he had. In any case it was never easy to look at his life and possessions and come up with something that he just had to have....because he felt that he already had everything he needed and seemed a little embarrassed or uncomfortable receiving gifts. He would always be warm and gracious about whatever he received....even the ugly tie or 100th pair of socks when we were little. He'd give us a hug and a kiss on the head which made us beam with pleasure from ear to ear. He was genuinely happy just to be remembered I think. It was enough for him just to be loved.
Here's another little memory I have of Dad:
More often than not Dad would work around the house or the yard in the early evening after supper. When I think about it now I realize the poor man had little or no time to himself. But sometimes he did take a little time to relax and that would mean sitting in the swing outside and ever so slowly rocking. I don't think he really liked the rocking action but he'd let it sway just a little bit. When the season was right he'd be in the garden planting; weeding or watering. He really enjoyed growing vegetables in the garden and seemed to take a simple pleasure in watering it on a warm summer night; cigar in hand; enjoying the silence that was hard to come by in a family our size.
I think around the age of 12 I began taking an interest in the garden myself. I'd been with Dad many times while he watered the garden, talking about this and that, asking questions and absorbing the answers while the garden soaked up the water from the brook. I remember discussing with him how the Indian's used to plant their corn with a fish buried under the seed. I asked him if we could do that too and somewhat amused by my idea, he agreed. There was never a shortage of fish in the brook in the spring. Various people that fished it also had a rotten habit of leaving dead suckers all over the ground. I gathered the dead fish and we planted corn together that year...the way the Indian's did. I don't recall the corn being anything to write home about that year, even with the fish. Apparently the soil itself just wasn't really good enough to make that corn happy. But it didn't matter to me. I saw it as a fun experiment and Dad saw it as a crop that doesn't do well in our garden and probably shouldn't be bothered with again.
He did try it again a few years later, without the fish. It still wasn't anything to write home about. He went back to the usual vegetables the next year.
