Getting old is weird. Monkeyleg is weird.
Fistful, given our past interchanges, I'll take that as either a compliment or just a joking slap at me.
Cosine, since you seem to be the only one interested in what I've been writing as prep for my dad's eulogy, read to your heart's content. Anyone who's not interested, I understand.
Warning! Boring content ahead.When the rest of the male members of my extended family--uncles, great-cousins, etc--were heading off to war in WWII, my father was kept behind by General Motors to work on the Norden bomb sight.
Do I know that to be absolutely true? No, I don't. I can only take his word, and the word of My Mother the Saint, that this was true. But, given my father's fast rise in engineering in the 1940's and 1950's, I have no reason to believe that this is not true.
In the 1960's, when he was being jetted and helicoptered around the country by the US Air Force, the USAF sent a letter to my dad's bosses saying that he was the most brilliant engineer they'd ever worked with.
Probably the biggest problem my father faced was the five sons he had sired: every one of us eventually became a punk, at least for a couple of years. In my case, it lasted for probably six or eight years.
My two oldest brothers--and, I swear to God I did not know this until nine years ago--were stealing cars and robbing liquor stores when they were just teens. My second-oldest brother, Bill, had the aluminum-foil-ball trick down to an art. He could just roll that aluminum foil ball around under the steering column for a couple of seconds, and then be off with a "new" car. He even aggravated my dad by stealing dad's car from his own driveway, just to show that he could.
Both of these "punks" went on to become very accomplished engineers in their respective fields, despite the fact that neither had more than a high school diploma.
My next-oldest brother, Charlie, was something of a different case. When we moved here in 1958, he brought with him the Flint, MI greaser look: the pompadour hair, polished Cuban-heeled shoes, cumberbuns, and starched shirts.
He had class. But not for the "jocks." He, like me, was skinny, and not a good fighter. The jocks would harass him every day, even to the point of holding him down and shaving his hair.
Fortunately, for Charlie, he had some friends over at Pulaski High School. These guys were animals. Real gorillas. When Charlie asked, they delivered: they broke some of the jocks arms and legs. I don't know where these guys are now. I suspect they're in prison, dead, or are police captains or lieutenants.
Unfortunately, for me, all of the busted up jocks remembered the Baker name.
So, when I arrived at Greendale High School, I was really surprised that guys I'd never even seen before would just walk up to me and punch me in the face.
I remember one guy in particular. His name was Dan Gunya (sp?). His dad was a motorcycle cop. I was just walking down our block one day and, as he passed, he said, "Baker?" I said, "yes." He then proceeded to punch the hell out of me. I didn't know why.
What does all of this have to do with my dad, or my thoughts about his eulogy?
I expected my dad to be able to teach me how to fight, and to stand up to bullies. I knew he'd been bullied himself when he was in high school.
But, expecting my father to teach me how to deliver a solid rabbit-punch would be like expecting him to teach me how to bowl like my late-uncle Johnny.
Instead, it took years for me to realize how my father stood up to bullies. He'd confronted them, had stood up to them, took some bloodied noses, but always came out on top because he had the upper hand. He would be the one who left Houghton, MI with a small suitcase and and mindload of ideas that would transform the world, at least to the extent that one man can do so.
In the interim, I had my fights. Some lost, some one. A Golden Gloves student took particular pleasure in punching me out every time he saw me. I got some punches in, but I was no match.
When his buddies got the idea that they could pick on me, though, they got a real surprise. I slammed the face of one of those guys into his locker. I think it hurt. Anyway, he was bleeding pretty bad. Another guy I busted up pretty good and then threw into the Root River.
Again, back to my father. This sort of behavior wasn't what he expected of me. And it certainly wasn't what the vice-principal of Greendale High School expected.
Nevermind that I'd been a National Honor Roll student the entire time I was there, but that VP Lyle Davies didn't even know who I was. I was now on his radar.
And so was my dad. VP Davies had lots of talks with my dad.
My dad was so busy doing work for the USAF that I believe that he just trusted Davies.
And this is where I think my dad let me down. It's when I wish he had really been there for me. He always was, but not at the outset, when he either could have kicked my ass something fierce, or decided that Lyle Davies was a fruitcake.
Lyle Davies was a fruitcake.
Because of all of the guys who were waiting after school to fight me, and also because I wanted to be with my now-wife Debbie, I was truant. Could have been half of the year; I don't remember.
But I do remember sitting in the living room at 10 am watching a game show. Cops came in the front door and the back door (no warrants, no Miranda, no nothing). They made me take my boots off, then cuffed me, put me in the back of the squad, and took me to juvenile detention. When the officials there found out that the Greendale cops were looking to charge me with truancy, they just laughed. They had much, much more serious problems.
VP Lyle Davies was not to be deterred, though. He recommended to my father that I see a shrink. This shrink was a piece of work. All he wanted to do was ask me about what sex I was having. He was one sick f***.
After a couple of weeks, he recommended to my folks that I go through electric shock treatments.
And my father agreed.
I've never brought that issue up to my father since that day. But he had known friends and relatives who'd gone through electric shock treatment. He knew what it did. I was absolutely amazed that he would agree, especially on the recommendation of just one single looney-tunes pyschotherapist.
Maybe, after all of the grief he'd had with my older brothers--car theft, robbery, and God knows what else--he just decided to put my fate in the hands of a perverse charlatan.
I hope that's not so.
There was a nightmare I had during this period that I will never, ever forget. I dreamt that a police officer was sodomizing me in his squad, no further than 100 feet away from where my father was standing, watering the lawn. In the dream, when I looked at my father for help, he just said, "he's a police officer. It's OK."
When it came to dealing with the police in reality, though, my dad was always there. When the Greendale cops called me in to ask about what drugs a friend of mine was dealing and where he was getting them from, I made up all sorts of tales. Because I didn't know the truth.
My dad was there, though. He even went across the street to the grocery store to get me a pack of cigarettes. And he made sure that, if I needed it, an attorney would be there. As fortune would have it, an attorney wasn't necessary. I wasn't involved.
This isn't to say that I did not go without punishment. I sure as hell did. And, after that, it would take me a good five or more years to gain my father's trust again. Once it was regained, though, it was priceless.
When I met my now-wife Debbie, she was 14 going on 21, and I was 17 going on 15. I'd dated most of the girls who were on the National Honor Roll in my classes, and they were incredibly boring. One I remember in particular kept a rhyming dictionary at hand, and wrote truly lame poetry.
Debbie, on the other hand, was a book-junkie, and had read and really understood the works of most of the great authors of the 20th century. She was unlike anyone I'd ever met before.
She was well-spoken, sexy, outrageous, funny, serious, and--for anyone who's ever met her--a person who you do not forget, and who remains your friend for life.
She was also my father's worst nightmare: he wanted me to continue dating a girl whose father worked with mine as an engineer, and whose daughter was also destined to be an engineer. As my father saw it: one engineer's son + one engineer's daughter = another engineer.
And, so, when my father found out that Debbie's father drove a garbage truck for the city of Milwaukee, that was supposed to be the end.
At one point, he called her "gutter trash."
This, coming from a man who had grown up and married during the poorest of times, and whose own wife came from the poorest section of Houghton/Hancock.
It took several years before my father accepted the fact that I'd struck gold with Debbie. In the interim, I always found it fascinating that he would stare at her high-heeled shoes when she came dressed formally to visit for holidays.
This from a man who thinks that Barbara Eden of "I Dream of Genie" is the greatest actress who ever lived, and who has every single TV show and film she's done recorded. (Is my mother a forgiving saint, or what?).
