My Dad was an extraordinary man. I didn’t know that he was extraordinary until he died at the age of 83. It was my Mom who fed me, took care of me, listened to my problems and conveyed all of my problems to Dad who rarely ever confronted me. He was irrevelant to my young life which was as much his fault as it was mine. After all, I was a girl. Girls don’t fish, or hunt deer, or fix cars. Girls were supposed to do girlie things, according to Dad, not fish, not hunt, not fix things. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Born in 1914, Dad was a child of the Great Depression. He was a middle child of eight children; five brothers and two sisters. His Dad was a truck farmer, a stone and brick layer, living from hand to mouth doing whatever could be done for pennies. Dad walked five miles to school, rain or shine and graduated when he was in the eighth grade because in his family it took every person working full time to support the family. There was one time that my grandfather hired himself and all of his sons to pick cotton for 25 cents a day. Dad didn’t much like that idea, so he and one of my uncles made a deal with my grandfather. Dad told Grandad that he would go fishing and make more money in a day than he would make picking cotton and would pay his share. That was exactly what he did. He fished for catfish, crappie and bass, took the fish to town and sold them for 10 cents a pound. He paid Grandad $1.50 every week and pocketed the rest.
After Dad married my Mom on the eve of World War II,all my uncles joined the Army or the Navy, but Dad was rejected because he had lead poisoning. He did have to work in the Defense Industry which happened to be Convair in Fort Worth, Texas. (Convair evolved into General Dynamics after the War) During World War II, there was a shortage of rubber, largely because the rubber plantations in South America were owned or operated by Nazi sympathizers. The rubber shortage meant that tires for airplanes were in short supply. Planes would come in for landings and would blow out the tires which meant that they had to be changed each time they came in from a mission. Convair was desperate to solve the problem of blown tires and it was my Dad that invented the motor than started the landing gear spinning before the plane hit the ground. That solved the problem of blown tires and Convair got the credit. Dad got a thank you. He was happy with a thank you. It never occurred to him to sue, ask for money or credit.
Dad saved enough money at Convair to buy a tiny house and acre of land in Graham, Texas. In 1945, he added a new kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms. He paid cash for all of it because he did not believe in being in debt to anyone. Just outside the house he built a lean-to shack, constructed a big pond, dug a well and went into the fish bait business. On the weekends, he and an uncle would seine minnows from the creek or river, bring them back home and Mom and I would sell fish bait all week long. During the week, Dad was a brick and stone contractor and bricked or rocked most of the homes in Graham. There was nothing that Dad couldn’t make or invent, so he made his own water agitators, stink bait, hauling tanks, parts for the well, parts for the car and was very, very frugal in all his dealings. He was an honest man who never had a bad word for his fellow man; he was a follower of Christ, a 32nd degree Freemason and earned the respect of all who knew him. He hated Herbert Hoover, though, and blamed him for the Depression, but meanwhile praising FDR for getting them all out of the Depression. Everyone believed that back then.
As our country speeds into a socialist state, I wonder if my grandsons will have the same kind of forbearance and ingenuity that my Dad had to withstand what is in store for them in the next few years.They have the same blood running through their veins, but have never known any kind of hardship like my Dad and Mom when they were children. I wonder … will they overcome these hardships? Will they manage to feed themselves and their children? Will they turn to God and repent for their sins and forgive the sins of those who created hell in their lifetime? Will they make a better life for themselves and their children? I have to believe they will. After all, Dad was their ancestor.
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I had a family member that worked as a senior member of the IMF. (International Monetary Fund). They only accept payment from member countries in GOLD. They do not accept payment in local currencies. They only exchange gold for local currencies in order to fend off a local banking crisis. You can google this. The big banking boys know what real wealth preservation is. They setup their own safeguards to include a gold reserve, not a paper reserve. China, India and the US are huge gold holders. They don’t liquidate Fort Knox to pay federal debt, they just whip up a new batch of paper.
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