My adoptive father has died. Strangely coincidentally, he died in a bathtub as did my biological father. My adoptive father was 79. He planned on living to 120. As they say, "Man plans, God laughs."
I met my adoptive father shortly after my mother did. It was 1966 and we lived in Berkeley California. What a time to live in Berkeley. People's Park, the Black Panthers, PoorBoy Suits and GoGo boots. My father was a good friend of my mother's roommate from college at the University of Illinois. He met my mother on a whirlwind visit with her roommate on his way to visit his mother in Phoenix. He first came in August. My mother married him in the Episcopal Church on November 8, 1966. She was a radical, a civil rights activitist, a folk singer. He was a conservative former GI from the Midwest. An Atheist. They were Polar Opposites.
We first lived in Athens, Ohio where he was an Associate Professor at the University there. We lived there until the end of the following summer when we moved to Portales, New Mexico. As my parents were polar opposites, so were Portales and Berkeley. My father's lace-up oxfords, suit pants, and button down blue shirts were a sharp contrast to the cowboy boots, jeans and western shirts of the parents of my classmates.
When my sister and I met my father, we were 6 and 8 respectively. My sister was cute, I was quiet. Our father was a Geography Professor. He introduced us to all kinds of geolological formations: flatirons, mesas, alluvial sands, buttes. To clouds: thunderheads, cirrus, cumulus, stratus, nimbus. We saved a snapping turtle from the road. Kept it in a box. Fed it hamburger and crickets. We caught and touched bull snakes, hog nosed snakes. At the family farm in Illinois, the outhouse was completely wall papered with living Daddy Long Leg Spiders. They pulsed. We bathed in an outside tub.
We travelled. Mammoth Cave. Zion National Park. Yellowstone National Park. The Grand canyon, Bryce Canyon, Vicksburg National Military Park, Natchez Trace, Palo Duro Canyon and closer to home White Sands National Monument, the Catwalk in the Gila Wilderness and Oasis State Park.
We did chores. We had tropical fish, gerbils and outdoors cats. When I was 10, I was given a Daisy Bee Bee gun. I was a crack shot with it, as well as with the long bow that was later bought for me. In summer, I was dragged from my books and forced to take swimming and tennis lessons alongside my more athletic younger sister. I didn't drown, I hit the ball, but I didn't excel. My sister was a firecracker. Better at all things physical. She bought a skateboard and excelled at it. I struggled to stay on my gangly feet that were too far away from my head. My sister got boobs. I did not.
Things changed the year we went to Colorado. We had a new baby sister. Things were tense. There were fights and silences between my mother and father, my mother and sister. I later would find out that this was when my father began his 'love affair' with my younger sister at the age of 12.
My mother got her doctorate and we never lived as a family again. My parents divorced in 1976. My father was awarded custody of my sister with whom he was having an incestuous relationship. She did not escape his grasp until 1978 when she graduated from College in 2 years, Summa Cum Laude. One year before I did.
My sister went on to work for Livermore Laboratories where she met her husband, ultimately doing post-doctoral work in bio-medical Chemistry. She had a daughter and a son. And then she confronted the family with her story at the age of 30.
My father never denied the relationship. Instead, he claimed his steadfast love for her and claimed that she was the one that "cheated" and started dating others. This, despite the fact that he married a beautiful woman whom I believe he chereished in 1984. He respected her, loved her, shared his knowledge with. This marriage was much different from that with my mother. His wife blossomed, went to school and ultimately became an R.N. and a person in her own right.
I know that my adoptive father was twisted in some way. Yet he loved and cherished. Above all he was a teacher and shared his knowledge with any one who would listen. He was broken. He loved perfectly and imperfectly. He cheated my sister of her youth and innocence.
My father died December 22, 2013. May he rest in the peace which eluded him in life.
I met my adoptive father shortly after my mother did. It was 1966 and we lived in Berkeley California. What a time to live in Berkeley. People's Park, the Black Panthers, PoorBoy Suits and GoGo boots. My father was a good friend of my mother's roommate from college at the University of Illinois. He met my mother on a whirlwind visit with her roommate on his way to visit his mother in Phoenix. He first came in August. My mother married him in the Episcopal Church on November 8, 1966. She was a radical, a civil rights activitist, a folk singer. He was a conservative former GI from the Midwest. An Atheist. They were Polar Opposites.
We first lived in Athens, Ohio where he was an Associate Professor at the University there. We lived there until the end of the following summer when we moved to Portales, New Mexico. As my parents were polar opposites, so were Portales and Berkeley. My father's lace-up oxfords, suit pants, and button down blue shirts were a sharp contrast to the cowboy boots, jeans and western shirts of the parents of my classmates.
When my sister and I met my father, we were 6 and 8 respectively. My sister was cute, I was quiet. Our father was a Geography Professor. He introduced us to all kinds of geolological formations: flatirons, mesas, alluvial sands, buttes. To clouds: thunderheads, cirrus, cumulus, stratus, nimbus. We saved a snapping turtle from the road. Kept it in a box. Fed it hamburger and crickets. We caught and touched bull snakes, hog nosed snakes. At the family farm in Illinois, the outhouse was completely wall papered with living Daddy Long Leg Spiders. They pulsed. We bathed in an outside tub.
We travelled. Mammoth Cave. Zion National Park. Yellowstone National Park. The Grand canyon, Bryce Canyon, Vicksburg National Military Park, Natchez Trace, Palo Duro Canyon and closer to home White Sands National Monument, the Catwalk in the Gila Wilderness and Oasis State Park.
We did chores. We had tropical fish, gerbils and outdoors cats. When I was 10, I was given a Daisy Bee Bee gun. I was a crack shot with it, as well as with the long bow that was later bought for me. In summer, I was dragged from my books and forced to take swimming and tennis lessons alongside my more athletic younger sister. I didn't drown, I hit the ball, but I didn't excel. My sister was a firecracker. Better at all things physical. She bought a skateboard and excelled at it. I struggled to stay on my gangly feet that were too far away from my head. My sister got boobs. I did not.
Things changed the year we went to Colorado. We had a new baby sister. Things were tense. There were fights and silences between my mother and father, my mother and sister. I later would find out that this was when my father began his 'love affair' with my younger sister at the age of 12.
My mother got her doctorate and we never lived as a family again. My parents divorced in 1976. My father was awarded custody of my sister with whom he was having an incestuous relationship. She did not escape his grasp until 1978 when she graduated from College in 2 years, Summa Cum Laude. One year before I did.
My sister went on to work for Livermore Laboratories where she met her husband, ultimately doing post-doctoral work in bio-medical Chemistry. She had a daughter and a son. And then she confronted the family with her story at the age of 30.
My father never denied the relationship. Instead, he claimed his steadfast love for her and claimed that she was the one that "cheated" and started dating others. This, despite the fact that he married a beautiful woman whom I believe he chereished in 1984. He respected her, loved her, shared his knowledge with. This marriage was much different from that with my mother. His wife blossomed, went to school and ultimately became an R.N. and a person in her own right.
I know that my adoptive father was twisted in some way. Yet he loved and cherished. Above all he was a teacher and shared his knowledge with any one who would listen. He was broken. He loved perfectly and imperfectly. He cheated my sister of her youth and innocence.
My father died December 22, 2013. May he rest in the peace which eluded him in life.
