The Fawn & the Beer Can

Yesterday morning mom sent me the following text, “There’s a fawn in my front yard.”  We were all thinking of the fact that it was the one-year anniversary of dad’s death.  My response was, “If that’s not a sign, then I don’t know what is.”  Mom replied, “I think it was a sign that he is ok.  My granny always believed in signs.”  And that made me think back to late winter of this year when we were prepping the backyard for the retaining wall and I found an old Miller High Life can full of target practice holes.  I looked down at the can in disbelief and said out loud, “Oh, wow.  That’s totally dad’s brand…and look, it’s a pull-top from the 70s!”  I took it as a sign that dad approved of our building plans. 

So, I’m going to believe that dad sent us signs, both in forms that spoke of his personality and humor, and both in forms that the receivers would understand.  To mom he sent a fawn.  To me he sent an old Miller High Life can.   

2016 Christmas Letter

At Christmas, I like to send a yearly recap to all of my friends and relatives who are now scattered in the different places that life has landed them.  And with life being what it is (life), some years are filled with more milestones than others.  2016 has been one of those years.

Holiday Greetings!
Since I have no idea where to begin this 2016 recap, I’ll start with the passing of my daddy.   He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last November after becoming ill with a multitude of symptoms (almost all of which he kept to himself).  Because of his age and overall health, surgery was not an option.  And knowing that the devastating side effects of chemo and radiation would only hasten the inevitable, dad chose to be cared for at home.   The man who throughout the years taught me important things like how to connect with people through conversation (he never met a stranger), how to rake and burn a big pile of leaves without catching the neighborhood on fire, and how to back up a 24 foot U-Haul truck with a car hitch attached to the back without running someone over, also taught me about how to listen to and take care of someone I love who I know is dying.  Until his last breath in the very early hours of the morning on June 8^th, I learned from him how to be a better person.  Lordy, but I loved having him in my life…

 On the Work Front

We finally developed our GPL Park!  We’ve only been dreaming about it since 2008.  But after a series of successful grants and increased public interest this past year, we were able to get a sidewalk, security lighting, sod, raised planting beds, benches and a gazebo.  I had trees and shrubs delivered this morning…

 Our library hosted the annual state library convention in April.  This was a noteworthy achievement for the GPL considering Gadsden doesn’t have a convention center.  We were only able to pull the whole thing off with the help of every single GPL staff member working their fingers to the bone, and almost every local downtown partner loaning us space for events and breakout sessions.  400+ librarians, vendors and authors converged on Gadsden for three days.  We survived.  It was marvelous.

We are about to join forces with friend and educator Chip Rowan to bring his Beautiful Rainbow Catering Company & Garden into the library as a permanent partner in our cafe.  Chip works with young adults with cognitive disabilities, teaching culinary and business skills for future employment.  He is currently working through the Gadsden City School system, but hopes to one day become an independent employer of some of his graduates.  We are renovating our existing café to hold an educational kitchen, a dining area for guests, a classroom/boardroom for additional learning, and an office for the day-to-day transactions of running a café/catering company.  Because Chip and his guys currently grow much of the food they use in their catering jobs, we have agreed to turn over all eight of our raised planting beds that are located in our GPL Park to the Company.  These young chefs-in-training have catered several events for us this year.  They are excited about the amazing food that they create, and are just as excited about sharing it with our community.  I am looking forward to spending my lunch time in their café come January of 2017!

 The final event in our Gadsden Reads is this Tuesday.   With the help of attorney Bryan Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, we are dedicating a memorial to Bunk Richardson, a man wrongly lynched here in 1906.  This all came about through our choosing of Stevenson’s book Just Mercy for our 2016 reading initiative which set into motion a community-wide discussion of the justice system as it pertains to ethnicity, mental health, socioeconomics, gender, and age. We are now openly talking about our local history of marginalizing certain groups within our community.  It has not been an easy series of programs.  Some folks are happy to finally be heard.  Others question why we’re “stirring things up.”  It’s just shameful and wrong to keep sweeping these things under the rug.

 On the Home Front

2016 was another DIY year for us.  I spent a great deal of time staining and painting the rafters and ceiling of the patio Eric built back in 2015.  We ripped out the dropped ceiling of laundry room to expose the old beadboard that was hidden underneath.  Eric built a sliding barn door to close off the laundry from the kitchen should we ever need to.  We added buried electrical out to the garage for a security system.  And after a lifetime of using ice cube trays, I have an icemaker in my fridge.  Eric installed it I’m sure because of some deep desire to provide ice cubes for his wife and dog.   As much as I am enjoying the ice, it still seems unnatural to have so much at my disposal.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday and much love,
c

The One Where Dad Dies Twice

Since Dad passed in June, I’ve not dreamt of him...until night before last.  Eric and I have recently made a habit of watching an episode of Friends each night before bed.  Night before last, we watched the episode entitled The One Where Nana Dies Twice.  Without giving a full summary of what happens in the episode, suffice it to say that Monica and Ross’ grandmother dies twice (in a forced, sitcom-y way) in the show.  

Later that night, I dreamt that I went over to Mom and Dad’s house to do yardwork and Dad was sleeping in their back bedroom with mom standing nearby.  In my dream, Dad had already died once, but was alive again with the understanding that he would be passing away a second time soon.  I felt a joy at getting this second chance to spend time with him.  But, I was trying to be super quite so as to not wake him because we had plans to take him and Mom to Red Lobster later that afternoon.  But wake him, I did.  And when he opened his eyes, he smiled up at mom, happy to see her.  I asked if I needed to stop doing yard work so we could go to Red Lobster and Mom said no, that I should finish doing my work, and that she would feed Dad “two big pieces of chocolate cake” to keep him till we went to eat.  And Dad’s smile got bigger...

This dream made me think of a dream Vicki had about Dad not long after he died.  In her dream, we were all sitting at the dining room table at Mom and Dad’s house, with Dad at his customary head of the table spot.  Dad was talking about something to all of us and Vicki looked over at him and said, “I wish you hadn’t died.”  Dad stopped saying what he was saying, looked at her and responded quietly, “I thought we were pretending?”

I started working on an expanded obituary blog post for Dad right after we posted the concise version in the Gadsden Times.  It has been harder lately for me to revisit it to finish, but eventually I will.  He has such a story, one that cannot be easily summed up. 

Post Script:  In keeping with dreams of Dad, Mom recently shared a dream she had of Dad right before he died.   Her dream was real-time and happened when she was dozing in her chair after having gotten Dad settled in for sleep with his meds.  In the dream, she looked out the front windows from her chair and saw Dad, with his white hair flowing, running down the driveway with the neighbor’s dog Ike.  Ike was a regular visitor at Mom and Dad’s house until he was killed one morning a couple of years ago. Mom and Dad had often commented on missing Ike because it felt like Ike had adopted them.  I’d like to think that dream meant that Ike was waiting on Dad…

Father's Day 2013

While serving in the U.S. Navy, dad worked on the aircraft carrier the USS Lake Champlain.  His job was fueling jets on the flight deck and running a fuel pump room.  Recently, he recalled an incident where jet fuel, which had spread on deck from the stabilization of the ship in port, caught fire.  Fire on a ship is bad.  Real bad.  Dad was ordered to his pump room to purge the lines with salt water.  Not necessarily wanting to go down to his pump room for obvious reasons, Dad was encouraged to do so by a superior’s motivational directive to “get your ass down there or I’ll court-martial you.”  After about two hours, the fire was extinguished, but sadly some lives (both civilian and military) were lost.  I asked Dad what he did later that evening, interested in how he may have coped with the trauma and stress of such an event.  He couldn’t recall…

This is a photo of Dad as a young swabby.  It is marked on the back “Hollywood Cannes, France.”  He looks like a movie star.  Dad weighed so little at the time he served, fellow sailor Buford Greer would sometimes have to hang on to him so that he wouldn’t get blown off the flight deck.  I'd like to shake Buford Greer's hand and thank him for that.

Father's Day 2012

Happy Father’s Day to the man who gave me my name, who taught me how to swim, who showed me through his actions that we can all help each other in this world.  Daddy, thank you for sharing your sister’s name with me.  Thank you for always being there waiting in the water for me when I jumped off the adult diving board.  Thank you for always being kind to folks who were down on their luck and needed a hand.

I love the above photo because my dad looks like he was about to audition for Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.  Mr. White?

Ken Roark: CB Handle Super Duck

Here is one of my favorite pictures of my daddy.  He was one of the founding fathers of the Wingfoot division of Goodyear in Gadsden during the 70s (now defunct).  His CB handle at the time was Super Duck, which was a nod to Rubber Duck from Convoy.  I really like his denim suit and side-zip boots.  I may have owned a suit just like that at some point in my life...because I admired it (him) so much.

It was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June...

I come from a long line of truckers.  My daddy, Ken Roark, was a trucker.  So was my grandpa, Chester Padgett.  My Uncle Big Jim Smith was one, too.  As a child, I thought climbing up into an eighteen-wheeler cab was more fun than climbing on a swing set.  And I cannot recall a time when I didn’t know how to use a CB radio, didn’t know how to check the oil in a vehicle, or didn’t know the lyrics to C.W. McCall’s 1975 hit Convoy.   

If I had to come up with a desert island list of favorite honky-tonk, truck-driving music makers, I’d put Jerry Reed, Johnny Paycheck, Boxcar Willie and Ray Stevens in second, third, fourth and fifth place, leaving the number one spot to C.W. McCall for his lengthy trucking narrative Convoy.   Now, if William Faulkner had been alive in 1975 when Convoy was released, I think he would have been ten shades of jealous of McCall for such a fine telling of the heroic deeds of Rubber Duck, Pig Pen and Sodbuster (and about 85 other truckers).  The song starts dramatically with a CB conversation between truckers Rubber Duck and Pig Pen, a conversation in which we discover that they, mercy sakes alive, have got themselves a convoy…

CB conversation: Ah, breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck. You gotta copy on me, Pig Pen, cmon? Ah, yeah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure. By golly, it’s clean clear to Flag Town, cmon. Yeah, that big 10-4 there, Pig Pen, yeah, we definitely got the front door, good buddy. Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy...

It was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June

And a Kenworth pullin' logs

Cab-over Pete with a reefer on

And a Jimmy haulin' hogs

We's headin' for bear on Eye-one-O

'bout a mile outta Shakeytown

I says "Pig Pen, this here's Rubber Duck"

"And I'm about to put the hammer down"

('Cause we got a little ole convoy rockin' thru the night.

Yeah, we got a little ole convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?

Come on and join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna get in our way

We gonna roll this truckin' convoy 'cross the USA…Convoy)

CB conversation: Ah, breaker, Pig Pen, this here’s The Duck. And, you wanna back off them hogs? Yeah, 10-4, bout five mile or so. Ten, roger. Them hogs is gettin in-tense up here.

By the time we got into Tulsa-town

We had 85 trucks in all

But there's a roadblock up on the cloverleaf

And them bears 's wall-to-wall

Yeah, them smokeys 's thick as bugs on a bumper

They even had a bear in the air

I says "Callin' all trucks, this here's The Duck"

"We about to go a-huntin' bear"

('Cause we got a great big convoy rockin' thru the night.

Yeah, we got a great big convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?

Come on and join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna get in our way

We gonna roll this truckin' convoy 'cross the USA…Convoy)

CB conversation: Ah, you wanna give me a 10-9 on that, Pig Pen? Negatory, Pig Pen; you’re still too close. Yeah, them hogs is startin to close up my sinuses. Mercy sakes, you better back off another ten.

Well, we rolled up Interstate Forty-Four

Like a rocket-sled on rails

We tore up all of our swindle sheets

And left 'em settin' on the scales

By the time we hit that "Chi-town"

Them bears was a-gettin smart

They brought up some reinforcements

From the "Illinois" National Guard
There's armored cars and tanks and jeeps

'n' rigs of ev'ry size

Yeah, them chicken coops was full of bears

And choppers filled the skies

Well, we shot the line, we went for broke

With a thousand screamin' trucks

And eleven long-haired friends of Jesus

In a chartreuse microbus

CB conversation: Ah, Rubber Duck to Sodbuster, come over. Yeah, 10-4, Sodbuster? Lissen, you wanna put that micra-bus right behind that suicide jockey? Yeah, he’s haulin dynamite, and he needs all the help he can get.

Well, we laid a strip for the Jersey Shore

Prepared to cross the line

I could see the bridge was lined with bears

But I didn't have a doggone dime

I says "Pigpen, this here's the Rubber Duck"

"We just ain't a-gonna pay no toll"

So we crashed the gate doin' ninety-eight

I says "let them truckers roll, ten-four"

('Cause we got a mighty convoy rockin' thru the night.

Yeah, we got a mighty convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?

Come on and join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna get in our way)
We gonna roll this truckin' convoy 'cross the USA…Convoy )

CB conversation: Ah, 10-4, Pig Pen, what’s your twenty? Omaha? Well, they oughta know what to do with them hogs out there fer shure. Well, mercy sakes, good buddy, we gonna back on outta here, so keep the bugs off your glass and the bears off your tail. Well catch you on the flip-flop. This here’s the Rubber Duck on the side. We gone. Bye,bye.

Now, is that not pure trucking poetry?  And am I the only one out there who gets chills when Rubber Duck says to Pig Pen, “Pigpen, this here's the Rubber Duck, we just ain't a-gonna pay no toll” and they “crashed the gate doin’ ninety-eight” and he says, “Let them truckers roll, ten-four?”

A Trucker Turns Seventy

My earliest recollection of spending time with you was at the beach in Florida. It’s not just an image, it’s a feeling. The feeling of running like the dickens down a wooden pier, feet slapping and then…being airborne, sailing out over the water. It didn’t matter that I had no idea how to swim. I didn’t need to. You were standing out in the water to catch me. And you would do this time and time again, no matter how boring it may have been to you, because you knew from my ear-piercing girly squeals that it was the greatest thing since ice cream for me. And I would test you by trying to jump before you were even out in the water, just to see if you’d be there. You always were.

Happy 70th birthday dad. You should’ve played baseball.

The Fighting Irish

The routine heart cath that Dad went in for yesterday morning ended up being anything but routine. One triple-bypass surgery on three blocked arteries (one at 100%, one at 90% and the other at 80%), two aneurisms, and one severely blocked carotid artery later, they had Dad stabilized and very heavily sedated in the SICU. Did I mention that the anesthesiologist told Dad pre-surgery that he’d had a heart attack at some point in the near past? They kept asking him if he’d had any episodes in the last year or so that would’ve possibly left him dizzy or weak? He said no, not that he could recall, and that he really had felt just fine until he had been slung up into the emergency room in B’ham during his yearly physical (to keep his volunteer DAV van driver clearance) about a month ago for a racing heart rate-his heart was clocked at about 130, when it is usually at a lawful 56). He was a little peeved at all this fussing, because it was keeping him away from his grandson.

All of this happening to the toughest, but kindest man I’ve ever known. As a child, he held the record for running away the most times from the orphanage in which he was placed. He was briefly jailed in Lisbon, Portugal while serving in the US Navy for throwing a man through a plate-glass window while defending the honor of a woman. Rescued countless individuals on and off the road while making a living as a truck driver (one bridge-jumping suicide attempt, numerous car wrecks). Saved a child from choking at the local YMCA by performing the Heimlich manuver. Drove non-stop out to Denver four days after 9-11 to retrieve my sister and her then boyfriend (now husband) who had been stranded with me on their late-summer vacation by the horrific events and then drove them back to Alabama. Came out to Denver again a couple of years later to retrieve his other daughter (me) and bring her back to Alabama after her nine-year marriage was over; again, almost a non-stop trip, but one that instead of being emotionally draining, ended up being one of the best and most memorable trips that he and I have ever had together. He has volunteered to drive countless disaster collection trucks to the ravaged areas where they needed to go. He’s given a handful of family vehicles and odd jobs to folks who were down on their luck. He even decided to allow the thief who hijacked his eighteen wheeler, stole all of his stuff and then showed up in court wearing his boots to keep said boots because he felt the man needed them more that he did…in my opinion, he shouldn’t’ve been diagnosed with a heart that had blocked arteries, it should’ve been an enlarged heart because it’s so fucking big.

So, here we are, very happy to still have this extraordinary man with us. He looks a little different right now, a little frail, but he’s doing very well considering what he went through yesterday. He’s a scrappy Irishman from the Appalachian Mountains, the hardest kind of man to keep down.

Thank you all for your continued calls and prayers. This has only begun, and I expect some really difficult times for him ahead. But you know that with the bad, there’s always some good, and I’m certain that there will be some very hilarious moments too (there already have been, and I will share those soon). Keep thinking about us!

Listening to: Charlie Parker (he's always there when I need him). Reading: Andrew Weil's Eight Weeks To Optimum Health