No ISLAND IN 1993
Dad spent December with us. He had so many questions as everything intrigued him in this foreign culture.
We went on several long trips to tourist areas.
Well, we start driving and about the time we left the urban area he would be asleep only to wake when we slowed down in the town or city of our destination.
Happened every time. Near the end of his stay he said he was disappointed having read that New Zealand had 70 million sheep he only saw a very few.
They were there - he just didn't have his eyes open.
Go to Dad's website
At the pump:
$1.90/litre
$7.28/gal |
It took me seven years to do the A-Z MalleyGrams. In some cases I had to leave things out due to space restrictions. I also reckon I have accumulated a few more items during that time. So I bring you I 2.0 The orignal "I" has been updated read it
IN MEMORIAM - My father being the eldest child had a hard life growing up on a dirt poor farm. He was removed from school at 8th grade to be a full-time farmhand both at home and for neighboring farms. I once asked him about his brothers and sisters when they were young kids. He didn't know. He said he had nothing to do with them. If they played games with each other he didn't join in. It was all work for him. His father beat him if he was caught reading. So he would go across the road to his grandfather's farm and read the newspapers that were piled in a shed.
He didn't have the benefit of a high school education, but he had street smarts. I recall the time in the late 50s a vacuum cleaner salesman tried in vain to sell one to him. The deal was you paid $350 for the thing, but then for each person, up to 7, that you could get to buy one you'd get $50 back. My father wouldn't budge and argued, correctly, that there weren't enough people in the world for this to carry on very long.
He met my mother, Eva Lieb, in Austria and his consorting with the enemy resulted in me coming onto the scene, Followed by Angi and Chris. We three kids pretty much grew up without a father around.
In 1954 he began his taxi driver career and he worked from 3PM to Midnight. He once told me that he didn't know how to behave with kids, having missed out in his own childhood and then missing out on our childhood days. I am happy that my children, David and Renee, had a chance to spend 5 years with him when they were young kids. Turned out that he liked to tease and have fun.
I was worried about him because he had no interest in sports or movies or television. He would spend his time reading newspapers. He had an interest in what was going on in the world. So I was sort of amazed when one day he told me that he loved Kramer. You know, the idiot on "Seinfeld". Just the mention of word "Kramer" and he would burst out laughing.
WWII - Mpls Moline - J & E Store - Taxi driver/owner -
Apt Bldg owner - Realtor - Kelveno Hearing Aid salesman - Twin Cities Arsenal supervisor - Roofer (tar seal)
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