Letter From Dad II

Getting ready to move and sorting for a garage sale has its benefits...as I have found yet another letter from my father. Granted, these letters were rare but they are so meaningful to me now. I'm sure they are more meaningful than they ever have been.

April 22, 1987

Dear Tom:

When I was a little boy I dreamed of being many things and as I grew a little older my focus centered on airplanes. Someday I told myself as I watched every airplane that ever flew over our house, that someday I will be up there looking down on this majestic planet. How, when or where was only a dream and far from reality for at that time it was an occupation of a small minority. I was the oldest of five children and as you know my father died when I was eight years old. My mother raised us and was able to keep us together but times were tough and we were living on a widows pension. It was a far cry from what welfare receives today. A great treat in those days was ten cents from my grandmother to go to a Saturday matinee movie, usually a cowboy and indian thriller with a number of short subjects such as a Flash Gordon Serial. That made you come back next week to see how they got out of an impossible situation. I grew up just as you did with eight years in a Catholic grade school and under the circumstances I was able to finish High School. In order to do this I had to work in a garage everyday after school and later on every Saturday and Sunday. The other kids were able to go out for sports but couldnot take time off after school for practice. I was an alterboy and hated it many times when I had to get up and serve mass at six every morning in a church that never seemed to be heated. Yet, as I look back it was a good part of growing up. We lived over a mile from the High School and I had to walk to school every day and come home for lunch at noon and return. When I was a sophmore, I was able to save enough money to buy the bike of my dreams. It had a gear shift and cost $21.00. That was a lot of money but I took good care of it because it was mine.

I guess I was a normal boy. High School subjects were not my best shot so I was an average grade student. Flunked some subjects got hell. Made some of them up. Took the eaziest ones. Discovered girls. Even took dancing lessons but still stood in the stag lines with all the other matcho types. Working in the garage I was able to get my drivers license when I was sixteen and once in awhile had access to a car. Never had much money but made do with what you had. In my Junior year I did get interested in a few of the tougher subjects such as chemistry and algebra and got by with the skin of my teeth.

Then something happened that was to turn my life around. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was working at the Service Station and we had a car in the show window. I turned the car radio on and was listening to some music when the program was interrupted to announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor and we were at war. It was December 7, 1941.

Later on in the school year, they announced that the next year they would introduce a pre-flight program to those who could qualify and were interested in going into the Air Corp. This was my chance. My chance to begin to make a dream come true. I applied and was called to the superintendents office and told that because I had not taken the proper courses such as Plain Geometry that I would not be eligible. I ask if it would be possible to take a half a year of Plain and then step into Trigonometry. They must have felt that my desire to try was enough to make me qualify. So my senior year was cut out for me. It ment taking Physics and other subjects that in order to graduate I would have to pass them all. I never studied so hard in all my life but the dream could become a reality. Needless to say I did not graduate with honors but I did graduate. How I regretted I had not spent more of my time grasping for knowledge that was at my beg and call for three years previous.

My eighteenth birthday was March 26, 1943. I signed up for the draft. On April 15th, I received my greetings from the President of the United States requesting my presence for induction into the Armed Forces. At that time if you were eighteen after January 1st, you could ask for a differment to finish High School. This I did. I graduated on May 30th and on June 15th I received my second greetings but in the mean time, I had applied for Air Cadets. This required a written exam that was pretty tough but my decision to take the Pre-Flight course payed off. I passed and took my physical and left for the Air Corp on June 21st.

Air Cadets was the West Point of the Air Corp. It was a grueling year and a half but the dream was being fulfilled an in December of 1944 I received my wings and a commission as an officer at the ripe old age of nineteen. I ate flying, slept flying for two and onehalf years. During this time I was sending all my money home because I felt it was my duty to do the best I could to help out. This ment that I couldn't do what the other guys were able to do so my social life was not very exciting. The main thing was I was happy doing what I had always dreamed of doing.

The war came and went during this period and I was fortunate that I didn't have to see any combat. In December of 1945 I was transferred to Westover Field in Mass...Here we were given a choice of remaining in the Air Corp or going home. Being a hot shot pilot of twenty and really not knowing what civilian life was like and it being December and a Christmas at home, my choice was discharge. This is were the dream ends and a whole other chapter begins. Had I stayed, I would still be in the flying game or maybe dead. Then maybe I would not be setting here writting you this letter for you may not have been. Who knows what fate has in store for use when we are young. They say if our fore sight was as good as our hind sight we would all be better off. I have no regrets at what has taken place over the years. I met your mother we fell in love and have a loving caring family that I am very proud of. Who could ask for anything more.

This letter is not ment to make me out any kind of martyr or show myself off as egotistical person. You ask for some advise and I guess what I felt I could do is to let you know what some of the things that happened to me may help you in making what you will out of your life. I think what I am trying to point out is that you kids had it much better than what your mother and I had when we were your age. You are molding your own philosophy on life and as you grow older your ideas may change but if you have a dream go after it. The going may be tough and the time and effort may seem unsurmountable and the chance of failure is always there but as the song says, "Dream The Impossible Dream" and if you reach it everything you have done will be worth it.

Love,
Dad

I wanted to copy this word for word, so I didn't make any corrections to the grammar. But really, did it even need any? So much for my crying today. Time to move on.

Letter From Dad

The other day, I was going through a box of old letters and cards and came across this letter from my father. He was able to write profound words when he wanted to. It's postmark is March 28, 1986, and first class postage was a 22 cent stamp! However, the letter inside the envelope was dated March 27, 1986. This is why I love my father so very much:

March 27, 1986

Dear Tom:

I am setting here staring at the screen of this computer and wondering what words to put up on the screen that will make a sensible letter. You know a computer is quite a machine. It will do wonderful things but in order for it to work a human mind must make it do what it is told to do. This world would be a hell of a place if the human mind was to work like a computer and told what and when to do something. So God designed us so that each and everyone is different. This, I guess, is what makes the world go round. It causes war and peace, love and hate, ugly and beautiful from one extreme to the other but as humans we have to live with one side and the other and anything in between. Sometimes it is very hard for a person to accept this but life must go on and whether we like it or not the world will not stop to let us off. Until the time comes when we have cried our last tear and drew our last breath, then and only then will the worries of this life be over.

Yesterday I was sixty-one years old. I sit here and ask myself what have I learned in three score and one and would I have changed anything if it were possible to live it over. Yes, there are a lot of things that I would change but most are material things. I believe that the thing that stands out most in my mind is to understand love. Some people can express and transmit love and some can not. It is not that it is not there but the means of expressing it is lacking. As you get older these things seem to come into focus more and I guess you begin to see the end of your life and hope that it was all not in vain.

Well Tom, you have just read some of my thoughts on life in general. I hope some of it makes sense.

This brings me to the reason for writing this letter. You mentioned...

[the rest of this is too personal for me to share, but I will save this letter and it maybe someone will want to read it after I'm gone.]

As you can see, I have left all grammatical errors intact, and the content has been unedited. This was pretty powerful stuff. I realize my dad can't write a letter like this now, but I was so amazingly lucky that he was able to--and did--at one time.