My father was a barber, in the Navy and out. I don't remember much about his job - just that he kept my hair in a pixie haircut (that I hated!) when I was little. While I was a toddler, he started going blind. He was diagnosed with Macular Dystrophy. I became his "seeing eye daughter." Some people learn to cope with fates such as this, but he never did. But he did learn new skills. He would carve things out of wood, cattle horns, peach pits.... He would carve wooden birds and then nag at me until I painted them. I was pretty good at painting woodpeckers, Blue Jays, Orioles and Scarlet Tanagers. I have to say there were many times I would rather do almost anything than paint those birds.
Daddy had a workshop - the one in the above picture. He painted every squiggle on that building. He spent many an hour tinkering in that workshop. He didn't like the red-tipped cane for blind people, so he made his own from wood and cattle horns. I can still smell the Plastic Wood he used to put the horn pieces into the cane. These canes were conversation pieces. He loved to talk - to anyone who would listen. My mother - who was in the Navy, too, where they met - would take him to the barbershop every Saturday morning. He would hang out with the man he used to work with and talk to everybody who came in. It was definitely his comfort zone.
When I was growing up, almost every Sunday, we would go to church. He had to be right up front, wearing his cowboy hat and boots A large part of it was because he was hard of hearing, but also so that he could be seen. And he would always have a little wooden bird or a peach pit bird in his pocket to give to a child - my mother and I would always accuse him of trying to buy love from others. He would give away anything and everything to get a little appreciation.
Daddy was a sucker when it came to animals - he truly loved them. When I was little, he raised beagles. He loved unusual animals - we had a rooster, a skunk (deskunked, luckily), ducks, dogs - but he wasn't a cat person. The most unusual pets we had though were monkeys. First, he bought an adult Squirrel Monkey - big mistake. That things was wild and mean. Then he bought a baby Spider Monkey - it was almost like the baby brother I had always wanted. Billy was so little and cute. My parents built a huge cage for him onto the workshop. Daddy would take him out on a leash and he became another conversation piece. But try traveling for two days in a car to North Carolina with a caged monkey in the backseat - not good. As Billy got older, he bit my mother and me, and we stayed away from him. When he finally dared to bite Daddy, he had to go.
Daddy loved to tell stories. He was somewhat versed in Cajun French and loved to tell stories about Cajuns. He loved to fish, though that chapter was pretty much closed with his blindness. I do remember going to Grand Isle once to visit friends of my parents and crabbing. I really loved dropping that net in the water and checking to see if we had caught any of the tasty creatures.
My Daddy was gone long before I had children. As much as he loved kids, I know he would have adored mine. I wish they could have met him. I sincerely believe every time I find a penny that it's Daddy thinking about me. He would always give me a hard time about looking down while I walked. Saturday, a woodpecker came down really close to where I was - on the day before Father's Day, I took that as another sign from my Daddy.
He wasn't an easy person to be around - for those of us closest to him - he had a short temper...and he would take it out om my mother and me. And I didn't help things - I loved to pick an argument with him - over anything and everything. Of course, I am getting payback from my kids.... I really do appreciate Daddy now...and I think he knows that.
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