The Fisherman and the Farmer

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The Fisherman and the Farmer

A Tribute to My Dad

The Old Man and the Sea

We’ve all heard of legends like Paul Bunyon and John Henry, and Richard Winslow is such a legend to me. I can remember reading The Old Man and the Sea as a kid and thinking that Ernest Hemingway must have known my dad. I could see my dad in that boat, holding tight to a net and not giving up after being in the sun all day trying to catch some fish. My dad’s skin has always been dark and for as long as I can remember, his hands have always been calloused and thick from hard work outdoors as a farmer and a fisherman.

The following is an excerpt from Hemingway’s famous novella:

“How old was I when you first took me in a boat?” 

“Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces. Can you remember?” 

“I can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and the noise of the clubbing. I can remember you throwing me into the bow where the wet coiled lines were and feeling the whole boat shiver and the noise of you clubbing him like chopping a tree down and the sweet blood smell all over me.” 

“Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?”

 “I remember everything from when we first went together.” (Ernest Hemingway 12-13)

Growing Up as the Daughter of a Fisherman and a Farmer

I remember being little and going in the boat with my dad and my siblings. They still tease me sometimes about not wanting to be there. They said I kept asking when we could go home. In my defense, I was little and it was hot and I was bored. I remember once getting caught in a bad storm and my dad getting us out of the boat and onto the shore. There was no shelter and it was lightning so he put us in barrels from the boat. Now I can’t remember if he got into a barrel. I really never thought about that until now. It’s funny what our memories keep and what they sift away. I wish I could remember it all.

So often growing up, I was reading or doing school work, spending time with friends or going to an Odyssey of the Mind competition. When you have siblings, your parents often have to divide and conquer. Mom went with me to Odyssey of the Mind and my dad went with my siblings to Shooting Team competitions. Growing up is busy but I wish I could have been closer with my dad. I wish I had spent more time with him, heard more stories, and got more advice. 

9 Lives

My dad is tough. That’s one way we are different. I don’t like pain and will avoid it if possible. I don’t consider myself a risk taker and I don’t like danger. People say my dad has 9 lives like a cat. If you are around him long enough you really start to believe that this is true. There are stories of things he has done that are like wild legends. Some of those things I have seen firsthand.

When I was in the 8th grade my dad got pneumonia. The doctor had to put a tube in his side to drain fluid. I can remember my dad helping the doctor to push that tube into his side. It was crazy. Years later when I was in college he was in a motorcycle accident and I drove him to the hospital. He started to pass out at the check in desk. They airlifted him and he had to get all kinds of bolts and pins in his arm. Lots of them. There were other, more serious injuries, and we were lucky he survived. I remember wondering if he would be able to walk me down the aisle or not. If you look closely at my wedding pictures, you can tell that he is holding one arm differently from the other.

The Strength of a Farmer and a Fisherman

When it was time for all that hardware to come out, I somehow got lucky to have the privilege to be with him at the hospital. He refused the option of being put to sleep while it was removed. The doctor encouraged him to but my dad said no. He wanted to be awake. Part of me wondered if he was refusing because my parents don’t have health insurance. He knew it would be an additional expense after so many other expenses.

I can see my dad laying on that table like it was yesterday. I’ll never forget it. I was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. The doctor pulled each of those long pins out of my dad’s arm and my dad’s feet were kicking on that table. Semi-writhing might be a good way to describe it. I knew he was hurting. He didn’t have any pain medicine and yet he never shed a single tear. He never told the doctor to stop. I don’t know how he stood it.

Getting Back to Work

Fast forward to last year. My dad was doing what he always does – working – and a tractor battery blew up in his face. The ambulance came but he refused to go to the hospital. It took a while to convince him, but finally he went. I hope I never see anyone have to go through what my dad did. His eyes had to be flushed constantly so they were held open. The water was flushing and going down his gown and he was wet and cold. I was freezing in that room and couldn’t imagine being in his place.

It sounded like the doctors didn’t know what to do as they tried to save his sight. They told us they had never seen anything like it. My dad just wanted to go home and get back to work. Right now he can still see and we are thankful and praying he will always be able to see. Bottom line, my dad is tough, much tougher than I’ll ever be. Although once a doctor did tell me I had a high pain tolerance while I was in labor. My immediate thought was “it must be genetic.”

A few weeks ago my dad fell, again, as unfortunately his health continues to decline. He broke his nose and reset it himself.

Brown Bags and Bedtime Stories

Most people know that my dad is tough and that he is a hard worker. He would work sun up to sun down on the boat or in the field or both. He never stopped for much and vacations aren’t something I remember much about as a kid. My dad always worked to provide for us. Taking care of his family was important.

Many people have heard about his annual brown bag Christmas gifts. He throws in our gifts, add some random items like one sock or an orange or sometimes even odder things, rolls the top down and tapes it all over. Just to be specific, I mean masking tape or duct tape. Then he writes our names. You have to be super, super special to get a brown bag. They don’t go out to just anybody. I don’t know when those famous bags started. I’m 36 and I feel like I’ve never been without one on a Christmas morning. Truth be told, the past few years I looked at them differently. Instead of throwing them into the trash can, I folded them back neatly and tucked them into my closet. I cannot imagine the day that there are no more brown bags under the tree.

Some people might not know that my dad is also a storyteller. My mom says he was always telling bedtime stories to my siblings and I. I give my dad credit for my love of storytelling. When I got my first teaching job my dad was sitting in his spot in the kitchen and he said, “Whatever you do, don’t let them know how much you talk.” I asked why and he said, “If they find out they can get you telling stories, they won’t ever have to get any work done.” 

Marriage & Family

Some people might not know how fierce my dad is in love. He loves my mom more than I have ever seen anyone love a spouse. Now they might have driven each other crazy and disagreed, frequently, over the years but he loves her and she loves him. They believe in marriage and in being a family.

A couple years ago I was telling my dad that if my mom’s dreams at night became worse (her Parkinson’s disease causes regular hallucinations and delusions now) he might have to sleep in the bedroom down the hall. He looked at me and said, “I’ll never leave your mama.” My dad is like that. He can say one sentence to stop me in my tracks. I didn’t cry then but I cried later because I know that he means what he says to me. If you have seen what Parkinson’s is like firsthand, you know what a struggle it is for the person who has the disease and for their spouse. Their love is strong and has withstood changes in life that should have broken them. I can only recall a few times in my whole life that I have seen my dad shed tears. My mom reminded me, “Being tough doesn’t mean you cannot cry. Over the past fifty years I’ve seen your dad cry an ocean of tears.”

I remember hearing once that you marry someone like your dad. As most awkward teenagers would react, I thought that was ridiculous. Later I had to admit that, for me at least, that was true. On first glance my dad and my husband might not seem alike at all, but in many ways they are. They are both hard working and they believe that taking care of their family is the most important thing they can do. I would describe them both as a bit fierce; strong in what they think and do. They are both smart and talented in more than one area. They both jump in to help in an emergency.

A Fisherman and a Farmer

My dad is a fisherman and a farmer and for me, the fisherman part is what I often think of first. He planted that love in my siblings and they were all commercial fishermen, among other things, even my sister. And although I was kind of the odd one out, I wouldn’t trade the summers I worked on the boat with my brother for anything in the world.

In addition to being a fisherman and a farmer, my dad was also a welder who once worked at the shipyard and a local volunteer fireman for 20 years. He’s the guy who came running when I screamed as I watched a car flip upside down and crash into the ditch in our front yard growing up. I watched my dad like you watch a movie. There was no hesitation. He did, and would have done, anything to help that young woman. I was so thankful he was there. There was no blood in that wreck, thank God, but there was one before it (my parents live in a sharp curve) where my dad was covered in blood and he saved that man’s life. There was no time to put on protective gear. My dad just did what needed to be done.

Our Legend

There are stories we know about our parents, and there are thousands more we will never know. There are people who have other pieces of our parents lives we didn’t watch, conversations we weren’t privy to, and things that as children we don’t quite understand or realize. My dad has been a blessing in my life. As a fisherman and a farmer, he always provided for us. I’m sure sometimes that was much more difficult than it seemed. My dad wanted my siblings to have what we needed, and I know we have all made him proud. He is our legend, and we have grown up to become his.

So many of my friends have lost their fathers much sooner than expected and so I say, the time to do a tribute is now. Don’t wait.