The old man would have celebrated his 81st birthday today. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than six years since he died at age 74 in August 2019. Until it was clear that he no longer wanted to fight the good fight after months of enduring bone cancer, Dad’s goal was to reach age 75 before he died. He came up about 10 weeks short.
As I’ve written in this space before, my next book will be about my father. I plan to weave stories of his upbringing and hellion days into his life lessons, many of which we still talk and laugh about.
About a year after the release of my debut book, “Goodbye, Butterfly: Murder, faith and forgiveness in a small Kansas town,” I began research on the book about my dad, tentatively titled “The Old Man,” though I doubt that will stick.
Though I learned quite a bit about my father’s background, especially a nearly two-decade stretch of fighting the law (and not winning), during interviews with him after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I have discovered quite a few surprises while digging through various archives.
One thing I knew, however, is that my grandfather, Ernie Sr., was not in this country at the time of my father’s birth on Nov. 2, 1944. Months before, the Army drafted him, and he went overseas. I found not only this draft “lottery” number (he initially was not drafted but was when three other draftees were deemed not fit to serve), but also a short article about arriving in France.
Within a few months, and six weeks after my father was born, Grandpa fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a brutal campaign on the Western Front lasting five weeks from mid-December through late January of 1945. My grandfather, a lifelong truck driver, drove an M3 half-track during the Battle of the Bulge and other offensives during World War II.
After returning to America in 1945, Grandpa and Grandma moved their growing family several times, including to Baldwin City in the 1950s. Baldwin is where my father begin his early life of crime, stealing change from people on his newspaper route to fund an addiction to pinball machines.
“I didn’t learn any of the shit I was doing at home,” Dad said. “My parents were strict. We went to church, we worked hard. Honestly, I just liked to steal.”
I knew Dad was in trouble often as a youth, especially as an early teen, but I did not realize he was prolific enough to “featured” in the Kansas City Star. According to an article in that paper, the old man was arrested for burglarizing four businesses in Baldwin and admitted to law enforcement officers that he and an accomplice, Ronald Young, committed more than 40 burglaries in the Kansas City area.
“As I recall, the guy snitched on me, and I came clean,” Dad said. “I probably would have gotten away with that had he not snitched.”
That story reminds me on one of Dad’s pieces of wisdom: “You are who you hang out with.”
I was 14 years old the first time I heard my father say this, and it stuck with me through the years. And I’m sure my children are tired of hearing me say it about friendships and relationships.
Dad, eventually, took that saying to heart, finally discarding the “knuckleheads” in his life and settling into a quiet, often incredibly private, life. Happy heavenly birthday, old man. I miss and love you.