My father was a not a big man. He was 5-foot-6 (probably more like 5-foot-5) and usually weighed about 160 pounds. Aside from being barrel-chested and having broad shoulders, most people considered him small. He also was the most intimidating “small” person I’ve ever met.
The old man was the definition of Type A. People with that personality are constantly busy, incredibly competitive, hate failing, have a higher stress level and struggle not to work. Dad fit that to a T. I assume that personality is something he developed during his years in boys homes, jails and prisons, where he had no choice but to be Type A. That’s how he survived.
Dad learned early on in the joint that he had to establish credibility. To do so, he found the biggest guy he could and took a swing at him. As he told the story, Dad was sure to point out that he got his ass kicked in that fight.
“I never had a chance, but winning wasn’t the point,” he said. “I had to show everybody that I wasn’t a punk.”
That was the first of dozens of fights during a total of 13 years of incarceration. He was also quick to point out that he likely would not have survived in a modern-day prison.
“Back in the day, all you had to do was show you were a man,” Dad said. “Now, they’ll just kill you. We had shanks and weapons back then, but you settled things with your fists.”
Dad told my brother and I about several fights, and I’ve written about some of them on this blog. There was the wrestling match with the biker who stole a piece of pewter from his booth. Another melee featured the old man throwing a right cross at a guy who cut in front of him, then cussed at him – at a Spangles.
One of my favorite stories about a fight is the one he told several times about a tussle he lost. One of the many jobs Dad had in prison was as a barber. As the story goes, he got into an argument with a friend in the barber shop, and the two came to blows.
“He was a good friend before this, and he was a friend after this,” Dad said. “He caught me just right, a hook to the jaw. Dude kicked my ass.”
That shot to the face resulted in a broken jaw. For the next six weeks, the old man’s jaw was wired shut. He lost a ton a weight eating soup.
In another fight, Dad had irritated an inmate in Hutchinson nicknamed “Big Swede.” My father said he was about 6-foot and well over 200 pounds, built like a linebacker. He challenged the old man, and backing down wasn’t an option.
“I knew if he got ahold of me, he would probably kill me,” Dad said. “We were fighting in the back where nobody else was, and I kept moving and moving, hitting him with jabs. Man, was he getting pissed. I had to keep running around him, throwing jabs, and stepping back. Finally, after a few minutes, some guards came in and broke it up. That was the end of it. We were cordial from that point on.”
Proving your point also meant more than fighting, at least as far as Dad was concerned. He was no angel (obviously). One of my favorite stories is about the fellow inmate who did not like my father and needled him constantly.
One of the ways he did this was by dumping a ton of mashed potatoes on his plate while he worked in the kitchen serving dinner. To the day he died, Dad hated mashed potatoes because they not only tasted terrible in jail, but also because of the guy who overloaded his plate with them. The rule in jail then was that you finished your plate.
“This clown had done this several times, and I was sick of it,” Dad said. “He did it again and I’d had enough. I took the ladle out of his hand and wacked him upside the head with it.”
He spent a week in the hole for that stunt.
“I got my point across,” he said. “And you can bet your ass he didn’t put many mashed potatoes on my plate after that.”
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS SERIES
Day III: From pinball to arcades, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
My grandfather’s Marine corps buddies called him “Swede” Swenson.
Amy, how are you?