Happy 100th Birthday

Photo by Ziggos Party

I have never written about my family before, but I want to use this opportunity to wish my late Dad a 100th Anniversary of the date of his birth.

Dad was born on May 5th, 1920 in southern Illinois.  He lived the first half of his life in a small rural town of about three thousand people.  But, in 1941 Uncle Sam came calling and off to war went my Dad.  He was a grunt that served in World War II and did his job as he was told.  He was discharged in 1945 after allies liberated Europe and three years later he met my mother and they got married a year later.

He and Mom had four kids including my big brother and two younger sisters.  My sisters are still doing very well, but we lost my brother to pancreatic cancer last fall.  It was an unfair fight and my brother never stood a chance when the doctors finally diagnosed him in stage IV.  He died less than a month after the diagnosis.  But, I digress.

Dad moved to St. Louis after meeting Mom and worked his life in the auto industry and in the finance industry.  Again, he was a working stiff that did his job well and didn't get a whole lot of recognition for doing it.  He didn't make a tremendous amount of money but, he took care of his family and we had meat and potatoes on the table every evening when the six of us would sit down to say grace before dinner.  By no means were we wealthy but we always had neat and clean clothes, a small home that was ours and every now and then something extra or unexpected.  (Christmas was always a wonderful time as kids and how my parents pulled off so many presents under the tree I still don't know, but it was that way every Christmas growing up)

Our last Christmas with Dad was in 1977 and then he died three months later in March of 1978 at the  young age of 57.  He had battled heart disease for a decade and it finally killed him one Friday night after he had busted his butt at work all week.

But, if he were still around he would have been 100 years old today. In looking back at the last 100 years I'm not sure what the best improvement to life was, but the Internet and personal computers has to rank right up there.  There have been so many inventions that we take them for granted and forget a whole lot of them.  Off the top of my head I just thought about the microwave oven, jet travel and the invention of the semi-conductor.  I could go on for quite some time.

But, this is about my Dad and what would have been his 100th birthday.  It's been 42 years since he left us and I still miss him.  There are still times I wish I could talk to him and tell him about my family today.  He was a good man to most people but to me he was a great man who served God, his family and his country.  RIP Dad.