J.R. Murdock

Today I get another year older. My wife and my favorite daughter surprised me with a few things. First was letting me sleep in until 10. I haven’t done that in a long time and after this week I needed it. I just needed to shut down for a good long time and I woke up feeling quite good and ready to go. They then surprised me with breakfast in bed. That was awesome.

There won’t be much celebration today, and that’s fine. Today I took the day off from work. Last night we went to the Del Mar Fair. Here’s a breakdown of what I ate.

One and a half 1/2 pound polish sausage sandwiches

One fried oreo (we all shared)

One fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich (oh yea!)

A couple Australian Battered fried potatoes

Chocolate covered bacon!

Root Beer float

I feel like I ate a lot more than that. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. For me, the fair is about eating. Sure there are rides, there’s a lot of shopping you can do. One thing we did pick up was a portable boombox. This thing is pretty cool. You hook it up to your ipod, iphone, mp3 player, and they attach and sticky pad to anything hollow. A cardboard box, a pizza box, a Styrofoam cooler, nearly anything and it turns that item into a speaker. I have yet to try them out, but them seem really cool.

The fair is a lot of fun. On July 4th Weird Al will be at the fair so I may end up going back for that. Admission is free unless you want to sit closer to the stage. Even them they’re only around $30 and limited to a small number of tickets. I’ll worry about that when I get back.

Get back?

Yes. I’m going on vacation for a week. A week away from the computer. A week away from everything. I’ll probably still do a small daily update while I’m on vacation just to keep the daily updates flowing out. I’ve got an unbroken streak going. I don’t want to break it now.

We’re heading to Palm Desert for a family vacation with my wife’s family. There will be a lot of us. Not sure how many, but it’ll be a bundle. No matter how may go we’re going to have a great time in the heat and by the pool. There will be much relaxing and much eating. I might even get in a work out or two. After all that fair food I need to do some working out.

It’s time to start packing and getting prepared. We travel tomorrow! I might even be able to get a picture of a duck or two. To tide you over until I get back, there is this little news snippet the Millican sent to me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/5000-ducks-traffic-china-video-photo_n_1612455.html

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

George. My mom still has his last name. He was husband #4. She was wife #4. He had 6 daughters. Three from his second wife. Three from his third wife. His nickname was asshole. Some days it was literal, others it was more ironic.

I met George when I was 13. He was an interesting character. He lived in an apartment under Pier 65. Not sure why the bar was called that, but that’s what it was called. My mom, recently divorced, broke, and with no where to go, moved in with George and Jon and I came along.

When I say broke, I’m not kidding. George was in the same condition being recently divorced from the mother of one of Jon’s ex-girlfriends (I think they still talk). As far as I know his first three kids barely knew he was alive and certainly never knew when he was dead. The second three, two of them really didn’t care, the third didn’t until much later in life when she realized that much of what he mom said about his was fabrication and lies.

My mom worked at the Pier and George was a handy man there. He built brick walls, fixed things, built a massive deck. He also drove a big yellow rig called Old Yeller. He would pick up a load now and again and haul it all over. My mom stayed home with the boys. Until my dad called and Jon and I moved out.

That was a tough day for my mom. George was a great guy though. I was excited to move and because of my experience with Loren, I wasn’t ready to trust another step-dad even though he and my mom weren’t married yet.

Once Jon and I were out of the house he and my mom drove truck all over the country. They would pick up something here, drop it off there, pick up something else. They were on the go a lot. George was making good money and loved to pay for everything in cash.

Sadly that also included child support for the woman that lived in his house with his three kids. She didn’t like to see him happy and hated my mom for making him happy. She sued him for back child support and because he’d always paid cash, lost everything and then some. That included Old Yeller.

That might have slowed him down a little, but George and my mom (both not wanting to get married for a fourth time) bought a bar together. The Cajun Queen named for my mom who had loved New Orleans. They had big plans to open it as a bar/restaurant. The bar part happened and that’s pretty much where they stopped. Times were slow and to make extra money George would take on any jobs that he could. He did construction, moved houses, built houses, laid concrete, pretty much any odd job he could manage to keep money coming in so the bar could stay open. He never got to drive truck again, but that didn’t seem to bother him.

Jon and I called him every father’s day. He wasn’t my step-dad in that I didn’t know him. He would always pass the phone straight to my mom when I called. We didn’t have a lot in common. But I still called to wish him a happy father’s day. It wasn’t until much later that my mom told me how much that meant to him. His own kids that lived in the same city never sent him cards, called, nothing. Except one, as I mentioned, later in her life.

One of my fondest memories of George is he and I taking my favorite daughter fishing. I think she was 5 or 6 at the time. Such a peaceful day. He tried to be patient with her, but when he got frustrated (I didn’t know this) he would tell me, “Jay, can you help her?”. At no time did he seem frustrated and upset. He even joked about it later at the bar how such a little girl had her daddy wrapped around his finger.

George had been diagnosed with cancer shortly before my grandpa passed away. He had gotten his lung removed, but said he would be back for chemo, and never went. When my grandpa passed away, he said he’d made a promise to grandpa to get that chemo he’d been putting off. After the funeral I went to George and gave him a hug. The first hug I think I ever gave him. I thanked him for everything he’d done for my grandpa over the years and for always being there for my mom. My mom later told me, “He hugged you. He never hugs anyone!”

George went back to the Mayo Clinic several times. They had planned to do a scan and see what type of treatment they could start for him. Sadly the cancer had gotten nearly everywhere. It was in such an advanced stage that the best they could do was give him medication for the pain because when the cancer is as bad as he had it, organs start to shut down in the most painful manner possible.

You’d never know it. I talked to him several times over the phone. Toward the end he couldn’t remember day to day who’d called. I’d get updates from my mom and she was mentally and physical worn down at this point. Just like with my dad, the waiting was the hardest part.

George, who also had served in the military, got a 21 gun salute at his service. I have one of those bullets as well. He and my grandpa were two peas in a pod. Two loud-mouthed Pollacks that didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought and as much as those two “bickered like old ladies” as my mom used to say, they got along better than any two people I knew.

Losing George in such a short time after my Grandfather was incredible painful. I wish I could have said words at his funeral, but my throat locks up and I can barely breathe when I get emotional. I was barely able to speak at my father’s service and wasn’t able to finish what I wanted to say. I was, however, able to stand on the stage while a good friend of my mom and George, Danny, gave a wonderful Eulogy. I was amazed at just how many people turned out. It was standing room only. You would have thought a celebrity from McGregor had died. You would have been right.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

I told you this was going to be long, didn’t I? Father’s day this year has given me a lot to think about. Sorry if all of these posts are emotional, but it was all part of my growing up.

My grandfather came from Poland as a little boy. His father was Mike Adamski. During WWI (yes, one not two) the Poles were looked down upon in this country and Adamski Grocery was vandalized multiple times. Mike changed his last name to Adams and there were no more problems. Amazing how people didn’t realize it was still Mike that owned the place.

Grandpa did his time in WWII in the Navy. One of the jobs he described to me was going around after a brutal sea battle and taking a hook to fish out the dead bodies.

Once out of the Navy he married my Grandma. She’d been recently divorced from a man I never met. My Grandpa adopted my mom and raised her as his own. Never once did he even think she wasn’t. My mom called him dad until the day he died. I called him Grandpa until the day he died. He was a Pollack and my mom gave him a hard time for many years about that even when she married a Pollack.

Grandpa retired from the post office. He worked as a mail carrier for many years, then went on to be a mail handler. My Grandma worked at Honeywell and they both retired around the same time. Their plan was to move to McGregor to be around their grandkids as much as possible during their retirement and watch us grow up.

Well, if you read the past two posts, things fell apart with my mom and Loren and Jon and I moved off to live with my dad about a year or two after Grandma and Grandpa moved up.

Grandpa was the most patient person with Jon and I. He taught us how to fish and didn’t care if we made mistakes, dumped the bait bucket, lost lures. It didn’t matter what we did or what we caught as long as we were there with him. He had a pontoon that we would load up and watch fireworks on the Fourth of July from the lake and we’d BBQ and fish from the boat until late into the evening.

He’d give us jars and encourage us to catch fireflies. He would take us outside to walk the dogs on Christmas eve and we’d always miss when Santa would arrive and bring all the presents.

We lost Grandma only a few years into their retirement. She’d smoked and drank nearly her entire life until she started having heart trouble. Then she quit both cold turkey except for one beer a day per doctor’s orders. Where Grandma lacked height (around 4’6) Grandpa was huge! Around 6’6’ or 6’7’ and he weighed in around 350 pounds. When he lost her, it was as if he’d lost everything including the will to live. He carried on for many years, though. We only lost him a few years ago.

My mom’s husband, George, did everything for my Grandpa. I mean everything. He’d go over and they’d talk for hours, joke, laugh. I think it’s because of George that my Grandpa hung on for so long, but I’ll talk about George tomorrow.

Grandpa always called me ‘Pal’. I think he also called Jon, Pal when we’d call because he’d never know which one of us he was talking to. He and Jon would talk endless about sports. I wasn’t big into sports so I always found a way to talk about them with him because I knew he was so passionate about them. Grandpa would spend all day watching any sport that was on once Grandma passed away. It was his way to while away the hours as he waited, and waited, and complained, and waited.

Even without teeth he loved his steak. And ham, and all the meats he wasn’t supposed to eat but couldn’t find a way to avoid them unless my mom cooked for him and sent him heals he’d have to heat himself. During the winter my mom wouldn’t drive the ‘Floe’ road to go see him because the road was mostly ice so George would go out once a day just to check up on him, step on his oxygen hose, and help with anything he needed.

Until the day he found Grandpa on the floor in the bathroom. He’d had a major stroke, his eyes had gone white. Over the past few months he’d lost a lot of weight to the point of being gaunt. He faded quickly.

I flew home to see him. I went with my mom to the hospital room. The nurse tried to rouse him, but he wouldn’t wake up. I stood there, holding his hand, looking at the shadow of the man I’d known. A man that loved to hunt and fish, and just look at nature because it was there. His breathing labored, his pulse erratic. The nurse said he’d been awake and somewhat coherent that morning because she told him I was on my way to see him.

He sat up. He took a deep breath and looked me right in the eye. His eyes were white. Not gray, not colored in any way. They were white. His face relaxed when he was me and he laid back down and let that deep breath out.

I thought for sure that was it, but he started breathing again, slowly, but steady. His pulse still fluctuated up and down. My mom and I left after that. The nurse said he’d been like that the past couple of days and she’d call if anything happened.

Ma and I went to have a beer after that. Before she took a drink she pointed skyward and said, “Ma, it’s time to come and get dad.” We toasted to Grandpa and talked about other things to get our minds off of the events of the day.

The phone int he bar rang. The bartender looked at my mom and said. “It’s George.” The nurse had called to say that my grandpa had passed away about an hour after we left. My mom looked at the clock. It took us 40 minutes to get to the bar. 20 minutes we’d been there before the call. Had Grandma heard? I got a chill.

We cried, we signed, we were happy he was finally resting. I stayed home until after the funeral. He was buried with my Grandma. He received a 21 gun salute as his funeral for his service in the Navy. I still have one of those shells. George and I laid the headstone the following day.

My Grandpa loved ducks. Had pictures of them all over his house. When you walked in there was a painting of his old dog Duke, and a clock with ducks on it. It’s because of my grandpa that I’ll do that daily duck post. I know I joke about it, but it will happen 🙂

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

When my mom remarried I, obviously, got a step-dad. I could say a lot of bad things about Loren, but I won’t. It’s father’s day so I’ll try to concentrate on the positive.

I was never what you’d call athletic, strong, graceful, coordinated, quick thinking. Unless you said it ironically. I was a very slow learner. I wasn’t built for manual labor. I didn’t like getting dirty. I didn’t like to kill things.

So when we moved up to McGregor with him it was because he loved to hunt, fish, ice fish, snowmobile, play football/baseball/softball, cut down trees, build houses, roofing, construction, fix cars, tractors, grow gardens. Loren was a man’s man through and through. If it was the manly thing to do, he more than likely did it. He loved to read westerns, watch westerns, action shows.

He was quick with math. It came second nature to him. He could do a bid on a job very quickly and know how much the material was going to cost, give an estimate over the phone based on a customer’s measurements, hang up, write up the estimate, then head off and do a full bid on the job based on his own measurements. It always fascinated me to watch him do the numbers in his head and then redo them on the adding machine just to check his numbers.

In our back yard we had a dump (a really big hole) and people would come by and drop stuff of to ‘dump’. He would go through things like cars and appliances and strip our anything of value and put the rest in the big hole. It was his intention to fill it in with solid material and over the years we got about half-way across a nearly acre wide hole. When it would fill up, he’d push and pack and then get a truck load of sand and fill in up to that point.

In the back acre where I grew up he’d built a pole barn. He had some help from the neighbors and up it went. Being terrified of heights I had no desire to go up on the roof, but he had me on a scaffolding handing him tools, screws, whatever he needed. He had slipped at one point and I caught the pneumatic screw driver and he landed on the scaffold and laughed. Climbed back up, and kept going. It was at least a 25 foot drop to the ground below and I thought I was going to lose it being up there.

As much as we would play during the summer and winter, there were chores and Jon and I did our share. My step-dad would drive us out into the woods where he’d have bought the ‘tree rights’ to an acre lot. We’d cut down all the trees to clear the lot. We’d strip off the branches, Loren would cut the tree into parts and we’d load that tree onto a truck to haul back to the house. We’d dump off one load and depending on how late in the day it was, we’d head back out for another until the lot had been cleared.

Then it was back at home where we’d split the wood. Yes, with axes. It was a blessing the day the wood splitter arrived and we’d spend the day cutting wood. Stacking wood. Getting ready for winter. Sure I had free days to go and do things, but when there was work to do, that came first. It was never easy work and I would go to bed tired, sore, and exhausted.

Remember when I said I wasn’t strong? Well I never felt strong, but all those days of lifting logs I’d built up muscles I didn’t know about. I was 180 pounds in 7th grade, but I wasn’t fat. But because I was big, dumb, and wore glasses, I got a lot of flack from kids at school. It made growing up in a small town hard.

Sadly, I got some of the same at home. I never told my mom until long after she’d left Loren, but Loren would do many things kids at school did. He’d call me ‘stupid’, ‘an idiot’, smack me on the back of the head when I didn’t understand something. Again when I’d start to cry because he wasn’t raising no cry baby. He also drank and at times that would be a problem.

To his defense, I don’t think he ever meant to be mean or cruel. I know he’s still around the McGregor area and I hope that he’s doing well. Since he and my mom have parted I’ve never had any contact with him. Being that I was a kid things were magnified for me as that was my little world. That’s all I knew. I got abuse in school and abuse at home when my mom wasn’t around. If my mom was there, she dealt with Jon and I, but in a different manner. We didn’t have a lot of money, but he and my mom both worked to keep food on the table and with three growing boys (Loren’s son lived with us for a couple of years) it wasn’t easy. We ate, and ate, and ate some more.

Like I said, I think he did the best he knew how. Every night we got a hug and a kiss before we went to bed. He taught me to read. He tried to help me with math but didn’t have the patience. He taught my brother how to play baseball (he was the little league coach), but had a hard time with me because I found the game dull and didn’t enjoy getting yelled at when I did something wrong.

If anything I learned a good work ethic from him. Loren always put work first. Not only was he a roofer/contractor/wood cutter, he also plowed the roads for the Shamrock Township for many years. If it was snowing, he was on the roads plowing. He took me along on a couple late night runs. He would run machinery to harvest wild rice during the season. Those were very long days. He’d come home broken, sore, beat, and all he wanted was a beer and foot rub. Sure he had a temper and my brother and I took the brunt of it when my mom wasn’t home, but I turned out alright.

I was able to put that chapter of my life behind me. I learned how to be strong. I learned how to escape. I rode my bike, I did track and cross country (I ran lots) and I read. I read any books I could get my hands on. Loren read very quickly and I tried to imitate that when I read. I may not have liked him as a father. I may not have enjoyed anything that he enjoyed. I may not have turned out anything like him at all, but he was still a part of my life and my past and part of who I am is because of him.

I’ve chosen to take all the positive of his life and apply to mine. I try to be more patient. I try to be more understanding. I try to contain that anger I feel inside from time to time.

Loren, you’ll probably never read this, but I do still think about you from time to time. I hope you’re doing well. I hope your life has become what you wanted. I bear you no ill will for anything I may feel you did wrong in raising me. If anything, I think you for making me stronger than I ever thought possible.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!