Pop was 42 when he got
out of the Seabees. He heard on the way back to the states from the islands
that my mother had become widowed a few years earlier. His own marriage had
failed—that is one reason he went into the service as an older man. He knew and
liked Mother in school so he decided to call on her after his discharge.
I was six and I
remember the first time he came to the door. Mother recognized him and
reminisced fondly with him for a while, thinking he must be some kind of
door-to-door salesman. There were a bunch of those after the war. He related a
lot about his life, including the dark episode of his failed marriage and
Mother told about the untimely death of my father. When an hour or so had
elapsed—it seemed longer to me—Mother finally thought it was time for him to
get to his sales pitch, so she said, “What are you doing for a living now?” His
response was classic. He said, “I drive nails.” All at once the scales fell
from Mother’s eyes and she realized that this carpenter had come courting.
And court he did—not just
mother but my brother and me as well. He sent ice cream from the drug store,
brought us a football, some boxing gloves and other items boys like. He took Mother
places almost every evening, leaving my brother and me with our faithful housekeeper
and sitter. My brother was five years older than I so he would often wait up
for their return. One night it was after midnight when they came home. My
brother was pacing the front porch and he scolded Pop strongly with, “Well, it’s
about time!”
It was a short
courtship. I remember some things about the wedding. It was at a justice of the
peace’s home. Just before they repeated their vows, the JP’s grandfather clock
sounded eight o’clock. I said, “Listen, wedding bells.” That was one of the
first times I remember being gratified by the laughter of others. The witticism
was feeble but the response warmed my heart.
I told my brother I was
going to call the man “Daddy,” not remembering my real father, since he died
before my birth. My brother advised against that designation since he did
remember our father. He said to call him Pop, which we did. Pop later told us
they used to call him Pop in the Seabees, so he did not enjoy his new step-children
calling him that. We had two more siblings, both adults at the time. They
simply called him by his first name.
Pop had a super work
ethic and he tried to instill one in my brother and me. One time when I was 12,
he had me go with him to a job where he was remodeling an office and needed a
hole knocked through a concrete wall. He blue-lined the place for the door, handed
me a chisel, a regular hammer and a sledge hammer. “Knock me a door in there
boy,” he ordered. I did so more quickly than he anticipated. That night, Mother
asked him how I had done. “That boy will work,” he replied. That was the
greatest compliment Pop could give.