Cheers - Part One

This is Part One of a short series on growing up around alcohol.

Alcohol was, and still is, part of the social fabric of the Virgin Islands. It's cheaper to buy a fifth of rum than a gallon of milk.

My parents kept alcohol in our home. My grandmother's guest house at Trunk Bay and later at Lillie Maho had fully stocked bars. When we were little my sister, Erva, and I were allowed to drink a liqueur glass of wine for special occasions, like Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Sometimes if my parents were visiting friends in the evening and I got whiny Mom would slip me a small amount of beer so I'd go to sleep.

One time, when I was about six, we were at a party and I got a fish bone stuck in my throat. I grabbed my father's drink -- which I thought was water -- and chugged it down. It turned out to be rum on the rocks. I don't remember a thing after grabbing his drink. And, strange to say, since then  I've never been all that fond of rum. Though I do like a good pina colada every great once in a while.


When my father won the Fourth of July boat race in our speedy little boat the FDO (Father's Day Off) he got a case of Schaefer Beer. (See, even Lucille Ball advertised for Schaefer.) And speaking of the Fourth, at least once, those in charge of the fireworks got so drunk and excited that they shot them off on the 3rd. But this can be forgiven because the 3rd is Emancipation Day, the day the slaves won their freedom from Denmark.

For many, many years there was an elderly gentleman who, when he got to the right level of drunkenness, would put his bottle of beer on his head and dance, with or without music. I can't remember that bottle ever falling from his head.

The availability of alcohol in my life had it's good and bad sides.  The bad side is that with liquor being cheap, alcoholism is prevalent and I can spot an alcoholic with relative ease. The good side is, because I saw responsible drinking in our home and because we were allowed to drink small amounts, neither my sister or I ever had the need or desire to go out, drink and/or get drunk with our peers, something I saw happen on more than one occasion.

Did you grow up with alcohol in the home? Next Monday...Bars.

Remembrances of Gifft Hill - The Ghut - Part Three

Where had it gone?

Our rocky road had simply vanished. Happy, who was exploring ahead, came to the place where ghut met sky and hills, came to the place where the ghut ended. He stood there on one of many large boulders waiting for us. We hurried towards him as fast as we could, drawn to the mystery.

And then...as we climbed over a bunch of rocks we came face to face with a geological phenomena unique to St. John.

Dropping away at our feet, going straight down was a rock fall. I'm not sure how tall it is, Erva thinks maybe 75 feet. And there were the pools of water! The one at the top was maybe 15 feet long and 8 feet wide. And far below us, the pool at the bottom was MUCH bigger, 20 feet long maybe and 15 feet wide. The water, though brown in color was clear and sweet. Yes we drank some and were not harmed. And to our amazement things were living in it, and not just tadpoles. There were crayfish!

It was like being in a cathedral. Even we, two young girls, could recognize, sense, the specialness of the space. I don't remember our talking much. I think we mostly sat on the rocks and soaked up the essence of it all as our feet dangled in the surprisingly cold water.

It was easy to imagine escaped slaves hiding up in the hills; places too isolated, steep, and rocky to have been terraced by plantation owners. It was easy to imagine them gathering water from these pools. Yes, they had been here.

I'd like to think we were the first white people to ever see it. It seems possible.

Erva and I ate our sandwiches as we lounged on the sun bathed rocks. All that could be heard besides Happy panting contently near-by, was the breeze blowing through the trees, the echoing calls of various birds, the rustle of lizards as they scurried about the dead-fall. We were utterly alone in the world. We didn't want to leave, but we knew we had to get back home to The Castle before it got too late. As we didn't have a watch we had to keep track of time by keeping track of where the sun was. There is no long twilight in the islands. When the sun goes down it gets dark very quickly. Down there in the ghut it would grow dark even more quickly because of the steep hills. It was kind of like being in the Grand Canyon. We had to get back home.

We didn't get lost, we found our way out without a problem. But we were changed. We were somehow different than we had been only a few hours before. We knew something very few other people knew about. Not only that, we had experienced something spiritual.

When we got home we were excited to tell Mom and Dad all about what we had found. I think it may have been next week-end we took Mom down to see it. She found rare terrestrial orchids, and we brought home the biggest walking stick we have ever seen before or since, a good 5 inches long, without feelers. It had landed on Mom's shirt and rode on her shoulder the whole way home.

On our third trip, Erva and I took Vince Mrazik, a National Park Service Ranger, and Henry Fafala, the head gardener for Caneel Bay to see that most miraculous place. But we didn't just go to the pools. We went all the way to were the ghut terminates into Fish Bay. We actually climbed down that waterfall by tying a rope to a tree and sort of belaying ourselves over the rocks. We found other pools of water, with crayfish in them as long as my forearm. Remember I was a small child...but still, those crayfish were BIG. We also found an old iron cauldron, the kind used to boil sugar cane juice, wedged into some rocks. At some time during a flood it must have tumbled it's way down the ghut before getting lodge. Dad met us at Fish Bay in our boat the FDO and took us back to Cruz Bay. Otherwise we would have had to have made the long hard climb up to the Monte Catchment before being met by someone in a jeep.

In the years that followed we took only the most special people to our special place. We learned the pools were deep. Deep enough to swim in. And yes, there was water in them year round.

Below, though yellowed with age are three photos taken at The Ghut in January of 1978.

That's Anna my dog, peeking over the top. She's happy, see that smile?

Here she is again, still smiling, directly above the upper pool.

And this is the upper pool. At center left is an area that looks almost black with white speckles, that's the lower pool with reflected sunlight. It's a long way straight down.

Geologically, the fall was caused eons ago when the earth shifted suddenly along a fault line, some of it falling away, some of it being pushed upwards. The fault still exists. It's possible one day it could shift again.

I have not been back in a long, long time. It's unlikely that I'll ever return as too many people know about it now and I fear I would find evidence of human thoughtlessness, trash, plastic. So I choose, as Erva does, to remember it as it was when we first saw it, a sacred place that gave itself to us and that never harmed us when we visited.

The Sears Garage, 50 Years Later

Around 1959 my parents decided to open a gas station in Cruz Bay. My father, being an ace mechanic would also repair vehicles. The first thing we had to do was build the building. A Sears pre-fab was chosen, ordered and shipped to us from who knows where. The only thing we didn't do was dig out the foundation and pour the concrete slab. As for the rest of it, the four us built the two door garage entirely by ourselves. By 1960 we were open for business, selling Mobil gas. We also had the dealership for Jeep and Land Rover. This is Erva and me on opening day. Dad is just visible to the right. Erva was a tall lanky 14 year old, I was a tiny 10. For years people thought I was a lot younger because I was so small compared to her.

The picture below shows part of the pre-fab and the Mobil sign on the slab where the gas pump was. The siding on the garage was a pale pastel mint-green, pleasing and easy on the eye. See the block "cistern" to the left?

That's were the metal tank was that held the gas. The gas came in 55 gallon barrels that had to be pumped/dumped into the tank. Mom, Dad, Erva, me, and my cousins Frances and John, who were visiting from Puerto Rico, made a chain and hauled every single one of those concrete blocks from the place they were off-loaded to the site. The trailer in front of the cistern was also a Sear purchase and hauled everything from our boat the FDO, to rocks and furniture.

This is a picture of the concrete slab where the gas pump was. There was a rack next to it that held cans of oil.

Erva and I were the attendants. Erva handled the pump while I checked the water in the radiator and battery or washed wind shields. We also checked the oil and air in the tires. We were, as far as I know, the first and only female gas pump attendants ever on the island of St. John. Erva and I worked the pumps, whenever we weren't in school, for two years. When the power went out we could pump gas by hand. We were also grease monkeys. We washed parts and tools (in gasoline), sorted transistors, screws, nuts and bolts, and slapped undercoating (a tar-like substance) on the new Jeeps and Land Rovers when they arrived. We would wash ourselves off with kerosene or diesel fuel.

This is the Willies station wagon Dad painted. It was also our advertising. White roof, red above the chrome, blue below with a red Pegasus decal on the door.

That's me in the door, standing in front of Dad's motorcycle, the All State, yet another Sears purchase. All of us Virgin Islanders depended on Sears. They were reliable and trusted. The name Sears was gold.

In 1962 we closed the business and moved to St. Thomas. My father was physically exhausted and got a less physically demanding job as the chief engineer for the only TV station in the islands.

The Sears building evolved into other businesses. For many years it was a gift shop and restaurant called Islandia. I sold a lot of my shell and seed work there. The interior has been changed and altered but 50 years later the building still stands and is still in use. It has survived floods and hurricanes.The aluminum siding has never been repair or replaced, only painted various shades of yellow.

The roof is the same roof too.

Technically, at 50 years old, this Sear pre-fab could be considered an historic building. Certainly to our family it is. What's really nice is that we still own it. I wonder how many of these pre-fabs are still out there, and how many have been in continuous use since they were built? And how many of them are in the Caribbean? I would bet ours is the only one in the Virgin Islands. Do you think Sears would be interested in paying us to do an ad, you know like those Toyota truck owners whose trucks have gone like 400,000 miles? Do you think I should find an email address and send them a link to my blog so they can read this? 50 years! That's a lot of very loyal service.

A Father's Day Tribute

Here are all the father's in my family.

Frank Eugene Hartwell, father of my grandmother, Erva Love Hartwell, who married Pual A. Boulon.

Paul Alfred Boulon, father of my mother, Erva Claire.

Peter Haught, father of my great-great grandmother, Sarah Haught who married James T. Miller.

James Thomas Miller, father of my great-grandfather, James Munroe. He looks so much like Dad it's spooky.

James Munroe Miller, father of my grandmother, Sarah Eliza Miller, who married John J Denham.

John J Denham, holding my father, John Stanford Denham. (J was his middle name, no period after the letter.)

Dad, with Curly...on the bottom of the picture my mother (who took the picture) wrote, "Don Juan Denham."


Dad and me in the FDO.

Happy Father's Day everyone!

The Ones That Didn't Get Away - The Winning Fish

The Fourth of July Fishing Tournament was a yearly three day affair. It was mostly a contest to see who could catch the biggest fish.

In 1966 Dad decided to enter us and the FDO. We were competing against the deep-sea fishing boats, the ones that go out to catch Blue Marlin and Sailfish and Dolphin (not the mammal known as porpoises.)

I think the big boaters kind of snorted at us behind our backs, pointing their figures and snickering at our brazenness. How could a 12 foot boat compete against 50 foot boats? Did we think we could actually make a big catch? How could we, when we were only trolling the shallow coast-lines of St. Thomas and St. John, while they were going 40 miles out to the Puerto Rico Trench (the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean) and catching world record Blue Marlin? Snicker, snicker, snicker...har, har, har...

Dad, being the captain of our huge luxury yacht, went out all three days. Mom went with him on the first day, Erva on the second, and I went on the third day. Each day we consistently brought in more fish than any of the other boaters. Each day our fish were counted and weighed. I think by the end of the tournament we had brought in more pounds of fish than anyone else.

The crowning touch was this. At the end of day three Dad and I were out between Little and Great St. James. We were getting ready to head back home when we spotted birds diving and fish jumping, a sure sign of a school of fish. We raced through the school at top speed (a trick Dad learned to bring the lure up to the surface so the feeding fish would mistake it for a fry) and I got a strike. When I got it to the boat it turned out to be a nice sized Yellowtail, probably 5 pounds or so .

Dad said, "Let's do that again and see if we can't get another one."

So we zipped through the middle of the school and BANG I got another strike. Only this time I knew it was BIG. I was so busy paying attention to my rod, the star drag, and the line I didn't see this fish leap out of the water and dance on its tail...three times! And, I was already tired, not only from being out in an open boat all day, but I had just landed a Yellowtail, a fish known for it's good fight. Finally I managed to get the thing to the boat.

It turned out to be a barracuda! Now you have to be careful with barracuda. There's no known attack of a person by a barracuda in the water. But out of the water, landed in a boat say, they have been known to snap oars in half and take chunks out of hands, legs, arms or anything that gets in the way of their needle sharp teeth. They get pissed.

Once Dad hauled it into the boat he beat it sounded on the head with a club we kept in on board for just such a purpose. That barracuda was not small. The FDO was about 4 feet wide and the head and tail of that fish curled up at the ends where it lay across the stern. Dad was sure I had a winner.

And I did. I won for catching the biggest fish by a teenage girl angler. That barracuda was 4 feet long and weighed in at 11 1/2 pounds. Below is the newspaper picture of me accepting a string of real pearls. I still have them.

We enjoyed snorting at the big boaters behind their backs. Big is not nescessarily better. Snicker, snicker, snicker, har, har, har!

Oh...and by the way, today is Go Fishing Day.

Tales of Brave Ulysses - Circumnavigation

The north side of St. John, which faces the Atlantic, is cozy and feels protected because it is ringed round with cays and the larger islands St. Thomas and the British Virgin Islands. The north side is greener, lusher and the hills rise from numerous inviting powdery white sand beaches.

Cruz Bay, St. John. St Thomas to the far right, Little and Great St. James center and Steven's Cay towards the front.

Hawksnest Bay, St. John. St. Thomas in distance.

Maho Bay, St. John. Whistling Cay to the far left and behind it, Jost Van Dyke, BVI.

From Annaberg, looking across Sir Francis Drake Channel towards Totola and the British Virgin Islands.

The south side of the island is a completely different story. Here you are faced with the wide open expanse of the Caribbean Sea. Here there are no cays and the nearest island is St. Croix, 40 miles away. Though the water tends to be warmer because the Caribbean is shallower than the Atlantic, it can be rougher. Because the south side is so exposed to the Tradewinds it is very desert-like. Giant century plants, thorny acacia trees, tall organ cactus, and many other cacti as well, cling to the rocky hill sides. And, except for a few beaches, the coast line is rocky, protected by snarly reefs.

Now the F. D. O. was small, only 12 feel long and yet we made several heroic journeys within her fiberglass hull.

Twice we went completely around St. John, a distance of 40 or 45 miles. We were very familiar with the cozy north shore. Many were the times we had trolled around the cays of Lovango, Congo, Mingo, Grass, Thatch, Little and Great St. James, to name a few. These water were home. There are places to land, beaches to explore. And there is water traffic. Boats of every sort cruise the north side of St. John. Ferries cross hourly between St. John and St. Thomas, there are speed boats and sail boats and fisherman. You have the feeling that if something were to happen help isn't be too far away.

But once we rounded East End and passed Flanagan Island, we were alone on a vast sea. We were like solitary explorers, cast-aways searching for a place to land.

We were Jason and the Argonauts. We were Ulysses and his valiant crew. When at last we passed by Chocolate Hole and Great Cruz Bay, saw the islands of Little and Great St. James and Steven's Cay, we knew we were safely home again. We had survived an epic.

The south side of St. John. The white cliffs of Reef Bay and in the distance Ram's Head Point.

Lamashur is one of the few beaches on the south side, and one of my favorites. There is a lonely and wild feel about the place.

We circumnavigated St. Thomas in the F. D. O too. A long journey, of 50 to 55 miles. Surely we were crew on Magellan's ship.

The Ones That Didn't Get Away - You Won't Believe What We Caught!

People who fish always have stories of fish that got away or fish that did strange things or things they caught that weren't fish.

My family has a few of those.

One time my mother hooked a fish that was obviously big as it was giving her a good fight, bending the fiberglass rod nearly double and ripping line out of the reel. Then suddenly there was an extra tug and the line went limp. We all assumed the fish had gotten away. But when Mom finished reeling in the line so Dad could check the lure what did she bring to the boat? A fish head. That's right, a fish head. It was a Bonito. The rest of it's body was gone, severed (in the words of Dirty Harry) "clean off." That extra tug she felt, was no doubt a shark taking the opportunity to catch himself an easy meal. The thing is the head alone was about 5 pounds. There was enough meat on it to feed us all!

Mom and Dad were out by themselves and while Mom was letting out line, she felt a tug like something had been hooked. To their amazement the lure and line went up into the air instead of down into the water. She had caught a seagull! Mom had to actually reel in the bird so Dad and her could unhook the poor thing which fought with a great of flapping wings and pecking of beak. But eventually they did manage to free it and no doubt the bird went around to all his bird friends and told a horror story about the fish that caught him.

Our dear friend Gene got a strike while fishing with Erva and Dad. Gene was towards the bow, Erva and Dad towards the stern. As Gene was reeling in the fish there was an "Oh sh*t," moment when a barracuda, obviously after his catch, lept out of the water and sailed across the middle of the boat, a distance of about 6 feet. Luckily no one was in the way.

Anyone out there have any interesting fish stories?

The Ones That Didn't Get Away - A Fishy Handshake

It wasn't long after I caught my first fish that I got to go on my first solo, that is, it was just me and Dad. Erva, being older had already been out with him several times. Now it was my turn. If I recall she was a bit jealous, but as with most things in our lives, it didn't last long.

Dad and I had a great time and we each caught a fish, but mine was bigger. He got a Blue Runner and I got a Bonito.

As you might recall, Dad was working at Caneel Bay, Laurence Rockefeller's (LR for short) private resort hotel. One of the benefits of working there was that housing was provided for the staff. It may have been small, in fact we called it the Bee Hive, but the house we lived in had the best view on the place.

Anyway, because Dad was the head of maintenance and because the F. D. O. was small, neat, and clean, we were allowed to keep her pulled up on the main beach. She fit under a large Sea Grape tree where she was out of the way and we could keep her tied.

One has to try to picture the main beach, which is Caneel Bay. There was a concrete pier where guests and their luggage were loaded and unloaded. The pier turned into a concrete walk-way which lead right into the lobby where guests signed in and checked out. To one side of the lobby was a comfortable airy lounge with couches, chairs and tables where guests could...lounge. To the other side of the lobby was the main dining room. Realize that all of this is open to the air. Fifteen, twenty feet away from the lobby and dining room is the beach where guests can swim and sunbathe. Despite the fact it is a luxury hotel (or maybe because it is) one could see guests walking around in anything from silk and mink coats to swim-suits and sandy bare feet.

So there we were. Dad and I had pulled the boat up and tied her securely to the tree. While Dad got ready to transport the motor, gas can, fishing gear, and boat cushions, I had the fish, one in each hand, carrying them by their tails. I headed through the lobby on my way to the parking lot where I would unload the fish and return to help Dad carry cushions and fishing gear.

As I passed by the reception and check-in desk a large man stopped me. He asked me about the fish. I explained I'd been out fishing with my father and that I'd caught the big one. "Are you John Denham's daughter?" he asked. I answered that I was. "What is your name?" I told him. "I'm Mr. Boyer," he said. "There's someone I'd like you to meet." He disappeared into a room and returned moments later with a tall handsome man.

"This is John Denham's daughter, Bish, " he said to the tall handsome man. "She caught the big fish. Bish, I'd like you to meet Laurence Rockefeller." Having been taught to be polite, I slapped the one fish into my left hand and stuck out my right. Mr. Rockefeller, having been taught to be polite, shook my fishy hand.

It was just about then that Dad walked up. Further pleasantries were exchanged, employer to employee and vise versa. Then we went our separate ways.

At eight years old I didn't realize I'd just shaken hands with one of the wealthiest people in the world, the man who owned Caneel Bay, the man who had bought up three quarters of the island of St. John and donated it to the National Park. So it was my fishy handshake became one of those famous family stories.

As for Mr. Boyer, he was LR's lawyer. He had this gift for remembering faces and names. Although he had never met me, he had met my father, so it didn't take him but a second or two to figure out who the little girl carrying the fish belonged to.

The Ones That Didn't Get Away - My First Fish

I never did get it, the stories told by anglers of the ones that got away. Where's the story in, "I hooked this fish...but it got away."

By the time I was six I was using a hand-line, catching small fish like doctorfish and squirrelfish off the rocks. (I couldn't find a picture of the doctorfish, all the links have to do with fish pedicures.) We used whelks (pictured at left) to bait our hooks. We'd smash the shells with a rock and get our fingers all gooey with whelk guts. But hand-line fishing isn't the same as fishing with a rod and reel. What it was was preparation for the "real" thing when I caught my first "real" fish. (There's a pun in there....)

I was maybe 8 years old. It may well have been the first time we went out in the F. D. O. Certainly it was the first time I ever had a rod and reel in my hands. Between Dad and Erva, I learned how to lock the line and was told about the star-drag. You want the drag tight enough to keep the line from flying off the reel, but you want it loose enough to give the fish some room to run. If the line is too tight, a fish can break it.

We came out from Number Seven Beach and were trolling between Henley and Ramgoat Cay. I got help getting my line out and I was just settling in. I hadn't even gotten the handle of the rod locked between my legs when, BAM, I got a strike. I was nearly pulled out of the boat and almost lost my grip on the rod. Erva, sitting on my right, grabbed my right arm, Mom whipped around from the front seat and grabbed the rod before it disappeared into the water. Once we were all sure me and the rod weren't going to go overboard, I started reeling in the line. Dad cut the motor back and paid attention to the rocks of Henley Cay so we wouldn't smashed up against them. Erva had me by my shorts. It was just about all I could do to reel in the line. The fiber-glass rod was bent almost double. All three are yelling and encouraging me and telling me when to loosen or tighten the star-drag. I'm reeling, it's pulling. I'm reeling, it's pulling. It's pulling, I'm losing strength.

It was all I could do to turn the handle, but somehow I managed to get the fish to the boat and Dad grabbed the line. I had caught my first fish. Not just any old fish, mind you, but a kingfish. a member of the mackerel family. They are large fish, known to be good fighters. I don't know how much the one I caught weighed, but it was probably over eight pounds and less than twelve. I was so proud. Everyone was so proud.

So that's how I was introduced to fishing. We had it for dinner that night, but not until I learned how to clean it. Because, as my parents said, what you catch, you clean.

Tales of Brave Ulysses - The F. D. O.

The first thing you have to realize about the F. D. O. is that she was fast. She was built for speed and she loved to fly.

The F. D. O. could scoot along at the breathless speed of about 25 miles an hour. That may not seem very fast when traveling in a car on a road, but out on the open water, you're booking.

On flat glassy calm days Dad could get her planing. She planed best when it was just Dad, but she planed just fine with two or all four us in the boat. It just took a bit more coaxing. There was nothing so exhilarating as flying across the water with the wind whipping our hair. With the wind whipping away your words and almost making it difficult to breathe. We couldn't do it for long because the least bit of rippling on the water made for a pounding ride, but my heavens it was fun!

On Fourth of July there were boat races. Boats of all sizes and shapes and with all manner of engines and horsepower were divided into somewhat similar categories. The race went from Cruz Bay out and around to a group of rocks called The Brothers, about a mile away, and back to Cruz. It was simple, whoever got back first won.

I think Dad was challenged. I think he may have made bets he could beat just about anyone. He was up against bigger boats with lots more horsepower. Of course it was a slam-dunk. He was already on his way back before the first of the other boats had even made it to The Brothers!

The winner got a case of Schaefer Beer. Dad's favorite brand. The F. D. O.'s reputation was sealed. She won every race she ever entered.

But she wasn't just fast...she was tough too. One time a barge got stuck on The Brothers. Dad went out in the F. D. O. to see if he could help, and by God...with the help of the tide and surge of the waves, he and the F. D. O. pulled that barge off the rocks.

Dad

Tomorrow is Father’s Day.

I haven’t written much about Dad. That’s because unlike Mom who is someone a person can more easily understand, whose personality you can grasp, whose mind you can wrap your mind around, Dad remains an enigma.

Whatever I may write about him will be true and yet nothing I write will ever do him justice.

To say he was a genius is to put it mildly, and to say more than that would seem boastful and immodest, traits Dad did not possess.

Dad was a loyal, faithful, dedicated, and loving, husband and father. He took pleasure in squiring his three women around. He enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed his. He was available.

And yet, and yet, there was a part of himself that he held to himself. There was a gulf between himself and people which no one, not even his wife, was ever able to bridge. He knew things which were secret and which he took with him to the grave. By secrets I mean, national secrets, top-secret secrets. How he came to be in a position to know these things, he who had basically only a high school education, is a fodder for other stories.

Dad was a scientist, a mechanic, a mathematician, an electronics engineer, a musician, a fisherman, a lover of the English language, a punster, a ham radio operator, an inventor, a welder and a motorcycle rider; to name just a few of the things he enjoyed doing. He could also do carpentry and plumbing, not his favorite things. Anything he chose to learn to do he learned to do with excellence. There was no mediocrity in his life.

Only twice in my life did I ever here him cuss, and then it was an under-his-breath, “damn!” He felt using profanity was a sign of a person’s lack of command of the English language. He had this incredible ability to say terribly cutting remarks to a person’s face and have them think he was complimenting them. Many were the times my sister and I cringed when a sarcastic remark leveled a person to the soles of his/her feet and he/she remained blithely unaware.

My father, John Stanford Denham, was the oldest of three boys. His two younger brothers were paternal twins just 11 month younger than himself.

This is a picture of them in their play-clothes. Dad is in the middle, Munro on the left, and Emerson on the right. They were probably about five and four, which means it was probably taken sometime between 1921 and 1922.

Here they are a few years later all dressed up. Dad already looks like he knows something nobody else does.

When Dad was ten, perhaps about the time this picture was taken, his father abandoned his wife and three sons. Dad’s mother was a concert pianist. To make money when the Depression hit she played piano in honky-tonks, a scandalous thing for a well-bred Victorian lady to do. At the age of twelve, to help the family out, Dad got a job. The problem was he needed transportation to get to and from work. So, he and his brothers started scavenging parts in junk yards and the three of them built, from the ground up, a model-T Ford. They never could license it because there was no way to prove ownership. But it served their purposes and they mostly drove it off the main roads so they wouldn’t get caught. Dad also learned to hunt and got quite good with a 22 rifle. So between his job and hunting he was able to help his mother and brothers survive. Understand that during those hard years, he still went to school full time. He also contracted a severe case of hepatitis which he got from a dirty needle that was used to inoculate him against some other illness. And he got very ill with scarlet fever.

It is probably because his father abandoned him that Dad was so loyal to his own wife and children. My sister and I were blessed to have a father who absolutely did not care that we were girls. It never occurred to him that because we were females we couldn’t do what he could do. His philosophy was simple. If we wanted to learn something, he would teach us, and he was a patient teacher. If we weren’t interested that was okay too. Long before either of us learned to drive, Dad made sure we knew how to change a flat tire, check the water, oil, spark-plugs and distributor cap and even make minor mechanical repairs.

Some of our best times together as a family were had in our little 12 foot run-about. It had an 18 horse Johnson on it. For many years it was the fastest boat for its size between the two islands of St. John and St. Thomas. We called it the F. D. O. which stood for, Father’s Day Off. Dad worked so hard it was a rare Saturday or Sunday that he’d have off. If the weather was right, if the ocean was friendly, we’d drop whatever we were doing and go out in the F. D. O. We got so good at getting ready we could be out of the house in about half an hour. Mom would pack the coolers with food and drink. Erva and I would gather towels, sunscreen, snorkeling gear and anything else needed for a day on the water and Dad would get together the fishing poles, the gas tanks and anything related to the boat. We had many adventures and I have lots of fish stories about the “ones that DIDN’T get away.”

Below is my favorite picture of Dad and me. It was taken at the end of the work day, about 5:30 PM. Even though he shaved every morning, by the end of the day he’d have a dark “5 o’clock shadow.” Dad is in his khaki work clothes which are dirty and greasy. We owned and operated a Mobile gas station so he smelled of grease and Lava soap most of the time, an odor, which if I close my eyes I can still smell. It is a comforting odor. This picture was taken from a charter sail boat called The Maverick. My parents were friends with the owners. Dad might have had a message or a part to deliver, or maybe he just wanted to say “hello.” But there we were in the boat with the sun falling fast behind the hills of St. Thomas. A guest on the boat took this picture and later it was sent it to us. I was 12 and am wearing a short and shirt set my mother made. I had many of them.
I like this picture because it captures my father when he was at his best, with an open, friendly smile on his face. He smiled and laughed a lot. I thought then, as I do now, that he was the most handsome man alive. Movie star handsome, Gregory Peck/Cary Grant handsome.

Dad died of liver cancer in 1989. I still miss him. And writing about him makes me cry. Here’s to you Dad, the first man Erva and I ever loved.

Happy Father’s Day.