{"id":6587,"date":"2013-04-18T09:58:42","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T16:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=6587"},"modified":"2013-04-18T18:05:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T01:05:52","slug":"dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2013\/04\/18\/dad\/","title":{"rendered":"Dad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the mantle, as it’s been for years. That plaque in the background reads, “An old fisherman lives here, with the catch of his life.” Below, the unusually\u00a0debonaire Hyatt E. Moore the 2nd. (I’m the 3rd, our son, the 4th, his, the 5th.)\"\"<\/a><\/h6>\n

My dad is 96. This is the year that we share the same numbers; I’m 69. If I’m cruising toward the penultimate stage of life, he’s in the ultimate. That’s in terms of quantity, not quality.<\/p>\n

Happily he reads a lot, generally the same favorite books (Zane Grey). We play a couple of games of Rummikub on our weekly visits. Half the time he beats me. But he’s slowing down, way down. Watching it was at first disappointing, then instructive to me. The tower of strength and character I’d always looked up to, and sought counsel of at significant turning points, was no longer there.<\/p>\n

Among other things, it’s made me see aging as something of a grace. Since we’re all here with a death sentence on our heads, at least the latter years bring with them a certain dullness, and a readiness for it. That’s how I see it with Dad.<\/p>\n

Mom, at 94, and still living with Dad in their same house (with full-time care) may see it different; but she’s another story.<\/p>\n

Lately on our visits I’ve taken to asking him things about his growing up years. A lot of it I’ve heard before, but not with that much attention. Realizing the source of these stories is almost gone, I probe. I get brief answers, maybe just one word, weakly stated, but, like I said, I already know some of them.<\/p>\n

Though Dad’s degree was in electronic engineering, he had abilities in about ten other areas. One was painting. I never thought the paintings were that great, and maybe he didn’t either, but he enjoyed making them.<\/p>\n

The one hanging above the mantel since I was a boy (I grew up in that same house) is of the homestead territory in Wyoming. He spent his boyhood years there. By the time he took the picture, years later on a return visit, there was nothing left of the house and buildings his dad had built.<\/p>\n

But I look at it now and I marvel. Actually my grandfather (Hyatt E. Moore the 1st) was a railroad man out of Rollins. He had a wife and seven kids to feed and, times being what they were, applied for and got this mile-square plot of neighborless, over-cold or over-hot, windblown wild-land, a two-day buckboard ride from Rollins, the nearest town.<\/p>\n

He dug a well, built a log cabin (with what logs, Dad? I see no trees in the painting), raised potatoes and whatnot, got fish from the tiny stream, and generally had a great time.<\/p>\n

Right!<\/p>\n

All the fun was had between chores by those five boys and later two girls, romping around in that wilderness of arrowheads and rattlesnakes. The hard truth is that to make a living Hyatt the 1st had to keep working the railroad, or be on standby in town, which meant the hearty Madge Comer Moore, my grandmother, did most of the non-stop work.<\/p>\n

There’s more, like a small book’s worth of stories that will never be written. My dad, for all his gifts, wasn’t a writer; besides he never saw it as anything extraordinary.<\/p>\n

It all may be why, as I think about it now, he likes those Zane Gray westerns so much.<\/p>\n

I know one thing: I’ve grown to appreciate that painting over the mantle like never before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s late, now, to be asking questions I could have asked before, but not too late to gain some perspective about the course of all of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6587"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6615,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6587\/revisions\/6615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}