Daddy

My father died on July 5, 2005, over four years ago, but it is still difficult to write about him. The memories come flooding back and with them tears of grief. Perhaps he should have been the first entry in this blog, but emotions made that too difficult. Now, I feel the time is right.

Daddy was a worker. He worked hard at his job and at home. He was always busy; he enjoyed seeing things completed. He never went to college, but took a mechanical drafting class, and could read blueprints and plans. This gave him a great advantage after he left the Navy in 1946 and started working a a local shipyard in Charleston, S.C. He was soon promoted over men twice his age (a few of whom couldn't even read), and gained him a good reputation. He worked during the middle 1950s in construction at the Savannah River Nuclear Facility (the "bomb plant") near Augusta, GA, and his parents' home. He drove back and forth each day from Charleston to that job. When that job ended he went to work at a shipyard in Charleston, and eventually went to the Charleston Naval Shipyard, working on the boilers on nuclear submarines. He became Shop Foreman there, and then Nuclear Power Inspector. He made it to the top of his field because of his work ethic.

His work ethic also influenced the way he tackled any problem. If he knew it could be done, he also knew he could find a way to do it. He even confounded engineers by doing things they said couldn't be done. He helped rewrite the manuals on how to repair and maintain nuclear plants on submarines, because the engineers didn't get it right. After he bought a used GMC motor home, he installed a grease fitting on the front wheel bearings on it (and greatly increased their life span) when the GM engineers said it was impossible. Now many GMC motor coaches have those fittings because of Daddy.

He designed and built his own boat (a cabin cruiser that slept 4) in his garage, out of mahogany, bending the keel himself. He designed and built (sub-contracted) our house, a four-bedroom, three-bath tri-level with double garage and attached hot-house for his orchids. There are so many projects he completed that there just is not room - or memory - to mention them all.

He taught me to help people. He was always helping someone. He learned to repair home air conditioning systems, then helped other people with theirs. He was always helping to repair someone else's car or motor coach. When his health deteriorated (from all that asbestos in those boilers), his misery was that he couldn't help someone.

He taught me to help people, and showed me that solving problems was just using your head - your common sense, of which he had an enormous supply. And so I solve problems, particularly mechanical, logical or software engineering ones, pretty easily.

He taught me by example. He hardly ever explained anything; he would show me.

I'll never forget when he came to me and asked me about voltage and resistance. I was in high school (probably eighth grade) and he had forgotten the relationship, so I was able to remind him of Ohm's Law, which I had recently learned in science class. Perhaps he hadn't really forgotten; perhaps he did it for me. But I'll never forget that first time he sought to learn from me. After that, when I was fixing something or helping him fix something, he always asked me, "What's next?" As time went by, I got it right more and more often.

When Daddy died, I not only lost my father - a father I knew loved me - but a mentor and advisor. The person I could ask about how to fix anything at all and get an answer.

There is rarely a day that goes by that I don't miss Daddy. Charles W. Toole: what a difference person!