Thanks, Dad, I owe you a lot

I don’t mention my step-dad very often. Can’t say I had the best relationship with him growing up. There were times when he was the meanest man around and I couldn’t wait to grow up and get as far away from him as I could.

But lately, perhaps because of becoming softer with age, I find myself looking back over the years and having a slightly different perspective. Oh sure, it doesn’t change the facts regarding the not-so-good times and it doesn’t excuse them either. But life is too short to carry a grudge forever. Besides, he’s gotten on in years now and has certainly mellowed considerably himself. It’s not fair to dwell on only one particular aspect of anything or anybody and you know, I do owe quite a bit to the man I called — and still call — Dad growing up.

My inspiration for this column came the other day at work. I was sitting by a gal (I’ll call her Fran — as in Fran Drescher — because she’s just that annoying) who was droning on and on about how inept her husband is, how he doesn’t know how to fix anything about the house and how she has to fix everything because “I know the difference between a flathead and a Phillips screwdriver!”

Oh, wow. That’s a good start. Anyway, I was doing what I always do when this gal goes off on her anti-husband rants — ignoring her and staying out of it. But, alas, she sucked me in. After commenting that her husband is like “you guys” (said as she looked at me and the other guy in the room) wherein he has an office job and, therefore, inept at repair. Annoyed, but still ignoring her. Then she asked me directly, “I bet your wife has to fix everything for you, too, eh Ben?”

I slowly looked up, paused, sighed and replied, “Fran, I did my first head-job on a 1950 Plymouth flathead-six when I was 5.”

And that was the end of that conversation. Thank God.

But it’s true. My mother married my step-dad, Frank, when I was 5. My mom worked all day and he was at home all day because he owned a business. So I would get off the half-day kindergarten bus in front of his large (20-car) garage where he would be busy tinkering on his many old cars. Several Ford Model As, 1940s and 1950s Fords, Plymouths, Volkswagens, etc. His daily driver was a 1929 Ford Model A truck. Often, he and his friend Kenny would be waiting for us to get home so we could load up in his old 1950 Dodge Power Wagon boom truck and go pick up some other old car he had found somewhere.

Otherwise, I had to go walking through the shop or around our large property (there were other shops and garages in the woods where we lived) to find him. A dead giveaway would be the box of Rainier sitting on a hood or shelf. Wherever Dad went, the box of Rainier went with him. And his packs of black More cigarettes.

So as a little kindergartner I found myself replacing fuses, pulling fenders off, carrying tools to him (I learned very quickly what a ½-inch drive, 5/8 deep socket was). Walking from one end of the property straining to lug a battery (and hook it up), steer the old truck as he pulled it around the end of the shop, jack this up, clean this off, go fetch me another beer (and don’t shake it!). And yes, at 5 years old, I stood on the front bumper of a 1950 Plymouth doing a head-job as he walked me through it step by step.

The years went by and soon I was coming home from school, suiting up in overalls and running up to the big shop to see what Dad had on the agenda for the day. Air-chiseling out an old VW bug floor pan, pulling the engine out of this car, slamming a transmission in that one. Before I started junior high I could tell you at a glance what year a particular VW or Ford Model A was. I knew the benefits of a Chrysler 225 slant-six, Ford 300 straight-six and VW 1500 single-port. I knew that British cars were cute, neat and fun to drive, but only during those rare times that they were working.

At 13 years old, he was telling me to hop in one of the cars and drive the five miles to Manchester Foods and pick him up another box of Rainier and a carton of cigarettes. The man who ran the store knew my Dad well so it was never a problem (truly a different time). At 15, I was putting together cars that had been written off as parts-only and making them beautiful, the envy of my friends.

But it wasn’t just cars. Although he liked to wrench on cars as a hobby, Dad was an amazing writer, public speaker and extremely good at math. When my brother and I wondered how tall the huge maple tree was, we devised a scheme to climb to the top and drop a tape measure down. Not safe. So Dad came outside with a ruler and a piece of 2-by-4-inch lumber. He showed us how to set up an equation to figure out how big the tree was by standing the 2-by-4 up on end, measuring its shadow, then quickly measuring the tree’s shadow and voila! Punch in the numbers and we could calculate the height of the tree.

For two little kids it was magic. At science fair time, no volcanoes for us. We home-built a Van de Graaff generator. He helped me write all my school papers and guaranteed me an “A” on every one. When other kids in the fifth grade were reading Beverly Cleary books for book reports, he had me read “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift or “Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper.

Admittedly, by the time I was in high school he gave me his collection of classic comics to help me pass Early American Lit (with an A). How many times a day do I use the skills Dad taught me? It’s impossible to count. But growing up through the bad times and the good times, there is no doubt that today I owe the man a lot.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.