“Daughters of Republican Fathers,” my friend Sofia and I have joked we should get t-shirts reading just that. She is among a number of women friends who have a difficult time relating to our fathers. Largely, we blame our political dichotomy.
At 33, I don’t really know where I stand on the spectrum of politics, but it’s certainly not a Republican. I can’t decide whether I’m Libertarian, Green, or Democrat, but I definitely have liberal tendencies. Growing up, I was very liberal, wearing “Greenpeace” tees, hemp necklaces, Birkenstocks, and anything and everything from thrift stores and consignment boutiques.
In the couple years as a teen that I lived with my father and stepmother, it didn’t go over well the one time I sewed onto my Levi’s a patch reading, “War is not healthy for children or other living things.” The one time I wore in the presence of my father an old German military coat I found at a San Diego thrift store , I was ordered to take off the coat. When I tried to wear my Birks to the Douglas Country Club, I was sent in search of different shoes. I was taught the etiquette of Amy Vanderbilt, which included no humming at the table.
My father blares Fox News and will agree aloud with the commentators. He and Rush Limbaugh are tight, meaning he used to listen to him and now he watches his shows. The Daily Show With John Stewart once interviewed my father, apparently taken by his colorful cowboy get-up at the National Republican Convention. That I know of, the segment never actually aired, but I can only imagine the footage. My dad’s politics is the material for social liberal parody.
He represented Republicans in the Wyoming State Legislature for years, and he is a contributor, not just to the Wyoming Republican Party, but the National Republican Party. He is so hard-core Republican that he donated to John McCain’s campaign in the last presidential election. Actually, the two men share a commonality. Both served our nation in the Armed Forces, and the Navy specifically. 
Please don’t misunderstand me. Our politics may differ, but I have enormous respect for my father and his accomplishments in the last 70 years. I mean, my dad is one admirable bad ass.
He, who retired as captain over 30 years, flew 258 missions in Vietnam. He has a Distinquishd Flying Cross and over 20 air medals. His first mission to Vietnam was Aug. 5, 1964 and his last mission was January 1973. Everett Alvarez, our first prisoner of war in Vietnam and the second longest-held POW in our nation’s history, was on my dad’s wing when he was shot down.
My father has told me stories about Vietnam and his experience in the military that are just utterly mind-blowing — like the time his plane was shot down and he waited in the ocean, communicating via radio with someone he hoped to God, even though he is Athiest, was a fellow American, and that it would be allies who found him floating out there in the deep blue. There was also the time he got vertigo while flying his plane and, once he got his bearings straight, he lit a cigarette mid-air in the cockpit. I have gaped at him, astonished, eyes wide open, listening to his stories about Vietnam and the military.
But those stories and our time together have been far and few between in the last eight and a half years since there have been about 3,200 air miles between us. Before I got married and had a child here, my dad used to ask me, “When are you coming back to the Continental United States?”
Maybe it was the time he served in the military being stationed in the Pacific Rim, my dad shows very little interest in Hawaii. Talking to him one Easter from Molokai Hotel, I described for him my view of Maui, Lanai and Kaho’olawe. ”Ah, Kaho’olawe,” he said, “We bombed the hell out of that island.” I cringed, living here and knowing the movement afoot to restore the once-military training ground.
He did come out for my wedding in Hanalei a couple of years ago, and I was so proud of him for wearing shorts and sandals and walking out onto to the beach. My siblings, nieces, and I couldn’t get him in the water that wedding weekend, but I think my stepmom did by the end of their stay at the Princeville. Knowing the story about him, waiting several hours in the deep sea to be rescued in Vietnam, I can understand his trepidation with swimming.
Me, I’m all about the water and the tropical life. That’s what makes us different. I was born in California and grew up by the coast, and on the Kern and Truckee Rivers. My dad is a Wyoming native, who had a deep desire to relocate back to his roots after his retirement from the Navy. He went back home to take care of his ailing father in the town his great grandparents homesteaded in at the turn of the century.
He took over my grandfather Bryan’s rental properties, bought and ran the LaBonte Hotel, and served as a Douglas city commissioner before he went on to be a representative in the State Legislature just after I graduated from Douglas High School and went on to the University of Wyoming in 1994. Currently, my dad is serving as a Converse County commissioner, which he describes as “boring.” Funny to think that my grandfather was a city commissioner and my great grandfather was the sheriff in that town.
When I lived there in 1993 and 1994, the population in Douglas was 5,280, the same as the elevation. The 2000 census showed an increase by eight, with 5,288 people. Being the county seat of Converse County, the location of the Wyoming State Fair, and the home of the Jackalope, the town has its charm. Around the time I lived there, it was listed as one of the 100 best small towns in America.
The town was reportedly founded in 1886 when the Wyoming Central Railroad established a station there. In high school there, I had a brief stint working at the Douglas Budget putting together the “This year in history” columns. It was quite fascinating to read the list of who got on and off the train, and other information capturing life in the early days of the town’s settlement.
When we visit, my dad likes to take us on a tour of the town to show us what’s changed and what’s the same. Generally, things have remained the same — although in recent years, the railroad, nearby mines, and methane gas cultivation has created a town boom. More and more houses are being erected in the outer skirts. It’s a simple little town, and can be quite fascinating if you delve into its history. But day-to-day there can feel like Groundhog Day.
I guess the same could be said of Puna, but I’d rather be here beside the ocean than out there on the high plains. I’d rather don a bikini and surf than bundle up in layers and head to the mountains for a ski or snowboard trip. I’d rather be smelling puakenikeni and plumeria than watching sagebrush tumble across the road. I’d rather look out and see miles of deep blue sea than pastureland and mountain peaks. I hope my dad understands that it’s nothing personal, but Hawaii feeds my soul more so than Wyoming.
This being Veterans Day, I opted to do what I’ve done in years past, call my father. Typically our conversation lasts about 15 minutes before he tells me his ears are burning and he passes the phone on to my stepmom. Today was different. Right away my stepmom passed the phone to my dad, and immediately sentiment stirred within me. I could hear sickness in my dad’s voice. He said he has a cold.
The tone of the phone conversation was different today. It seemed to last longer than usual, and it was definitely more sentimental. I can’t help but wonder if it’s his cold or his Alzheimer’s.
Today I asked him if it was okay if I write about his life sometime. I want to tell the whole story; no holds barred. He said okay.
This is not everything about my father, by any means. There is so much to tell, so many intricacies — even I don’t know all of the facets of my father. He is truly a remarkable man and it will be an honor to tell his story when the time comes for it to be told.
If we could only relate more, because, beyond the politics, I see so much of myself in him. I look at pictures of my dad and my relatives on his side and I can see my own features in them. I have stances or expressions that remind me of my father. Every now and then I’ll be laughing and, in the course , I’ll flash on my father laughing. I love watching my father laugh, and seeing him get a kick out of humor and being humorous.
Those who know him know how much he likes to recite the Geebung Polo Club by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson. He can be so witty. Keeping his eyebrows untrimmed and untamed, his facial expressions are just about as funny as the stories he can tell. This humor trait is hereditary, knowing his father, my grandfather, his expresssions and signature eyebrows.
More so in the past but my dad and I, and over the years my brothers, will make a big to-do on April Fool’s Day. My dad fooled me hard the year I was 16. He screamed fire into my room that morning, and I was out of the house standing on the front lawn before I realized it was April Fool’s. A subsequent year I fooled him, my brothers, my whole family and friends, actually, saying I was pregnant.
My mom told me how my dad used to use the cloth napkins for bandanas as they danced, and how he returned a bag full of bones to Kentucky Fried Chicken on a date in which the clerk had messed up their order for extra-chrispy chicken. When we go out to eat, my dad will poke fun with the waitress, asking for his order to look exactly like the picture in the menu. You get the picture.
He’s a real whiz on the crossword puzzle. Every morning at breakfast he goes to work on a puzzle, and he’ll carry it around all day until he gets every word filled in. When I return home from a visit to see my dad and stepmom, my dad will ask about my father’s well-being, gauging it largely by how I tell him he is doing on the crossword puzzles. In more recent years my father has gone from consulting a dictionary to oneacross.com. That my father is a crossword puzzle aficionado is so admirable. Really, it’s an aspiration of mine to make time in my day to solve a puzzle like that. It’s on the bucket list.
Definitely writing about my dad and other family members is on the bucket list. The story of my mother meeting my father at the Officer’s Club in Monterey, of my father, this Wyoming boy who made a career out of service to his country and who was nothing short of dynamite, albeit a casanova. Yes, my father is true to the definition, amorously and gallantly attentive to women. The last 25 years he has settled in love and monogamy with my stepmom, but the fact that he had three children with three different women is a testament to his admiration for the opposite sex.
Yes, indeed, I am a love child of the 1970s. Within me I have this divided line between conservatism and liberalism. At the same time he has been a philanderer, my father has been unwavering in his commitment to this country, the military, and the Navy, specifically. He has not committed any crimes more serious than speeding. He’ll take prescription drugs, but he disdains illegal drugs.
- My dad and grandmother Velma
On the other hand, my mother before her death in 1993, praised the Lord and was otherwise a devout Southern Baptist, but was extremely liberal socially and politically.
Oh, the dichotomy is so fascinating, isn’t it? Seems to me like it didn’t just within my parents, but within everybody.
I guess, due to that dichotomy, that yin and yang they call it, we have war.
If only we could to take the time to solve that puzzle within ourselves. If we could only recognize that conservatism and liberalism existent in every situation, every person. If only we could look deeply into those photographs and see our common features rather than our differences. Today was a reminder for me to do just that. Nostalgic, attached is a sampling of some of the photos I’ve pulled out.
So, this is a note to my father: In thanking a vet, I thank you. I bow in gratitude and respect, to you, to everything that you are, and to the you in me. Namaste.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Nice glimpse of and tribute to your father. I hope he appreciates your nuances as much as you do his.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Wow, a tearjerker, a profound tribute to a great American patriot. Tiff has her Dad’s nature: Utterly loving/fearless to the core/irrepressible charm/sensuality personified/terrific sense of comedy [the rarest of the trinity art incl. inner strength/mystery]. Love always, –Curt
November 11th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Tiff-
Both you and your Dad have interesting backgrounds. I can just wonder what it was like to grow up in Southern Cal and then relocate as a teenager, with your mom’s passing, to Wyoming.
Mahalo
November 11th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
A salute to you father that he will cherish forever — that is, in the expert opinion of another father
From Dictionary.com:
“sa⋅lute
1. Military. to pay respect to or honor by some formal act, as by raising the right hand to the side of the headgear, presenting arms, firing cannon, dipping colors, etc.
2. to address with expressions of goodwill, respect, etc.; greet.
3. to make a bow or other gesture to, as in greeting, farewell, or respect.
4. to express respect or praise for; honor; commend.”
November 11th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
kewl sharing Tif, thanks
November 12th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Gee Tiff,
If I diden’t know better I may be your father. Bless you, bless him.
The Lack
November 14th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Nice piece-0-writin’ tiff!