As you get older, you become more and more aware that your own "makeup" is a combination of recognizable personality traits from both your parents. It seems to me that if someone gets their hackles up when you negatively compare them to one or both of their parents, it is because you are dead on in that comparison and that someone hasn't accepted the above premise. It also seems to me that until you do accept the above premise, you will not be comfortable with your self.
With Father's Day coming up this weekend, I want to salute my own father, John J. Heagle and demonstrate the ways that I am so much like him.
Jack will always be remembered in my mind as "Mr. Short Cut" when it came to traveling. Even after he no longer could drive and I was his chauffeur, he had his routes that you WOULD travel.
One of them was getting off Highway 94 way before the Highway 25 Menomonie exit to circumvent Menomonie traffic. I mean, Menomonie must be huge, there is even a North Menomonie! We would ramble through the picturesque, hilly terrain to the west and finally end up coming in on Highway 29, and crossing the Red Cedar, up the long hill to finally connect with Highway 25 south. Even though in actuality it added about 25 minutes travel time, it was a "short cut".
Kim will attest to the fact that I have picked this habit up from my father. With me it usually involves jumping on Interstate 94 and going all the way around Eau Claire to the last (Highway 53) exit, then south on 53 past the Highway Patrol building.
Dad had another great habit in giving directions while sitting in the front pasenger seat. With his hand in his lap, he would signal for you to turn by jerking his thumb either left or right, with ab solutely no vocalization. The driver had to keep one eye on the road, the other eye on the thumb. It used to drive my mother crazy!
I titled this particular piece "The Real Father Heagle" because whenever Fr. John was in town giving a retreat, Dad and Mom would attend and invariably during break, someone would ask if he was Fr. John's dad. He always replied with that Irish twinkle in his eye: "Yes, I am the REAL father Heagle."
Just as a side note, John and I would always get the same question: Are you Larry Heagle's brother? Are you John Heagle's brother? John was always gallant enough to admit that he was of the same clan.
Me too. Only I would add, yes, John is the "Black Sheep" of the family.
One Sunday, while John was pastor at St Pat's, an elderly lady asked John if he was my brother. When he said he was, she said: "Well, Jimmy Carter has Billy. You've got Larry."
I certainly did not "take after" Daddy Jack in the physiological sense. Jack was a tall man, well over six foot. In the barn, doing chores, just his physical presence alone struck fear in my heart.
Dad had a "short fuse" and if I pissed him off, there was hell to pay. The fuse may have been short, but it smoldered for a bit before the actual explosion. It did not emit a lot of smoke or noise so when it went off: BOOM! I was totally unaware of my fate until it was too late.
More than once I remember getting that boot-clad farmer's foot squarely in the ass; Only as I was being launched, knowing why I was being launched!
It has been difficult for me to admit that I carry that same trait, although when my bomb goes off, there is no physical violence involved. But I do let things that bother me smolder and when the explosion happens, it surprises the intended target.
Dad, by example, showed me that without really back breaking hard work, not much gets accomplished. My overall remembrance of him is in the fields at all hours, getting done what needed to be done, from first light to fading last light.
It is sad that only after he was gone did I come to realize how very talented and intelligent he was as a farmer. He didn't come from farm stock. His dad was a lumber baron. He learned everything about farming the hard way ..the right way .. through experience.
I like to think that his "hard work" trait also rubbed off on me and looking back on a thirty year career of being a road entertainer, back breaking does come to mind with all the driving, setting up and tearing down of sound equipment and then driving again.
He was so very "Irish". I think the Irish are champions at holding a grudge, and, boy, my dad was a champion, also!
An incident that best illustrates that:
One day, as a family, we were inching our way through Main Street, Menomonie, traffic after the Memorial Day parade. Dad must have somehow alarmed the big old traffic cop at an intersection, because the law officer leaned right in the window of the Hudson Hornet and said: "Watch out for the pedestrians."
Dad said nothing at the time, but every time we saw that cop, even from a distance, from then on, my dad would say as sarcastically as possible: "WATCH OUT FOR THE PEDESTRIANS".
I now recognize that trait also.
Jack had his own comedic style and was master of the deadpan. Every Sunday, after Mass at St. Joseph's, we would drive past Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, which had the familiar lit "billboard" with the name of the church and a listing of services. He never missed a Sunday. As he drove by, he would read out loud: "OUR SAVIOUR'S LUTHERAN" (pause a beat) "He is?"
None of the boys will ever forget, at table: "Pass the butter (pause a beat) fat" and "Eat every bean and pea on your plate."
Or his famous fishing aria while he rowed a rented row boat: "What kind of a noise annoys an oyster when he's in a stew?"
Jack's kind of humor! That's why he got really tickled at a Twins game at old Met stadium when the drunken sot in front of us turned and announced: "My name is Peterson. Spelled with a silent "P" as in "swimming." Dad repeated that one all the way home.
Jack was supremely sarcastic. He was merciless with all four of his boys. I wish I could remember here for my other brothers the grief he gave them, and the names. The only one, besides myself, that I can remember, was my oldest brother, Bob. Bob, at one point, took apart a watch and couldn't seem to get it back together again. The Menomonie jeweler at the time was named Bancroft.
Robert became "Bancroft the Jeweler."
I was "The Downsville Droop", the kid who "couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel", "useless as the tits on a boar pig".
Being the only boy in his family, growing up with all sisters, his father must have really given dad a hard time, Ya' think?
Looking back on what I have written, you might think that my dad was not the best dad in the world. Maybe not. But he was my dad and I love him dearly. See that picture above? He knew how to laugh as well as scold and the smile you see radiating above is a smile I saw more and more of as he neared life's end.
Hell, the last year of his life? He could even look me right in the eye and say "I love you."
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