A LEGACY OF LINOLEUM

My dad has undertaken a house remodeling project. He started in his family room and has now moved into the kitchen. Tuesday, he interrupted his work long enough to phone to let me know that he had experienced a near-death experience. While eating lunch at the local coffee shop he had started choking. He could not stop. It got really scary for everyone. Some other diners and even the restaurant manager tried unsuccessfully to help. Fortunately, by the time the paramedics arrived, he was okay.

"So, did your whole life flash in front of you?" I asked my eighty-three year old father.

"No," he responded honestly. "But two things came to mind that I'm bothered about." I grabbed a pen and a pad of paper, poised for a True Confession moment. "I feel terrible about the bombs I dropped on Germany."

"Dad, it was war time. You were doing your patriotic duty and serving your country." I tried not to act too irritated, but his latent concern sounded so disingenuous, so out of character.

"I know," he lamented. "But these were horrible weapons...huge destructive bombs! Now [in the current war] anytime there's even a single death, there's such a fuss in the news. Goodness, hundreds were killed every day when we flew our missions."

"That's true," I agreed, still trying to figure out what he really wanted to say.

My father was a tail gunner on the B-17 Flying Fortress during WWII. As a member of the 8th Air Force stationed in Kimbolton, England, he flew 35 missions with the 379th Bomb Group. The survival rate was 66% for those making it to the 25 mission mark.

"And something else that bothers me is the horrible things my father did during the war."

"What kind of things?" I calmly asked, repositioning my pen over the paper.

"My dad was in charge of the entire Air Transport Command while stationed in Italy after the war," he explained. "When Vi [his stepmother] found out that she could get hundreds of dollars for a few packs of cigarettes and some booze, she had a roaring business going. She got involved in the Black Market and she got my dad to help her. Then there was the scandal in China. Dad was the Air Director of the China/Burma/India Theater of War. But he suddenly ended up in Modesto. That's when he took early retirement. I was always too embarrassed to ask him what happened. But now I want to know. I want you to get his military records. I want to find out why Stilwell passed him over for promotion to General."

My grandfather, an Air Force officer, had a distinguished military career beginning in 1921. No one in the family knows why he abruptly retired in 1947. My father wants me to solve the mystery.

"Okay." I relaxed a little. Now it was all beginning to make sense. This was the dad that I knew. We talked for awhile about what might have happened to end my grandfather's career. I reminded my father that most of the military records of that era were lost in a fire in St. Louis.

A devastating fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center destroyed 80% of the records for Army personnel discharged between 1912 and 1960. I'm hoping that my grandfather's records were not among the 18 million damaged or destroyed files.

"What about you, Dad? Isn't this the time for me to help you record your life story? You don't want to leave your family wondering about your life, the way you're wondering about your father's." I was always trying to work the subject into our conversations. I would be on his doorstep in a heartbeat, if I could just get him to put out the welcome mat.

"My sails are full," he protested, as I listened for the latest round of excuses. "You know I have a trophy wife," he bragged for the thousandth time. "I'm busy redoing our whole house. When I'm done in the kitchen we're moving to the living room." He spent some time going over the details of each project. He was doing nearly all the work himself.

"That's great, Dad," I replied. "I can just see us all standing around talking at your funeral. 'Gee, aren't we glad he got those cabinets hung! I feel so much better knowing that he was able to caulk that grout before it was too late!'"

Robert S. Goodrich holding his great-grandson, Jonah Nalder, Christmas Day 2007. This was the first holiday in 25 years that my father had spent with any of his children or grandchildren.

My father started laughing and telling me how funny I was. Then he quickly excused himself. He did, after all, have important work to do. As we said our good-byes, it was not easy for me to mirror his nonchalant mood. I've never been able to convince him that time spent with things such as nails and paint can never replace time spent with your own flesh and blood. My siblings and I have been perplexed by this mind-set for twenty-five years. We know what he's leaving his "trophy wife." But what isn't he leaving his children and grandchildren? A legacy of linoleum just won't mean a darn thing.

I NEVER SANG FOR MY MOTHER

Many years ago I saw the movie, I Never Sang for my Father. As I recall, the film didn't get rave reviews. But I've always remembered it because of Gene Hackman's acting and because of the subject: parent/child relationships. Hackman plays a middle-aged man struggling to get close to his father, who just retreats into self-centeredness and detachment.

As far back as I can remember, my mother depended on doctors and drugs to get her through another day of living. She claims that her addictions really took hold about the time my brother was born.
(My mother holding Bobby, 1956)

I often think about this movie when thinking about my mother. She phoned a few days ago and happily chattered non-stop about a recent visit from her granddaughter and great-grandsons. It dawned on me, that for the first time in years, my mother can carry on a lucid conversation, write with a steady hand, and walk without stumbling. As her voice rattled on, I was almost lulled into thinking that I could have a real relationship with her---almost. And then I heard her complaining about how the weather was making her ill and how Doctor was out of town for a few days. All of a sudden I was jolted back to reality.

When I was growing up, there were long periods of time when my mother never got out of bed. I remember Mom routinely calling me into her bedroom and telling me to get her basket of medicine off the closet shelf, then bringing it to her as she carefully propped herself up in bed. She would open vial after vial, shaking-out a capsule here, breaking a tablet in half there, until she held a handful of multicolored and multi-shaped pills. (This prescription has been saved in her scrapbook for about sixty years.)

Doctor is the name my mother affectionately reserves for her personal physician of more than 30 years. Mom's trips to see Doctor rapidly escalated over the years until she was averaging three office visits a week. Then in February, her neighbors got fed-up with her disturbing routine of wandering the condo complex, screaming and banging on doors. Someone finally called the paramedics. She spent several months of involuntary residence at a psychiatric hospital de-toxing from a steady diet of drug cocktails; her medical team releasing her only on the assurance that she hire round-the-clock care.


Her caretakers, thinly disguised as household help, were really there for one reason: to document her intake of medication. She had help 24/7 for months after release from the hospital. It was almost a contest to see who would prevail. Would a girl quit, or would my mom beat her to the punch, and fire her before the end of the day? I learned in our phone conversation that she has eliminated all but one favorite helper, who works just the week-end shift. But what's really troubling is hearing about her return to regular visits with Doctor.

When my stepfather suffered a stroke while hospitalized, Mom thought that he had died. She immediately put this notice on her front door. He lingered on for three more months. She never saw nor spoke to him again.

No one in the family has ever figured out what is in the injections Doctor so freely dispenses at every visit. Many years ago Doctor told my father that he always wanted his patients to leave happy. "I give them something to make them happy," he explained to Dad, without really explaining anything. Even Mom does not know, does not care to know. "It's something for my heart, something for my lungs, some estrogen...something to build me up." She always sounds defensive when I try to get the facts. "This man has saved my life more times than I can remember and whatever sanity I retain is to his credit as well," she asserted in a letter two years ago. "Nobody understands that he is the reason I'm still alive after all these years."

My mother is convinced that if any medical personnel other than Doctor provides treatment, it could prove fatal. I found this warning taped to her kitchen phone, just in case anyone was reckless enough to call 9-1-1 in an emergency. Last year, when her husband fell in the middle of the night, he needlessly suffered for hours because of her edict.

She's right. I don't understand. I've always been disgusted that she could never make even simple, personal decisions without consulting Doctor. I've never comprehended why this man was ever elevated to savior status. We only have to look at how her health dramatically improved when she was under the care of different physicians, to know that something is not right with Doctor's treatment plan.

As my mother ended her phone monologue about grandsons, I heard her voice take on a familiar tone. "Of course, I expect a visit as soon as Chuck gets his vacation time."

"Well, Mom, you know he's been working real hard for over a year with very few days off, " I replied, meaning, we might have our own plans.

"Well don't you forget, she admonished, again using her self-righteous voice, "that your mother spent twelve years without any time off, taking care of a very fragile and very dear husband." Suddenly she pleaded exhaustion and quickly hung up the phone.

And there you have it. Her suffering is always greater. Her needs always trump everyone else's. Her reality of events is never open for discussion.

In 1984, I encouraged my mother to see me and her grandchildren when we came to Los Angeles for a visit. She wrote a lengthy response to that suggestion. I maintained my "disparaging" status for another 15 years until she reluctantly deigned to see me.

As a young boy, Gene Hackman's character, Gene Garrison, would sing while his mother played the piano. But his father always stayed upstairs, alone in his room. That's the simplistic reason why Gene never sang for his father. I don't need to get complicated either. I know I too will never sing for my mother.

While I was in high school, Mom worked a recovery program and eventually triumphed over her demons. For more than a dozen years my parents enjoyed life together. Unfortunately, the good times did not last. (American Samoa, 1977)

copyright 2008 by Kathleen Stewart Goodrich

WORKIN' FOR THE MAN EV'RY NIGHT AND DAY

Chuck leaving home to start another shift of work at Weyerhaeuser Paper Company in Yuma, Arizona (1992)

The summer of 1974, my husband was twenty-two years old and unemployed. One day he parked his Chevy truck in an industrialized area of Modesto, less than a mile from his home on the Tuolumne River where he grew up. He walked up and down the street, going factory to factory, looking for work. Weyerhaeuser Company offered him a job that summer, running a die-cut machine. He worked for three weeks straight before he got his first day off. This year Chuck reached a milestone in his life: it's the thirty-fifth summer that he has been making boxes for Weyerhaeuser.

Over the past 35 years Chuck became skilled at operating machines such as this Flexo Folder-Gluer. His crews often set production records. He is an expert at training and motivating employees.

Chuck and I were married in September 1976. His grandmother warned us not to move away from Modesto and family. But we did. Like the infamous "seven year itch," Chuck got the urge to relocate almost every seven years. If Weyerhaeuser was starting-up a new box plant, he wanted to be there. We hit every cardinal point on the compass. First we moved north (Portland, Oregon) then south (Yuma, Arizona) then west (Camarillo, California) and finally east (Phoenix, Arizona).






And these were just the major moves. There were always the shorter, temporary moves while waiting for houses to be built, escrows to close, or issues to be resolved. Twice we moved with newborn babies. Three times we turned our homes into rental properties when we transferred out of state. Between four kids, we adjusted to six different elementary schools, three junior high schools, and four high schools.

Chuck's grandmother, Dolly Tibbs Goodrich, warning us at our wedding reception to stay in Modesto

When I placed the order for our wedding cake, the lady would not stop bragging about her children and their successful careers. When she asked me what my fiance did for a living, I did not hesitate a second. "Oh, he's a recycling engineer," I casually replied. My mother-in-law nearly fell off her chair, because at the time Chuck ran the baler machine. The conversation immediately shifted to talk about frosting and flowers.

In 1976, while working in the Modesto plant, Chuck got in a scuffle with another employee. During the altercation, Chuck's leg got broken. Both guys quickly decided it was in their mutual best interest to blame the "accident" on lax safety conditions near the machine.

Chuck and I traveled on Amtrak from Riverbank, California to Portland, Oregon (with two year old Cristin) when he interviewed for a job in February, 1980. It was nearly impossible to get any sleep sitting up all night on the train.

I remember Mike Sanzone, Chuck's boss in Portland, telling him that "a box plant is a box plant, whether it's in Portland, Oregon, or McAllen, Texas." He said that it's the wife and kids that have to make the biggest sacrifice when moving to a new location with the company.

And he was right. Chuck was always good to go from Day One. Moving only seemed to energize him. But as our children grew, it became increasingly more painful for them (and for me) to be wrenched away from friends and communities that had become so important in our lives. When we moved to Yuma Arizona twenty years ago, someone jokingly asked me if I was suffering from culture shock. Still yearning for my previous life in the Pacific Northwest, I replied, “No, it’s more like lack of culture shock.”

One of Chuck's paycheck stubs from Portland. In the beginning he was compensated for working over 40 hours per week. That benefit was eliminated when he became salaried.

A loyal and tireless worker, Chuck has hardly missed any time on the job in over three decades. Taking into account his brutal work schedule, this is quite a feat. During his career with Weyco, he has worked day shift, swing shift, graveyard shift, split shift, week-ends and holidays. And did I mention overtime? We discovered many inventive ways over the years to ensure that somehow, despite environmental conditions and noisy children, Dad got some sleep somewhere in the house.

The first year after moving to Portland, Chuck was offered a management position. Weyerhaeuser was initially leery about allowing him to transfer from Modesto, where he had been the shop steward. Portland was a non-union plant.

In May 1999, Chuck wrote candidly about his job in a letter to Cristin:

I’m writing this letter at 1:00 a.m. This is my night off. This is really a big deal because I only get two nights off a month so I have to make sure I take advantage of all this free time. I feel like all I do is work. Oh well it could be worse. I could be unemployed or working in a coal mine instead of a box plant. I used to try and glorify my job when people asked what I do for a living. Now I just tell them I make boxes and leave it at that. Most people don’t ask me a second question after hearing what I do. I’m sure they’re thinking, wow, making boxes, that’s right up there with truck driver, garbage collector, poor guy. Little do they know that I make about as much as some Bank Presidents. Of course I have to work twice as much and in the middle of the night.

Real Estate was so pricey in southern California that we opted to purchase this upstairs condominium in Camarillo. It was two bedroom / two bath and the garage was unattached. We had to park our extra car down the hill and across the street at the golf course. (2002)

We bought this station wagon in Portland. It was originally a company car used by the sales team at Weyerhaeuser.

With such a demanding work load, I learned early in our marriage not to have any expectations that my husband would be available for social events or family activities. I was the designated parent at teacher conferences, and the awkward married-but-solo person at the church socials. We settled into our respective roles automatically. My job was to manage the household, help children succeed in school, and keep us all active in our various church programs. Chuck’s job was to make boxes for Weyerhaeuser.

Caitlin's preschool teacher helped her complete this Father's Day card in 1992.

I thought I'd won the lottery when we purchased this beautiful home in Troutdale, Oregon with views of the Columbia River and Portland city lights. We sold the house just 16 months later and moved to Yuma.

John Fogerty’s song, Proud Mary, was the inspiration for the title of this post. The lyrics include this verse: “And I never lost one minute of sleepin’, worryin’ bout the way things might have been.” To be honest, I have lost sleep--- at times lots of sleep--- thinking about the way things might have been. What if we had listened to Grams, stayed in Modesto, and raised our kids near grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles? What if we had been able to take more family vacations? What if we hadn’t moved so much? What if Chuck had worked less hours? What if he had switched careers? What if---? What if---? What if---?

Weyerhaeuser flew us to Yuma for a job interview in February 1988. I cried when Chuck accepted the offer. He attributed my reaction to being eight months pregnant and overly emotional.

Yet it is what it is. I don’t want to diminish Chuck’s accomplishment. He’s always provided for his family. If nothing else, staying loyal to the same employer your whole career is a testament of sheer endurance. Monday morning at 5 a.m. when my husband starts making boxes, “the man” will have a different name. International Paper Company acquired Weyerhaeuser’s entire container-board unit earlier this year. Chuck hit the milestone anniversary date with literally days to spare before the change of ownership. He’s now eligible to receive the maximum retirement benefits offered by the company. Congratulations, Honey. You endured. You managed to survive the last thirty-five years. Somehow, we both did.

Chuck made his last box for Weyerhaeuser on August 2, 2008. He lives near the Estrella Mountains in Goodyear, Arizona. All four of his daughters are married and he has three grandsons. (Chuck with Kelley, Caitlin, Kaci and Cristin, Thanksgiving 2007)

copyright 2008 by Kathleen Stewart Goodrich