Dads’ day

Yes, that apostrophe’s in the right place.  With those two Moms I told you about (1) came two Dads, each a gem and a blessing.  And both gone.  Yes, I will always miss them both very much.  Curiously, both were named Dick. Common name in their day, I suppose.  Who wouldn’t want a son who is a “brave ruler” (2)?  Or “powerful” and “hardy”(3).  Whether it was the name or coincidence, both my dads wore that robe ably.

I’ve waxed on about my adoptive dad, Dick Ike, several times (4,5,6).  Youngest son of a Dutch immigrant couple, small but competitive, enough to start at offensive guard on the Ottawa High Indians football team.  Business school straight into Fisher Body, who’d employ him his entire 31 year working life.  Married as WWII was starting, posted to Rome for 2 years, manning a desk after the Army brass noticed his glasses, complicating their plans to make him a paratrooper.  When he and my mom couldn’t produce their own child, they went looking for one and found me.  We had 10 happy years till my mom died suddenly, but me and Dad made a go of it, “a single parent before it was fashionable.”   As two headstrong males, we had many clashes, but we learned to appreciate each other as I settled down in my 30s and we had a lot of good times in his later years till he passed at 83.

One of my dad’s last acts was to hand me my adoption papers.  Through them, I gained a whole new family.  Dad had been gone over 5 years when I met my birth parents.  This Dick – Dick Spei – had a lot of wrinkles.  I had to go to Toronto to meet him.  He’d left Detroit in ’69, fed up with the politics and danger.  No, he wasn’t a draft dodger.  Yes, there was a woman involved, and I learned that was a recurring part of his life.  Obviously, I know far less about his life than of Dick Ike’s.  But Dick Spei was a bit of a stud growing up, not just seducing my mother, but playing linebacker for Biggie Munn’s Spartans in the late 40s, but just for a year “I got tired of being a tacking dummy”.  After Mom, he wasted no time, marrying his first wife and siring Nick, my oldest brother, who’s just 10 months younger than me.  Five more would come, a boy and 4 girls.  He was a bon vivant, who taught his children to “approach each meal as if it were your last”.  If I ever need to think where I got my caddish behavior and love for the good life, Mr. Spei’s the dad I need to think of.  He died 8 years ago in a Toronto hospital, at 84, of an infection that got out of control.  I thank him for the good genes, the great stories, and my (no longer so) new brothers and sisters.

I tell people I’ve had the best of both worlds: Nordic (Norwegian/German) genes and a Dutch upbringing.  And I couldn’t have had 2 better dads.

References

1. Behind the Name.  Richard https://www.behindthename.com/name/richard

2. Allen J.  The Bump.  Richard. https://www.thebump.com/b/richard-baby-name

3. Ike B.  Mother’s Day.  WordPress 5/14/23.  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2023/05/14/mothers-day/

4. Ike B.  Sgt. Ike.  WordPress 5/29/23. https://theviewfromharbal.com/2023/05/29/sgt-ike/

5. Ike B.  Mom & Dad.  WordPress 5/27/22. https://theviewfromharbal.com/?p=3162

6. Ike B.  Happy Birthday, Dad!  WordPress 8/7/22.  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2022/08/07/happy-birthday-dad/