My Father, Joseph

     My father was a carpenter by trade. After he and my mother were married he built our house, it started out smaller and as my mother had children he kept adding on.
     The things I remember about my father were all of the small things in life that added up to the big things. I remember winning the 4th grade spelling bee, my father folded  the certificate and tucked it in his wallet. I remember seeing him take it out of his wallet and show it off and I knew my father was proud of me.
      I remember when I was losing my baby teeth  my dad tied a string around my loose tooth and used that string to pull it out. I remember getting sick, my mother couldn't get me to take my medicine, so my father came to the rescue and bribed me with fifty cents to take it. I remember him putting me up on the picnic table to give me a hair cut. He put a bowl on my head and cut around the bottom of the bowl, granted I looked like the little Dutch boy, but what did I know, I knew my father was there for me.
     My father was a character, very social, gregarious and funny, people liked my father, most everybody except the self righteous. My dad got in a tangle with one of the leading townspeople in  our town over something that was unjust. She, seeking to calm my father down said, "Mr. Glaude, don't upset the apple cart," to which my father replied, "If there's a rotten apple in it I will upset the whole goddamn cart," one of the few times in my life I heard my father swear. He hated injustice and he dd not like to see people being treated unfairly.
      My father  was generous, many times he invited others  to our home to eat supper with us. My mother never complained, she just cooked extra. My father would give the shirt off his own back to help someone else with no regards to the thought it was taking anything away from him.
     He thought my mother was the most gorgeous woman alive and would always try to kiss her in front of us. My mother was quite modest and would say, "not in front of the children," but my dad would always get that kiss.
     I remember my first bicycle ride, there were no training wheels, it was quite iffy, my father waited in our driveway as I rode past the big maples and turned into the driveway, sure enough I ditched my bike and fell, daddy was there to pick me up and dust me off.
     My father loved music, when he was a child he asked his own parents for a guitar for Christmas and he got it, he taught himself to play. He had a band called Little Joe and the Country Boys and they played a lot of shows, generally my brothers and I went to all of them and would fall asleep in the backseat of the car on the way home. My most favorite memories of my father was of him sitting at our kitchen table, playing his guitar and singing, he would make up silly songs and put our names in them.
     I found this song by Eddie Vedder, it's called The Man of the Hour. When I listened to it I wept because I felt it was a perfect description of my father. My father took his final bow in December 2003. Everything about my father still lives in my heart, his generosity, his kindness and his care about others. These are the things I remember the most and his love for us, his family.
                                                    
 "Man Of The Hour"

Tidal waves don't beg forgiveness
Crashed and on their way
Father he enjoyed collisions; others walked away
A snowflake falls in may.
And the doors are open now as the bells are ringing out
Cause the man of the hour is taking his final bow
Goodbye for now.

Nature has its own religion; gospel from the land
Father ruled by long division, young men they pretend
Old men comprehend.

And the sky breaks at dawn; shedding light upon this town
They'll all come around
Cause the man of the hour is taking his final bow
G'bye for now.

And the road
The old man paved
The broken seams along the way
The rusted signs, left just for me
He was guiding me, love, his own way
Now the man of the hour is taking his final bow
As the curtain comes down
I feel that this is just g'bye for now