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My Father's Way

HeatingHelp
HeatingHelp Administrator Posts: 635
edited October 2017 in THE MAIN WALL
image
My Father's Way

My father came back from his war in the Pacific and went to work in a supply house because they were hiring strong, young men who wanted to work six days a week.

Read the full story here


GrallertTinmanRoohollah
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Comments

  • Larry Weingarten
    Larry Weingarten Member Posts: 3,273
    My father fought in the Pacific as well. Maybe it's a generational thing, but he was rather stubborn too. Challenging him only made his heels dig in deeper. When he finally did buy a new car, he said "I've been buying day old bread for forty years, so I could do this." And like your dad, he had many good qualities that helped balance things. Great story Dan!

    Yours, Larry
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,453
    edited October 2017
    LOL, lost my father 40 years ago. He was only 56. Stubborn, Irish. Good guy, Navy WWII. But couldn't see the forest through the trees. Didn't buy his first new car until he was 50. Buy that time my brother (the youngest) was 15 and my two older sisters were out on their own. Unfortunately, sometimes I am the same way (stubborn & can't see the forest) I have to fight that sometimes.

    But they survived the Depression. I think that everyone that grew up and went through the Depression and WWII had a completely different outlook than we do.

    How could they not?

    Not many of them left

    PS.
    Nice story. Love the old rotary dial phone. No one under 40 would know what that is!!
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Well said, guys. Thanks.
    Retired and loving it.
  • SlamDunk
    SlamDunk Member Posts: 1,570
    edited October 2017
    Great story! Reminded me of my Dad too. WWII Royal Air Force. He was a building superintendent and I worked for him during the summers during high school.

    One of the guys, who worked for him full time watched me get blessed out for not doing something right. He said to me afterward, " You're father! Even when he is wrong, he is right. He is so hard headed".

  • Mad Dog_2
    Mad Dog_2 Member Posts: 6,831
    You and Big Ed were BOTH right. That's just family and different generations. My Irish-born grandparents are buried at St Charles.
    Someday were gonna visit together and pour a shot of Paddy's for them! Enjoyed the push-pull of that epic family debate. Mad Dog
  • Mad Dog_2
    Mad Dog_2 Member Posts: 6,831
    They didn't go in to deep debt, either. I admire them for their ruggedness, stoicism, and frugality. Different times. Mad Dog
  • PeterGasperini
    PeterGasperini Member Posts: 19
    Great story...been in the plumbing and heating business for over 35 years and grew up working for my dad who was also in the business . This was spot on and makes you understand why they were the way they were!
  • flat_twin
    flat_twin Member Posts: 350
    A "darned good story" for sure. The photo says quite a bit too.
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks!
    Retired and loving it.
  • TommyB
    TommyB Member Posts: 2
    I wonder if my father knew your grandfather. He was stationed in the Philippines in WWII. His unit was selected to "spearhead" the attack on Japan. If the bomb hadn't been dropped he wouldn't have come home and I wouldn't be here. I can't ask him if he knew your grandfather, he passed away in 1954.
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Much too young. I’m sorry for your loss.
    Retired and loving it.
  • Mad Dog_2
    Mad Dog_2 Member Posts: 6,831
    They all "knew" their band of brothers. God bless them all. God bless America. Mad Dog
    lchmb
  • StephenPelosa
    StephenPelosa Member Posts: 20
    Great story!!!!!
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks, Stephan. If you’re still lucky enough to have them, hug your parents. I wish I had one more day with them, and the wisdom that I have now to soften my frustration during those years. I should have been kinder, but I was too young and too busy then to truly understand them. I do now.
    Retired and loving it.
    SeanBeansGBart
  • SlamDunk
    SlamDunk Member Posts: 1,570

    Thanks, Stephan. If you’re still lucky enough to have them, hug your parents. I wish I had one more day with them, and the wisdom that I have now to soften my frustration during those years. I should have been kinder, but I was too young and too busy then to truly understand them. I do now.

    Well said.
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks, my friend.
    Retired and loving it.
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Too late.
    Retired and loving it.
  • Fred
    Fred Member Posts: 8,542

    Too late.

    Not too late Dan. They are part of us and we of them. They know your heart.
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks, Fred. I’m trying harder with my grandkids.
    Retired and loving it.
  • Mad Dog_2
    Mad Dog_2 Member Posts: 6,831
    I would say it would extremely rare to find anyone who didn't have some regrets about how they acted toward their parents growing up. I share with my kids so that they can think about it and learn from my regrets. It's all good. You were a great son, Dano, and you've honored your wonderful parents as long as I've known and read your articles & books. Mad Dog
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks, Matt
    Retired and loving it.
  • Roohollah
    Roohollah Member Posts: 135
    It was an amazing and eye opener story for those lads who never think how treasure are parents . The above story recalled my father who I miss him for couple of months . I wish for all fathers who left their families to meet God rest in eternal peace .

    Thank you for sharing the story ,

    Your loyal student,

    Roohollah
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thank you, my friend.
    Retired and loving it.
  • BrianO
    BrianO Member Posts: 12
    I loved your story. My dad passed away after being diagnosed with cancer in June, 2015. He was a big, strong New York City Irishman, who was a Master Plumber in Manhattan and the Bronx; where I grew up. He moved us upstate when I was 11, and he started his own plumbing & heating business. My brother and I were his helpers whenever he needed us, and there was a bit of that stubbornness in our dad as well. He was a tough man. A man of steel and velvet. Hands like granite, and a voice that could lull you to sleep. He laughed hard, and cried hard. I'm forever grateful to be called his son, and I treasure all of the memories, of steam radiators, boilers, submersible pumps, and millions of feet in pipe put together; by the greatest man I ever knew. He worked harder than anybody I ever met, and my brother and I are the men we are today, because of him.
    Bernie O'Donohue 6/30/40-6/7/15
    <3
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks, Brian. I wish I could have met him. He raised a fine son.
    Retired and loving it.
  • D107
    D107 Member Posts: 1,849
    What a great story! Heartbreaking and funny, the best kind.
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thank you, David.
    Retired and loving it.
  • Moreno
    Moreno Member Posts: 1
    Hi Dan. I am an old student of yours. Articles like that one are simply priceless for me. Thanks for writing it.
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks, Moreno!
    Retired and loving it.
  • gfrbrookline
    gfrbrookline Member Posts: 753
    My great grandfather was a steam man, not heating, he designed steam engines that powered ships. My grandmother saved all of his papers and I found them in my parents basement a few years ago. I love looking through them. I think its a huge reason why I am trying to preserve the steam heating system in my building and make it run as efficiently as possible. I wish I could figure out a way to make the steam generate electricity.

    He also never bought a new car, in 1937 he bought a 1932 Packard and drove it until he died in 1966. My grandmother kept the car until she died and drove it periodically until she died in the 1990's. She said he always told her he kept it because there was never a better car made and a good engine if properly maintained should last forever and should be preserved and respected. The same should be said for our old heating systems.
    CLamb
  • Erin Holohan Haskell
    Erin Holohan Haskell Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 2,276
    Well said, @gfrbrookline. Thanks for sharing!
    President
    HeatingHelp.com
  • Paul1981
    Paul1981 Member Posts: 4
    Great read
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 22,023
    Great story Dan, thanks. We can hope our kids write about us in the same way. Some day, in the distant future :)
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks, HR. I hope Erin puts in a good word for me. ;-)
    Retired and loving it.
  • GBart
    GBart Member Posts: 746
    edited May 2018
    Awesome story Dan.

    My dad was a depression era baby, last person born in a real log cabin in East Haven Ct, dirt poor, I have a picture of him hoeing a potato field with his dad when he was 2 so they could eat. My grandmother complained that the hoe was too big so my grandfather snapped the handle in half and said "here ya go kid, get to work".

    He used to tell me stories of him and his buddies taking Henry J's and putting Caddy motors in them with straight pipes and racing, he was a hell raiser.

    He served in the Air Force as a crew chief on a Recon Fighter, he took to mechanics, he altered the jet engine to increase thrust, his plane got up several hundred feet before the other pilots, drew attention, got in a bit of trouble for altering US property or something but ended up with a job offer from Boeing, my mom wouldn't move to the west coast so that ended that, he got into HVAC passed up through the ranks to Instructor as did I, I wanted to be a drummer, he made me do HVAC as a back up, good thing, I hated it at first but it gave me the ability to have a good life.

    He passed at 71 due to smoking, if you smoke quit, trust me, it's not the way you want go. As a family we were lucky to be able to say what we wanted to say still he could be here today if not for smoking.
    CLamb
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks @GBart. I love that story. My dad was also a smoker. It was rough.
    Retired and loving it.
    GBart
  • GBart
    GBart Member Posts: 746
    Yeah the last few years were extremely hard, I learned a lot about the ins/outs of what happens to the lungs and why people are on oxygen.
  • Shalom
    Shalom Member Posts: 165
    edited June 2021

    Love the old rotary dial phone. No one under 40 would know what that is!!

    That's a Western Electric 302. I've got one (or two) of those,, as well as a 352 wall phone. I had one neighbor's kid come over to use the phone because he was locked out. He looked at the phone, tried sticking his fingers in the holes but didn't know he needed to turn the dial... when I was in second grade they had a guy come down from the phone company to teach us how to use the telephone, had a call simulator with two phones, called us up two by two to the front of the class and demonstrated dial tones, ring tones, busy signals etc. I suppose the kids today are born knowing how to use that stuff, but not when it's older than they are.

    I found my dad's birth certificate once, born 1944, it said his father was a machinist in a defense plant. I asked my grandfather shortly before he passed what that was all about, I thought he'd always been an accountant. He said he'd started out as a photographer, but when the war started he tried to sign up. The army wouldn't take him because it already had three (or four) of his brothers and they didn't want so many from one family, also he was flatfooted and colorblind, so he went and got himself a job in the Brooklyn (later Philly) Navy Yard building ships or something like that for the war effort, went back to his old job as a photographer after, and became a CPA in '49. I still have one of his old stainless steel Honeywell Nikor developing tanks and reels; he said he paid something like $200 for it on the black market (in 1944 dollars!) because all the stainless was supposed to be going to the war effort. It's a weird thing, has an adjustable spiral so you can load 135, 127 or 120 film sizes.
    GBartD107
  • BradHotNCold
    BradHotNCold Member Posts: 70
    Happy Father’s Day, Dan!
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks!
    Retired and loving it.