The days of being a boy in the 30’s, who rode the Great Plains all night on a horse, that moved sideways, in the rain the entire way, had ended.
Living the farm life in Strong City, Oklahoma, making it a part of the past, well lived.
Smoking from a corn cob pipe at five, and wearing overalls and bare feet to compliment his day.
Tossing a Bowie knife at the gaps between his brothers toes had stopped, shortly after his brother had flattened the skull and horns he had found.
Watching his two year old sister crawl across the bottom of the horse tank, filled with cold, fresh water, was no more.
The children were in charge.
Two were born in the Navy at Pensacola, Florida and one in the gypsum soil of the west Texas panhandle town of Borger.
A five year run at Boise Idaho, he played the Handsome Prince in a fundraiser, teaching the kids to sell Poppy’s, taking three weeks a year to take them camping, to ride Grimes Creek in inner-tubes, to hike up the sides of mountains, to carry sticks down the logging roads pushing rocks, and catching trout from the streams.
Shooting gophers, hunting deer, riding his Harley 50 up the mountain and carrying the elk back down.
Loving the Bogus Basin in the winter sliding down its snowy sides, and loving it in the summer, freezing the skin as waterskiing took over the ride.
Returning to Oklahoma, to Bartlesville, he was executive material, gentleman classes, suits and ties, being the bosses boss was all part of it, but being a Dad that watched his son march with the band, assisted as his daughter and youngest boy swam, day in and day out. Spent his vacations traveling to swim meets, camping in the pop-up, seeing and showing things and being a part of the places they would go. He was a band dad, seeing concessions filled and sold and worrying about the cost of coconut oil versus peanut oil for high school football games.
He slept every day from five fifteen to six fifteen, and would rise to eat supper, unless he was awakened by three baseballs falling on his head, from his juggling son.
Rabbit hunting, gathering wood for his youngest son, driving to college towns, watching the oldest graduate,
paying and griping about three-fifty a plate for a wedding rehearsal dinner. Volunteering at the hospital to call on people who were sick or dying.
Things weren’t always pleasant, life dealt some tough hands and lessons to learn.
Pop lived thirty years past retirement, kept helping in church, being a disciple in plays, being on the board of the church, and living his own quiet way. He made eighty-five, and he would of been ninety this year on Fathers Day.
The funny thing is; there are so many fathers out there. Each one lived and loved, or lives and loves, their own way, through their own charged days of youth and adventure, to mid-life wildness that children will bring, to the quietness of them growing, and marrying and having babies, and seeing them grow, and have lives, and it moves on and on.
Pop was my Dad. You others that were fortunate have fathers, dads, handsome men, active players, and those that make your life mean more, on each day, good or bad, to think of them softly, to tell them you love them, to continue this road we call life.
Happy Fathers Day, Pop
Ralph Peck
Photograph of Roy Peck,
USN - 1952
Mtn View Oklahoma
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