(L. to R.)Uncle Dan, Uncle Herb, Uncle Lloyd, Grandpa, Dad, and Uncle Wayne
Nelson Robert Austin, Sr. They called him Bob, Robert, Uncle Bob, Grandpa Frog, Dad. To me - he was Poppy. My parents divorced when I was quite young. My earliest memories of my Dad were of him picking us kids up for our weekly visitations. I don't remember much of it, just that Daddy was here and it was time to go to his house for a while. My elder siblings and I eventually moved in 1972, with our Mother and her new husband, to Kansas and left Dad behind in Pennsylvania. We didn't see him much over the next ten or twelve years. My eldest brother, Bob, had moved back with our father early on but he had left for the service directly after our return to Pennsylvania in 1977. Those five years had made a huge gap in our relationship with our father. It wasn't that he wouldn't see us or spend time with us. Matter-of-fact, there was nothing he would have liked better. He just didn't know us and we didn't know him. So, we all took the easy way out and drifted with the tides, so to speak. But that too changed. The summer I turned 16 I started to get to know my Dad for real. For the first time ever I spent the entire month of July with him.
My father was born in 1936. He was the eldest of five sons born to Nelson and Ruby Austin.
His father was a farmer and his mother a house wife. Grandma eventually got a job working in the grocery store in town, but she retired several years ago. Grandpa also retired from farming several years ago but the farm is still there and so are Grandpa and Grandma. Of the four brothers, two are farmers. Daddy was once. Then when he discovered that farming didnt quite agree with him he went on to other things. He worked mostly as a mechanic or a truck driver all his life.
About 5 years ago Daddy started suffering from coughing fits accompanied by passing out. Because of this he was forced to retire early. After his retirement he spent most days puttering around his place. He still owned the property we always referred to as "the farm", which hadn't actually been farmed in all my 30 years. He started snowmobiling and various other little things he never seemed to find the time for while he worked. But, his favorite thing to do was go camping.
Now his idea of roughing it and most other people's were two entirely different things. Dad's camp was up on top of the hill that over-looked the house where he lived. Maybe a mile away as the crow flies. It wasn't your typical camp either. Yes, there was a fire pit where Dad did all the cooking but that and the out house were about the only things that qualified it as a camp. When you arrived at camp from the "driveway" side the first thing you'd see was a small camper. You know the old style ones that looked like little tin cans. Slept three if you crowded in real tight. Off to the left of that was the "pavillion". Now this was a sight to behold. I don't know how to describe it other than a log-pole frame with a few 2X4's criss-crossing the roof and the walls, well those were just 3mm plastic stapled to log-poles and 2X4's. The floor was of course dirt, unless it rained and then it was slightly muddy. Now across from the pavillion, set up on cement blocks is a trailer. Not the kind you use to haul things but a house trailer. I believe it measures 12X70. One wall was mostly gone where the previous owners had had a porch attached to it. But that is okay 'cause there was lots of 3mm plastic to go around. Right about now you might be thinking to yourself "okay, so the man liked to be comfortable". Yes indeed he did, that is one reason the camp came equipped with electricity! That's right. If you looked around you would also find a bug zapper, a t.v., a small radio, and a telephone. Now the telephone was mostly there for my step-mother, Bev. She is a LPN and at the time was working call-in duty at the hospital. The t.v. on the hand was so Dad didn't have to miss "Wheel Of Fortune", "Jeopardy", and "Walker, Texas Ranger". The radio, that was on 24/7 not only at camp but at the house too. And don't ever adjust the volume, change the station or turn it off! The grandkids loved the camp. Whenever the weather was warm the first words they said when they arrived at Grandpa Frog's was, "Lets go camping!". So, Dad would load a couple in the truck and take them up for fire pit duty. Their job was to help him start the fire and get things ready for the rest of us before we arrived. Meanwhile at the house, us adults and the remaining kids were packing up food, beverages, and what-not to head for the hill. Up on hill, Dad would be making a fire, cleaning off the picnic table, benches and various other seats, as well as raking leaves and picking up branches that had fallen into the "living room". Okay, so where were the helpers he took along? Well, they were on century duty of course! You could find them walking around the edges of the camp site. Picking flowers, playing with bugs, digging holes, anything they could think of just to keep busy. But, they were with Grandpa and that was all that really mattered. Once everyone had arrived, the cooking got started. That too was Dad's job. Because no one else knew how to cook over an open fire like Dad did. Or so he said. We never tried to prove him wrong either since us "girls" did most of the cooking at the house. So, while Dad is busy watching whatever is cooking and poking at the fire with a stick, us girls are just kicked back with a beverage and yakking as only us girls could. Occassionally one of us would have to get after one of the kids for throwing things in the fire or playing too close to it. Mostly though, we all just caught up on each others' lives. Who we had seen or talked to lately that the others hadn't in a long while, what our plans were for the summer or next week, what names we had picked for the babies on the way, what the youngest baby was doing new this week. The good things in life.
My husband, John and I live about 60 miles from Dad's place. It takes a little over an hour to make the trip in good weather. Over the last two years before his death, my family spent a lot of weekends at his house. My husband and I had introduced Dad and Bev to a new card game, 'Hand and Foot Canasta', and I was quite surprised that Dad liked it as well as he did. He would call me up during the week and say, "Hey, why don't you kids come down this weekend so we can play cards?" and of course, we would go. We would pack a suitcase everytime because we just knew we wouldn't be leaving until the last possible minute on Sunday night. Then once we arrived the card game marathon began. Usually Dad and John would be partners against Bev and me. (Once in a while I got to partner with Dad but not often. John knew how good Dad was at cards!!)
There was one game in particular that I remember like it was yesterday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, there are only four hands played in this game. Each hand you have to have a certain number of points (50, 90, 120, and 150) before you can lay your cards to the table and build your canastas. In order to go out you have to have a minimum of three canastas, two black and one red. The difference being that the black canastas have wild cards and the red don't. Neither partner can have a three of any suit (unless its the discard) when the other partner goes out to end the round. Black three's count five points against you and red three's count 500 points against you. Dad had on one occassion made the comment that it would be funny if he and John went out on Bev and me before we had a chance to play any cards. I said it just couldn't be done. Wasn't possible.
Well, I should have kept my big mouth shut! Here we were on the last round, Bev and I were losing in a big way. Dad was just rubbing it in as only he could. Bev and I had the last laugh though. We went out on them before they had a chance to make a single point. They got burned to the tune of 1,500 points and Bev and I won the game! Now most people would have been a tad put out by such goings on. Not my Dad. He laughed so hard we thought he was going to pass out. His face turned bright red and all he could say was, "Glenny Kay, I thought you said it couldn't be done!". That was about three months before he passed away. Over the two months he was hospitalized he reminded me of it a dozen times at least, followed by, "When I get home I'm gonna get you back." That never happened, my Dad died in the hospital during his third surgery. I still have trouble playing that particular card game but whenever I do, I think of my Dad and the day we'll play again, and next time he's sure to win.
