TRIBUTE TO BUCK Page 6 of 11
I don�t think Dad ever traveled east of St. Louis. He finally got work as a sign hanger for Keller Sign Company of St. Louis and was on the road a lot in Missouri. When World War 2 broke out, bother parents worked seven days a week. After that, for a time we saw him only on weekends, if at all. When the war ended, he went to work for himself as a house painter, working eighteen hour days to make ends meet. Dad loved to paint. He felt he was making something new again. He could paint equally well with either hand and from first light till dusk, six days a week. I�ll never forget his insisting that I stay on a fully extended ladder while he moved it from the ground, and I can still hear Mother, budgeting, say �We have $700 saved. If we can just make it through the winter��
I can remember gathering times. As a family we�d go to the woods for walnuts, hickory nuts, sassafras and persimmons. But most important was to cut the Christmas tree. I can�t remember a �do without� Christmas, though there must have been some � for our parents. Always there was security and warmth of the cercle familial de joie (family circle of joy).
In 1954, Dad had a heart attack. He was sixty three years old and he was tired. For awhile he just gave up. But he was a bull! After a period of despondency he was back up again, seemingly stronger than before. This was my senior year in high school. The others were all grown and gone.
My dad had an abundance of common sense, the kind of wisdom not learned from books, but from life. For example, I was a long distance runner but Dad refused to go to a meet. When I asked why, he said � I can�t see any sense in it. You�re just going around in circles.� He was right of course.
In 1968, Dad had another heart attack. This one was massive and nearly fatal. By this time I was through graduate school and teaching at a junior college in Illinois. I realized how bad he was when he introduced me to a nurse as the president of the college. I remember the wall by his bed in the I. C. unit. Everything was white. Electronic devices and screens were everywhere it seemed. I didn�t expect to see him again.
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