My Father, The Fonz!

My father was the original Fonzie! D-A haircut, leather jacket, hot rod car and the works. Early in life Dad left school and went to live with his brother in Cleveland to find work. High school held no interest or challenge for him. And even though he had no great love for his eldest brother, he went anyway. It was either that or work in the coal mines like his father. And that didn't hold much of a future.

His middle brother lived in the same area but didn't have the room to have him live at his trailer. It was one of those tiny, rounded, shiny 1950's trailers that must of been built from left over WW2 airplane parts. Now this brother had a garage and my Dad found that he had a natural ability to do body work. So after working at a factory all day my teenage father would go to the garage so his brother Frank could teach him body work.

Unfortunately Frank also taught him to appreciate scotch. "If your goin' to be a body man you got to learn to drink!"Frank told him. There was only one thing my father's family liked to do more then enjoy a tall beer and a short drink, and that is fight. Frank would take my Dad to the bars and have him start a fight just so Frank and his friends could finish it.

As he grew older the country boy turned into the Greaser. Brylcreame, the turned up collar and a car radio belting out a few Little Richard tunes. Then Dad met Mom. Dad met my mother at a bar where my aunt was the bartender. The first time Mom saw him my aunt was beating him with a broom for pouring a draft beer for his buddy. So don't always believe that first impressions are the best!

She wouldn't go out with him until he quit drinking. They dated, married, and were together till Mom past away. His brother Frank passed away in '63. Dad still tells me stories about the fights, bars, and cars. And for a few seconds I see him as he was then. Leather jacket, greased hair, and wilder then hell!