Tuesday, August 21, 2012

More Pictures of Dad and me

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 Me looking spiffy on 8/27/1973 in my bell bottom pants and fancy white belt. The insert is my dad in 1941 so four or near five years old.





Here is Luke at about the same age



Home coming from the Navy. After I got my crow, so this would be 1987ish. My nephew Eric is holding the picture in the foreground.

Monday, August 20, 2012

William Donald Leigh: 1937-2012

Here are a few of the pictures I swiped from momma's house. More to come as I have time to scan them.

 In 8th grade


 1955, obviously, in the Navy. Probably still at Jacksonville Naval Station.


 1955 again. With Grandma, right before he left for San Francisco.


 1976, playing baseball with me in the backyard. Del Ray Court.



Mom and Dad in June, 1977. On our Mountain vacation. First trip I ever took that wasn't to Orlando.




 Christmas Day, 1981


3 generation picture with Luke. 1996

Me and my Dad

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This is my Dad and me circa 1990. I just got out of the Navy. I can tell b/c I grew a beard right after I got out.





Monday, August 13, 2012

My Dad; My Hero




I grew up listening to Waylon and Willie croon on about their heroes being old, worn-out cowboys. Heroes are those rare people that make an indelible impact on our lives, so forcefully that they cause not only our admiration, but often our emulation. Well, while I like the song, I never wanted to be a cowboy.  There was, however, someone that I tried to pattern my life after: my real life hero, my dad. Yeah, I know that it sounds blasé, but it really is true. I love Bluegrass music, Merle Haggard, and football because he did. I joined the Navy because he had been a sailor. I worked as an engineer because he did. I tried to smoke Winston cigarettes because that was his brand, even though the “cool” people smoked Marlboro. (Luckily that was a short lived attempt. I never could get used to the smell.)

His life was hard, and because of that he was a hard man. His philosophy of life was simple: work hard and take care of your little acre. In other words, take care of you and yours, leave everyone else to theirs. Not an earth shattering revelation or groundbreaking epistemology of course, but it was his. He grew up very poor in the mountains of East Kentucky and left school in the eighth grade to help support the family. At nineteen he joined the Navy and spent his time in Asia touring on the USS Oriskany CV34 (The Mighty “O”) on two WestPac’s . He got a giant cobra tattoo in Hong Kong, and his True Love knuckles in the Philippians. (Did I mention my tattoo???  When I left for Boot Camp, my dad didn’t warn me about loose women or crotchety old CC’s, but he did tell me that if I got a tattoo to make sure a short sleeved shirt covered it up. Smart man and advice I’m glad I heeded. Current occupation and all.) He worked at NASA building platforms for the Saturn program, and married my mom making a buck an hour. Four kids and a move to Georgia later, he was in management at Sheet Metal Engineers. Things were going well when he lost two children in separate car crashes about five years apart. Life was never really the same.

On August 8 he lost his final battle, a bout with Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis, of all things. PAP is a very rare (about 500 cases per year worldwide) lung disorder that is an autoimmune disease; the body cranks up the production of the surfactant protein and fills the air sacks in the lungs with fluid. Throughout his life he taught me things, and I guess that makes him my hero still. Even though he had become dependent on me in his last years, he will always be the one man that I will think about and wonder what he would have done in a given situation.

I will miss him terribly, and can only hope that I can measure up to the high benchmark he set for me. My hero is not a cowboy. He is a sheet metal worker. Not a barroom brawler, but a hard worker. Not a whoremonger, but a devoted husband. Not a modern-day drifter, but a dedicated family man. Not a high rider, but my dad.