Man Made Valentine

When ever I hang out with my grandson you can count on a few things happening… video games being played, an extraordinary amount of wrestling and play fighting, a lot of laughing and more than a few “NO!!! You’re a guurrrlll”. If you weren’t aware, that is the ultimate insult to a soon to be 4 year old boy… “You’re a girl”… “You throw like a girl”… “You hit like a girl”… and any similar phrase that questions his masculine standing… and of course threatening to paint all of his toys pink… that one always gets him fired up.  

I look forward to spending more “guy” time with the only male in my lineage, so far, teaching him about the things that men do. I will confess that most of the men in my younger years were no more than a generation or two from being raised barefoot and hayseed. My mom’s family is from Tennessee and my dad’s folks hail from Kentucky. (Insert your own redneck joke here) To say my upbringing was colorful would be an understatement.

As a young man, my grandfather chose as his profession the exciting world of manufacturing and distributing corn whiskey (moonshine) throughout central and northern Kentucky beginning around 1915. This was a somewhat common vocation where he was from and he regaled me with the stories of his life in the Kentucky hills as I sat on the edge of my seat at my grandparents’ dinner table. The accounts he told were a point of history, things that had happened in his youth and were required at the time in order to support his family and nothing to be ashamed of.  

In 1918 he was forced to flee to Indiana to avoid prosecution by the revenue service. Once in Indiana and safe from the threat of incarceration, he settled down on the south side of Indianapolis and began a family. At some point and time after his arrival to Indy, he became an acquaintance of the notorious bank robber John Dillinger.  My grandmother alluded to the fact that my dear old granddad had criminal tendencies, but she quickly cured him of those inclinations through the loving influences that only women possess. Although that part of his tale was never elaborated on by neither him, or my grandmother, regardless of how much I pried. Like I said… Colorful.

For the first 11 years of my life I spent practically every weekend and the majority of my summers with my grandparents. They lived in a modest farmhouse on Mann Road, just past Southport Road on Indy’s southern boundry. Their small family farm sat at the base of a large wooded area locally known as Mann Hill, where motorcycle hill climbs were held in the 40’s and 50’s.  Currently, there resides a baseball/softball complex atop the property I roamed as a child and a golf course has consumed a vast majority of the woods and hills where I played.

My grandfather taught me about hunting and fishing, how to care for his gardens and animals. He gave me my first horse and trusted me to properly care for her, even at my young age, but his greatest lesson taught was self-reliance. He passed away in 1974. I still miss him to this day.  

My uncle Augie Newkirk taught me and my cousins the fine art of poker and other games of skill and chance. Many nights…  me, my brother Jesse and my cousins Richie and David would sit around his kitchen table, each with our jars of pennies, nickels and dimes, and fight a loosing campaign against our older and more battle tested opponent in such games as draw, stud and hold’em.  The night would always end the same way for us kids… each of us poorer, but slightly wiser… and our uncle would buy us all Mickey and Bill’s pizza… with what used to be our money.

My dad taught me about cars and their care and maintenance.  It was ultimately up to me to repair or replace malfunctioning systems and components if I wanted to remain mobile. He would point me in the right direction, give me guidance and advise, but always require me to do the vast majority of the work.  He also taught me the art of negotiation. That the first offer was just that, an offer, a place to start from. Haggling was an art form, and he was a master.

We can add to this list the many coaches I’ve had throughout my life who taught me teamwork and sportsmanship. Who spent countless hours in the hot sun pounding the knowledge of whatever sport was in season past my “Farah Fawcett” hairdo and into my thick skull.  

Then there are Marine Corp Drill Instructors who taught me discipline, honor and a love of country, and my fellow Marines who taught me about loyalty, brotherhood and sacrifice…and an honored handful of brothers who taught me about the ultimate sacrifice.

Someone once told me “A veteran is someone who, at one point in his of her life, wrote a check made payable to ‘The United States of America’ for the amount of ‘up to and including my life.”

All in all… these were lessons in the things men do… sort of a long and complicated “How to” guide. But for all of this training in the manly arts… it’s the women in my life that actually taught me what is was to be a man.

A real man puts the needs of his family and loved ones before his own, much like my mother and wife do. They are always the last ones to sit at the dinner table making sure every ones needs are fulfilled, and the occasional $20 bill always seems to find it’s way into a child needing pocket when dad is not looking. They cook, clean, administrate and maintain… both in the home and out.  They do this out of love, a sense of duty and a fear and knowledge that if they do not do it… it likely will not get done.

A real man tries to look beyond the shortcomings of others, realizing that his wife has done this very task these past 27 years, by putting up with his various schemes and considerable amount of bullshit. She follows him half way across this country and back… more than a few times, and regardless of their address, without her there… it’s not a place he’d call home.

A real man does not know true meaning of unconditional love until he holds each of his four beautiful daughters in his arms for the first time. At that moment he realizes that the word “Love” is too small of a word to even begin to describe what he is feeling… To know that there is a life, four of them in fact, that are far more valuable than your own.

Men teach you the ways of men… but it’s the women in your life that give the title “Man” it’s meaning.  

Happy Valentines Day!

MoFo