Workers’ COMPanion
LAW OFFICE MONAST
June 2017
www.monastlaw.com | 614-334-4649 | 5000 Arlington Centre Blvd. Bldg 2, Suite 2117, Upper Arlington, OH 43220-2913
‘SOMETHING ELSE’
THINKING OF MY DAD THIS FATHER’S DAY
This Father’s Day, I’m thinking about my dad. Ask anybody about him, and you’re bound to get the same response: “He was something else.” Well, I’m here to tell you they don’t know the half of it.
He had one of the loudest voices of anyone I’ve ever met. I remember once, when one of my sons started playing peewee football, he was there with me watching him practice. My younger son was toddling around, just sort of exploring, and he began to wander off. He hollered, with explosive volume “PETE! GET OVER HERE!” I about jumped completely out of my chair. It’s a good thing I have a spare ear.
My dad, the quintessential salesman, never met a stranger. He followed in the footsteps of his own father, though I’m not sure whether that was on
purpose or if it happened by circumstance. My dad joined the Navy during WWII and moved into the medical corps. The plan was, after he returned home, he’d use the GI Bill to put himself through Oberlin College. He got into the school no problem, but let’s just say college wasn’t exactly my dad’s ball of wax.
My dad was quite the pistol, and he was prone to aggravation, but he was a great dad regardless. By the time I got divorced and before I remarried, he
was living in the same town. He’d help me out with the boys, picking them up from school and spending time with them when I couldn’t be around because of work. I was incredibly grateful for that. One memory especially sticks out to me: the time he went along with me on a 20-mile Boy Scout hike over southern Ohio. He was probably 50 years old at that point, but he kept up, continuously trucking along. That’s not to say he didn’t’
After flunking out, he more or less had no choice but to go back and help run his dad’s auto dealership out in Iowa. While he was working there, his father passed away, and the dealership moved out of the family. But by that time, my dad knew cars, and he had begun to tap into his otherworldly sales skills, so he moved into automotive aftermarket sales. He sold components of cars that didn’t come standard back in the day, like cruise control. He would travel all around the country, selling and selling, covering well over 100,000 miles a year.
look worse for wear — he looked more than a little like Sasquatch by the time we were done.
I had a good relationship with my dad, even when, after 36 years of marriage, he and my mom parted ways. I strive to maintain that kind of closeness with my own kids, ensuring that they have the security of love that I was granted. I never want them to doubt for one second how much I care about them.
When we came into the picture, he set up a home office, and though he still had to travel quite a bit, he remained an active father. I remember, when I was playing football in high school, he was there on the sidelines at most of the games and practices, cheering me on. When he was working, you could hear him chatting up customers from almost anywhere in the house, so you could say I learned a lot about the art of conversation directly from him. He was definitely a talker. People used to ask him, “Hey Joe, how you doing?”His reply would invariably be, “Well, I’m still running my mouth”— which was true.
- Jim Monast
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