Things I Remember About Dad

By Sharon Gibson

Something I remember about my Dad was that he was a very conscientious about his job. He was a chauffeur for Western Electric and had to drive the bosses around. Most of the time he knew exactly where he was going, but if he was unsure he would go on a “dry run” to make sure he didn’t get lost. I remember once we all took a ride to Milwaukee just so he could check out where he was supposed to go.

Also, I do not remember him missing work, except for the blizzard in 1967 when we received 27 inches of snow. Even on that day he tried to get to work but wound up getting the car stuck in the snow. Another time he sustained a second or third degree burn to his hand, the back of his hand was one huge blister and still went to work instead of a doctor. They sent him to the company nurse and she treated it and bandaged it for him.

Another thing I remember about my Dad was when we did something wrong he would make a big show of being angry. He would pretend to be taking his belt off to spank us. He would stand there and move his feet and start to unbuckle it. We would take off running. Funny thing is I don’t remember him ever spanking us.

Another memory had to do with some pigeons we had. These pigeons just flew in one day and never left, as a matter of fact as time went on more showed up and they even had babies. Of course as kids we thought this was great. We named them, fed them and at some point Dad even made a coop for them. As you know pigeons are kind of messy birds and Dad was getting tired of the mess so one day he decided to catch them and bring them into the city and release them under one of the viaducts. So off he went with the birds but by the time he got back they had already found their way home.