I was staring at a blank piece of paper.
The paper stared back.
I didn’t know what to do. The Old Man did.
“Just write the first sentence,” Papa told me. “Start it. If you have to go back and correct it, that’s okay. But you have to start it.”
I wish I could remember what I was writing; I do recall it was a freelance piece, and it was long enough ago that we didn’t yet have a computer in the house. It took a few more minutes, but after while, I finally found the noun, the verb and their assorted companions, and wrote that first sentence. I didn’t see how my father’s advice, simple as it was, could be even remotely useful, but as usual, he was right.
The Old Man did not die with his sword in his hand, with a banner headline across the top of the page, and the truth exposed one last time. His last two stories were a drug arrest and a break-in, the fodder of crime reporters everywhere. He wrote them out, I filed them for him (we had a computer by then) and they appeared in the next day’s paper, across from the story about his life, career and death, and one page over from his obituary. He died May 4, 2001.
I was having a hard time writing this column this year; it’s been a tough winter and spring for us, as three families very close to us said goodbye to their own patriarchs. I had the privilege of knowing two of them very well, and the third, as the Bible says, by his son. Each time I thought of the Old Man, I thought of Steve; I thought of Leon, Melissa and Jeffery; and of course, the whole Henry family. Their stories became intermingled with my own memories of my dad and that blank piece of paper—well, in this case, a blank screen—would stare back at me.
In the end, I just had to write the first sentence.
Tom Weaver never really knew his father. Papa was a toddler when Tom II answered the call from his country, and joined the Army to fight in World War I. He was a copious letter writer, and apparently wore out some guardian angels in France—he took just about everything the Germans threw at American soldiers, only to be run over by a street car in Washington City. He likely would have laughed at the irony.
Papa felt the lack of his own father; despite having a bevy of uncles and two fantastic grandfathers, he missed the dad he didn’t know. I think that’s one reason he tried so hard to be the father he became, one which I think would have made his family proud.
My Old Man, like a lot of men coming of age at the start of the Depression, wandered a bit. He went to California seeking work (not because he was out of a job, but because he wanted to flee the family hardware business). He played in a band that performed in a lot of places where admission required that someone at the door knew you by name and face, the alcohol was often dangerous, and the pay at the end of the night often short—unless you took your pay in bootleg booze, which they often did.
When I had grown up enough to appreciate the humor, Papa joked that there were entire cities in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and possibly Delaware that he didn’t remember. He didn’t know he had played at the Lumina at Wrightsville Beach until I found the advertisement for his band in an old newspaper. He remembered New York City, of course, but the Big Apple taught him two things: he didn’t want to live in a big city, and he didn’t want to spend his life as a professional musician.
Papa had problems with his lower legs from the time he was a child, and they kept him from following his father, uncles, grandfather and great-grandfather into the service.
Somewhere along the line, Papa quit drinking and accepted Christ as his savior. He still sinned, of course, and sometimes sinned badly, but that’s part of being human. He made some pretty significant mistakes, and when he did, he admitted them and made amends as best as he could. His failures haunted him, because that’s the kind of man he was.
Tom Weaver taught me about the newspaper business and writing, of course, but he also taught me how to catch a fish, sharpen a pocketknife, drive a car in the rain, shake hands like you mean it, and how to tie a necktie (and why one should wear a tie).
Mother taught me how to read, but Papa taught me why we should read. He taught me, by example, that there are times to laugh, to roar, to be angry, to be downright silly, and sometimes, there are times when being a friend means just being still. He taught me to question almost everything, to listen, to respect others, to treat everyone fairly, to open doors for ladies, and to love my country, my wife and my family fiercely. He taught me to forgive, and how to just walk away when forgiveness is possible, but further relations are not. He taught me about baseball, history, antique architecture, and the simple things in life.
The Old Man taught me why salvation is important, our dogs deserve our loyalty, nothing worthwhile comes easily, and sometimes you just have to dig your heels in, wipe the blood off your face and keep doing the right thing. Even though I don’t have any children, Papa taught me a lot about what it takes to be a father.
W. Thomas Weaver III taught me so much, in the 35 years when I knew I could pick up the phone, walk through the door or holler around the corner for his counsel.
The one thing the Old Man didn’t teach me was how not to miss him when he was gone – and that’s a skill I could really use, when the press roars, a dog barks, a woman laughs, or a blank screen stares back at me, waiting for that very first sentence.
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