This year is especially poignant as this is the first August 4 without my dear sister, Sharon. I would like to reprise the blog I wrote last year on my Dad's birthday. I have added an addendum at the end. It is a poem I had forgotten about until my sister, Laila, asked me about it not too long ago. It is one I wrote for my Dad, shortly before his passing, and completed after he was gone. For family, celebrate the day and remember our beginnings and the wonderful Father, Grandfather, and friend that is our heritage.
From August 4, 2011
WARNING: This blog has very little to do with travel and is in fact a very personal and perhaps sappy, personal post. You are more than welcome to read along but just wanted to let you know ahead of time what this is all about. To my family – we miss the old codger, don’t we?
August 4, 1907, was a LONG TIME AGO. On that day William Emil Fritsche was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin to German immigrant parents, Emil and Paulette Fritsche. I don’t know too much about Bill’s (as he was called) early years other than that his mother died when he was quite young and at some point grandpa remarried and moved to Reno, NV.
This picture was taken when Daddy was just a little shaver, about 18 months or younger. It is the original photo.
Wasn’t he a cute little guy?
Dad contracted polio at a young age and as a result had a withered leg and a very weak ankle. He walked with a pronounced limp, but he walked. He never used a cane or a wheel chair (until he was very old) and he never used his disability to garner sympathy. He never used it as an excuse not to work as hard as he could and to have fun whenever the opportunity arose. My dad was a “can-do” kind of guy.
Dad and mom were married in 1937 and produced four children: David, Laila, Sharon, and then Donna, the baby of the family.
Being the youngest, I don’t remember some of the earlier times. What I do remember about my dad were his sense of humor and his musical ability. And I remember him carrying me on his shoulders through downtown San Bernardino and the JC Penney’s store when we went shopping!
Dad always had a guitar and some of my earliest memories are of the family and usually a bunch of friends as well, gathering around daddy and his guitar and having a terrific time just singing. We sang as a family also, with Daddy’s clear tenor, my mom’s soprano, Laila singing alto, David with his deep bass, and when I got older I just filled in the cracks!
Dad pastored a small community church for much of my childhood years and the one thing I remember there again, is the music.
Dad’s instrument of choice was the guitar but he could play the banjo, a little piano and just about any instrument he picked up would sound musical in his hands. If he didn’t have an instrument handy he would make one. I can recall him playing the saw, but my favorite was the wash-tub; with a 2X4 nailed to the upside down metal tub, and a rope strung diagonally from the top of the 2X4 to the tub, it made a fine bass. He had a length of pipe on the rope that he slid up and down to produce the bass tones as he plucked the rope. He could also make a great rhythm on a wash board or a couple of spoons.
One particular early memory was one Sunday at church. My dad left the sanctuary by a side door during a rather uninspired song service. We lived next door to the church and pretty soon here comes Daddy back into the church carrying a shovel. He walked up to the front and asked the congregation if they knew what the shovel was for. No one could answer, so in his own humorous way Daddy said, "Well, you are all so dead this morning, I thought I might have to bury you." Dad liked his music lively and it picked up after that!
I loved my dad’s sense of humor…not always appreciated by my mom. I remember more than once when unexpected company would knock on the door (common in those days) Dad would ask, “would you like some fried chicken.” Of course everyone would say “Sure” and then Daddy would say, “Boy, I sure would too. Too bad we don’t have any.” Mother would just cringe but the company always got a kick out of it.
I remember when we would “go to town” to shop. Daddy’s leg would often give out before mother was finished. Daddy and I would sit in the car and wait…but did we have fun while we waited!! One of his favorite tricks was to tie a light weight string on a little change purse and put the change purse out on the sidewalk. An unsuspecting pedestrian would come walking along, spy the purse and bend down to pick it up. Daddy would give a little tug on the string and the purse would move just out of reach. The victim would reach down again and again the purse would move just out of reach. This would go on for several tries until the person on the sidewalk finally caught on to the joke and then would have a good laugh with my dad over the whole episode. When he got tired of that, he would use a dollar bill instead of the change purse. Wonder if the reaction would be the same nowadays?
Daddy loved vacation and he loved Bishop, CA and the area surrounding it. Back then the fish were plentiful and the limit was 25 fish. He usually caught his limit.
I think Daddy would have made a great full-timer if it were not for health issues with my mother and later with him.
My dad always found something to laugh about, or have fun with.
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| Dean (Laila's husband), Laila, Mother, and Daddy one Christmas |
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| 47th Anniversary and Daddy wanting to cut into the cake |
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| Daddy protecting himself from Mother (he had cataract surgery but he liked to tell people she hit him) |
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| Daddy liked his sweets |
Daddy always loved the county fair and even when he could no longer get around much, he always wanted to visit the fair.
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| Mother and Daddy in front, Sharon, Laila, and Donna in back |
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| Daddy loved the animals at the fair |
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| Daddy also loved the food at the fair |
But most of all my dad was about love. He loved his wife.
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| 25th wedding anniversary, Dad at the end of the table and mother to the right - that's yours truly in the red dress! |
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| Anniversary at Shoji's |
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| Yet another anniversary |
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| Their 50th, the last one they would celebrate together. Daddy died that year. |
He loved his kids.
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| Daddy and David (sorry David, I really need to get the slides scanned so I have a better picture of you!) |
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| Dean, Laila, Mother, Daddy, and Sharon...little Donna in front |
He loved his pets.
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| Coquette was the MOST annoying dog ever born but he loved her to pieces |
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| Too sick to get dressed yet he had his dog and his sense of humor |
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| Dad and mom, Coquette and MiLing |
And he loved his God. My dad instilled these things in me from a young age. I never knew we were poor until I looked back on it in later life. I never knew there were resort vacations with pools and luxury hotel suites. We camped in tents, campers, and trailers and I thought it was wonderful. To me vacation meant camping. Dad taught me to love and respect nature and the great outdoors. Dad taught me there is nothing more important than family. Dad taught me to love God and country. And most of all, Dad taught me not to take life too seriously.
We all have good days and bad days but when I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, or discouraged, or mad at the government, I remember my dad and his love for people and family and life and I know there is nothing more important. When I don’t feel like laughing, I remember my dad and how he could make a joke out of almost anything. He was never too old to have fun and enjoy life as much as he could.
Dad has been gone for over 20 years now and there is not a day goes by that I don’t miss him. Sometimes I still get a thought that says, “I’ll ask Dad” and then I remember, Dad is no longer on this earth. But it is my hope and belief that I will see him again someday. I close with one of Daddy’s favorite hymns and one I think of when I remember Dad. He did so love to sing and I just bethca he had his guitar out and the angels gathered around in song as soon as he arrived in heaven.
“There is going to be a meeting in the air
In the sweet sweet by and by
I’m going to meet, to greet you over there
In that land beyond the sky.
Such singing you will hear, never heard by mortal ear
‘Twill be glorious I do declare,
For God’s own Son will be the leading one
At that meeting in the air."
See you someday, Daddy, and Happy Birthday.
ADDENDUM added August 4, 2012:
FOR DAD
By Donna Fritsche Krecklow
Sept 10, 1989
Growing up as a P.K. (preacher's kid), left
an indelible mark onmy childhood years.
One of my earliest memories is of theJubilee Service" held every
Saturday night at our little community church in Bloomington, California,
where my Dad was pastor. It was a time not only for members of our church, but
for all Christians in the surrounding communities, to gather for a celebration
of praise and singing. The music was always more than just words and notes
strung together to form rhythm and melody, it was the expression of joy from
deep within each one gathered there.
I cannot hear an old hymn without seeing my
Dad, his Gibson guitar in hand, lifting his clear tenor in a rousing chorus of
“I'll Fly Away" or "Give Me That Old Time Religion.” He was never happier than when offering his
voice in praise to God.
But somewhere between my childhood and
adulthood, Dad grew old. Afflicted with diabetes and all of its complications,
he gradually lost most his ability to sing and to participate in the
church activities that he loved so well. His
eyesight was diminished due to cataracts and diabetic retinopathy, and his legs,
already weak from a childhood case of polio, became weaker still, able only to
support him with assistance from his ever present walker.
As he approached his eightieth birthday, Dad would
always admonish us to not grow old.
"Don't get old", he would advise, "I don't know how I got
to be so old, so fast.”
And as his vision grew dimmer he would long
for his eyesight. "If only I could see" he would sigh, "I
wouldn't have to rely on you kids so much.”
In March 1988, his health was rapidly
deteriorating and I penned the first four verses of the following poem. However, I was unable to find a satisfactory
conclusion to it until after his
death in May 1988, when I added the last two
verses. I know that this is what my Dad
would want to say to those he left behind.
'Twas only yesterday it seems,
That I still dreamed a young man's dreams,
But now my future is my past,
How did I grow so old, so fast?
When did my eyes become so dim?
And why the tears in which they swim?
I can't go back, the die is cast,
How did I grow so old, so fast?
When did my legs become so weak?
With bones that ache and joints that creak,
I thought my health would always last,
How did I grow so old, so fast?
When did my thoughts begin to slow?
Forgetting things that I should know,
Embarrassed by the simplest task,
How did I grow so old so fast?
-------(written after his death)------
But wait, my legs are straight and strong,
My voice I lift again in song,
I see as I have never seen,
Can this be real, is it a dream?
No dream; I'm whole, my body healed,
No aches, no pains, no hurts concealed,
All agony is in the past,
Rejoice with me, I'm home at last.
For those who knew and loved Pastor William
E. Fritsche, and for those who mourned his passing, rejoice, and look towards
the day when we will join him and have an eternal "Jubilee Service."
