My Father Was An 'Amazing' Person...

Born on Christmas Eve, 1925 the 17th of 18 kids, he was so small, they put him in a shoebox and shoved him under the kitchen stove. A few hours later one of his sisters pulled him out and said, “Hey, he’s still alive!” and they named him Clarence…

When he turned 4, his mom started seeing problems with his legs, so they took him to the doctor and found out he had Polio. He spent a good part of his childhood in medical centers and eventually they told him, “Well, the muscles in your left leg have pretty much died - we’re going to have to amputate your leg…”

He asked if there were any other options and they told him, “We can cut all the muscles to your leg, but it’d be totally be useless – you be better off if we just took it off” Dad didn’t want to lose it, so they cut all the muscles and from that day on, he wore a large, heavy brace that went from the bottom of his left foot all the way up to his crotch.

While he was in high school in Paola, Kansas he got a part time job at the local theatre as a doorman where he worked several nights a week and weekends. He became friends with the projectionist, who was kind enough to teach dad the trade.

One day the theatre manager opened a box that had the marquee posters for next weeks movies and found that water had got in and damaged the posters. One of the things dad loved was artwork and one of his favorite classes was painting. Dad said he could make some new ones, so the following week he put dad’s posters up in the marquee window…

That week a representative of the studio was visiting the theatre and happened to see the marquee. After asking where the posters had come from, he replaced them with a new ones and asked if he could take dad’s poster back to the studio. A couple days later dad got a call from Walt DisneyWalt Disney Studios and by the time the call was over, he’d been offered a four year scholarship at UCLA - providing he agreed to come work for Disney studios…

After graduating from high school dad headed for Los Angeles, but ran out of money while he was in the small town of Chandler, Arizona. He found the local theatre and went in to ask if they could use a projectionist for a few shifts. The owner of the theatre showed him around the booth, had him thread up a projector and asked him if he could watch the booth for a few minutes while he went downstairs.

Dad didn’t see him again until the theatre closed and Mr. Woods told him he had a job for as long as he needed one (he ended up staying for the next 22 years…) What ended up happening was, dad met and fell in love with my mother.

A few months later he asked her what she thought of moving to Los Angeles (he hadn’t said anything about the Disney scholarship) and when she said she had a lot of friends in the local area, dad decided to “hold off” on the idea for the time being…

Projection work usually started around 6pm, so dad found a “daytime” job to go along with it. He got a newspaper route with the Phoenix Gazette that took him 120 miles (6 days a week) out into the rural farm areas. He’d start at 11am and be back by 4:30pm and he found it was some thing he really enjoyed doing.

The paper route took him through a lot of small rural towns where the local farmers and ranchers grew vast orchards of citrus, huge fields full of watermelons, vineyards full of grapes and all kinds of other stuff. Dad was a very social person, “friend” to everyone and got to know all of the people in the area.

It wasn’t long before dad picked up a “third’ job. He’d buy watermelons, grapes, oranges, potatoes, etc (at a reasonable cost) and sell them to people on his route (at a reasonable profit…) it was something that worked out for everyone, the growers made a few extra dollars, his “customers” loved that he delivered to them and dad made enough money to keep his wife and four kids fed.

During the 60’s, Circle K food stores were popping up all over the Phoenix area and dad figured a way to add a “fourth” job to his resume. He had a friend that was a District Manager for Circle K, so he suggested supplying all his stores with fresh watermelons, guaranteeing that if there was any breakage or spoilage, the stores were to throw them out and dad would give them free ‘replacements’ on his next visit – no questions asked…

This was something that went over so well that all of the Circle K’s in the entire Phoenix area wanted in on it – Dad “hired” his teenage sons (melons run during the summer) and for 5 years we supplied all 60 some-odd stores with watermelons (and dad paid each of us for working with him – I remember the summer of 68, when I was 14 years old, I made over $200 that summer - which was like $2,000 now…)

Dad still had the paper route, so he “hired” Grandpa (who I later found out really needed the money) to help out when we got really busy… One of the best things about all of this was the chance to work “with” dad and Grandpa. Those are some of the times I remember best from when I was a kid and I wouldn’t give up for the world…

Dad’s “fifth” job came from his love of woodworking – he was a self-taught carpenter who loved building things. He could make just about anything, but he enjoyed doing things for friends and family. One day while he was at the theatre, he and the theatre manager were talking and he mentioned that he wished he had a portable snack bar that he could use when they got real busy.

Dad asked him what all he’d put in it and dad listened… Later that night dad showed him a drawing of a portable snackbar on wheels that had drink dispensers, ice cream freezers, a refrigerator for candy bars, etc and the manager turned green with envy… he said it was perfect – so dad built it for him.

A few weeks later, one of the Regional Managers came by, saw it in operation and said they could really use some of those in Los Angeles. Dad ended up making 20 of them and was paid (as he put it) “a whole lot more than they were worth”

On July 18th 1984 (mom’s birthday) I came back to my apartment and my wife told me that dad’s boss had called and wanted me to call him back as soon as possible.

Dad had been on his paper route. He’d walked into the Chandler Heights Trading Post (like he had for the last 28 years), put their stack of papers down on the counter, said, “Adios, see ya tomorrow” turned and walked out to his Datsun station wagon, but instead of opening the drivers door and getting in, he walked to the tailgate, opened it up, sat down, looked up into the sky and fell over…

He was only 58, but with all the things he’d done in his life I think he’d lived the life of someone who was closer to 85… He’d just retired from working for 40 years as a projectionist and was looking forward to spending more time with his family…

As I said at the beginning, dad was an “Amazing” person. For someone who was crippled with polio – he never gave up – he always found ways to keep going – and was never out of work – I only wish I had “half” of the ambition my father had…