Jack's mother at her new, modern house. For the past nine years I've been working with my dad on his memoir. This has been an enlightening, inspiring, tiring, and rewarding experience. Not as rewarding as it would be if we could snag the elusive publisher, but rewarding just the same. It's allowed me to spend time with my aging father, that I never would have, had it not been for 'the book'. It surprises me how sharp his memory is (that ability must skip a generation, I fear) and how he can bring to life stories from eighty years ago as though they happened yesterday. Although many of Dad's tales would make a modern day children's services worker have an apoplexy, Dad recalls them with fondness. He has no qualms telling me about the time his mother threw a carving knife at him for giving cheek. And jokes that he was usually fast enough to duck out of the way—but not that time. He still has the scar. But Dad's tale isn't one of abuse and misery. The only misery he knew was the name of the farm he lived on. And he loved the place. He loved his mother, too. She was a caring, loving mother—knife throwing incidents aside. But she was tough. She had to be. Much of her life was spent with no running water or electricity. She delivered ten healthy babies without the aid of a doctor or a hospital. She fed and clothed a brood of children on war rations, and did most of this with no husband around to help her. There are no 'woe is me' stories in my Dad's memoir, simply because Dad considers himself lucky. Lucky to have had the family and the upbringing he did. He tells me he feels sorry for the young ones today because, "I've seen the good days." And if you saw the way his eyes twinkle as he recalls memories from his childhood, you'd believe him.
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