A Tribute To A Father

I remember I was so angry that day when I found out that he had filled in the large hole that we had been digging for days for our new underground clubhouse. Our plan was to dig a huge hole and trench, then cover it over with plywood to fashion a kind of roof that would then be covered over with a thin layer of dirt thereby rendering the clubhouse below invisible and ultra secret. The "We" that I am referring to was David and Alan Miller and of course me. We should have known better than to dig on someone else's property. The three of us did a lot of things we shouldn't have done. There were several secret clubs that we formed, but we also kept girlie magazines hidden in the woods, cigarettes in a shoebox under the driveway culvert and at some point burned a giant black spot on David's bedroom wall with a chemistry set explosion. We were those kind of kids.

Later David's parents would suffer through countless hours of Beatles music blaring from David's record player as we pretended to be The Beatles practicing our music. I think we called ourselves "The HorseFlies". Eventually we "became" the Beatles and held real rehearsals on their carport and treated the entire neighborhood to our own brand of rock n roll. In those early years we turned the Miller's house and yard into army battle fields, BatCaves, secret agent headquarters and mad scientist laboratories. It went on and on. I knocked on that door off the carport leading into the kitchen every day during those certain summers with joyful anticipation of playing at the Miller's house until the sun went down. They eventually named me affectionately their "#3" son.

In my high school years, Wesley Miller was my enemy at school, and a second father after the bell rang and on those countless weekends. I was not a bad kid but my hair length was always an issue with the school administration and during those SHS years he was "The Man".

My parents had their own issues with my hair, but Mr. Miller had to be the bad guy at school.

He sympathized with all of us who longed for the dress code to be revised, but until it was, he put his personal feelings aside and went by the book. No amount of dippity do hair gel could fool him in to believing that you had actually gotten your hair cut over the weekend. He knew us all.

In 1991, My wife and I attended the Class of '71 reunion in Slidell. Wesley Miller was there as an invited teacher and we sat and talked for awhile and caught up a bit. He graciously sat with my wife and kept her company while I (sans wife) mingled with old classmates and enjoyed the hours with old friends who may or may not have wished that they too were free from the old ball and chain for a little while.

A few years ago I passed by the Miller house at 425 Michigan Avenue and happened to catch Wesley out front in the yard. He recognized me and motioned for me to pull over while he rushed back inside for a moment to retrieve something. He came back out holding an old catcher's mitt that belonged to me when I was just a kid , a forgotten remnant of my many days spent under his watchful eye on Michigan Avenue. He wanted me to have it after all those years.

I do not like to be reminded of death. I avoid funerals if I'm able. I prefer to delude myself into thinking that those that I love are not gone and that they continue to exist in those buildings and rooms and in those places that I no longer frequent. It is for my own protection. On some level they will., in fact, always exist for me and others, as a pleasant and joyous reminder of the good people that one can meet on this journey through life. This is not just for him but for his family and his life mate of so many years. They are wonderful people. From me, your unofficial number 3...rest in peace.