Becoming a (great,grand)father

The beauty of hearing about my grandpa’s life as he grows old is realizing the many different people one gets to be or roles one gets to play in a lifetime. He’s been a father to four, a grandpa to eight, and a great-grandpa to two. Fifty-six years of fatherhood is the quite the achievement. I’ve mentioned the stories of how the kids came about before in the blog, but I thought it was worth another go-round in grandpa’s own words.

Pam came on December 11^th, 1957. Ethel, well, she had nicknames for all of her kids. It was Panacoranacobana. Then comes the winter of 1958, and Ethel is very pregnant. Of course, my dad always did say that Ethel was looked big enough to have twins this time around. She even felt like she was feeling twins, but Dr. Gaddy said, “One head, one heartbeat”. It’s gonna be a biggun.

So it was the 9^th of December, 1958, two days shy of Pam’s birthday, when I needed to take Ethel in to the old Georgetown hospital. The baby was going to be delivered by two doctors, Dr. Gaddy and Dr. Benold. Ethel’s sister Mimi was a nurse there.

That morning, I wasn’t allowed anywhere close to the delivery room. I had to wait on the front porch for the report from the nurses that later came out to tell me that I had a real cute little daughter. Well, good, that makes two daughters. Then, after a bunch of talking, they finally said about 30 minutes later you had a big boy.

The rest of the story takes place inside the hospital. They were wheeling Ethel in with Dr. Gaddy still saying, “One head, one heartbeat.” Cindy was born first. Her nickname was to be Cindy-Lindy or Cinny-Minny-May. Dr. Gaddy’s cleaning up and told Mimi to take care of the mother. Mimi hollered out, “Dr. Gaddy, there’s another one in here!” He said, “Oh my god, get Benold! We’re going to need some help.”

After Tim was born, Ethel hollered out, “But what am I going to do in church?” She’s worried about three babies in church. After all, Pam wasn’t a year old until two days later. Dr. Gaddy’s only reply was, “If it was my wife, she’d say to hell with church.” So Tim was born, also known as Timbo or Timmy-Limmy.

Finally, August 17, 1962, here comes Danny. He would be called Wanny-wo and, for a bit, Lupeshawn. For the longest, it was, “How’s my little Lupeshawn?” That was until we went to a Jarrell basketball game and asked, “Well, did you enjoy the game?”

Little Danny said, “Yeah, but there’s a little girl there, and she’s got the same name as I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, her name was Lupe.”

It was a little Mexican girl. Ethel didn’t call him Lupeshawn anymore. He always wanted to know if she was one of our kinfolks.

Ray is the patriarch of our family. When he clears his throat and tells us to gather around, we all stop what we’re doing. When we grandkids were little, he was the ultimate authoritarian. It seems that carried on from when my mom and her brothers and sisters were growing up. After a family trip, the girls wanted to rush to get home for an event. But Grandpa had other plans.

Getting home quickly was the priority for Pam and Cindy because of a special event going on at the school. Like their mother, they couldn’t miss anything. On the way out of St. Louis, I noted the advertising for a play called The Shepherd of the Hills close to Branson, Missouri. After seeing the advertising, I thought that might be something for the kids to remember this trip by, so I pulled over. I was with the boys in one car, and the girls were following behind us in another car. They pulled over and I walked back to their car and said, “Y’all want to turn off and go down toward Branson and see this play? It’s an outdoor theater.” I had never been to one. It might be really good. It’s called The Shepherd of the Hills.

Well, they didn’t know. Let’s stop again in a little while. The girls weren’t really interested, but I had the boys talked into it. After a couple of stops, we still hadn’t decided what to do. Mom told the girls, “Next time we stop, we’ll have to tell dad one way or the other. Remember now, daddy, said this time when we stop, we’ll vote on it.” The girls’ answer was, “What’s the use of voting when you live under a dictator?”

Sure enough, we turned off and headed toward Branson. We took in The Shepherd of the Hills that night, and never forgot it. But we also drove back all night through Arkansas, most of the time behind trucks loaded with chickens and turkeys—feathers flew everywhere. It was morning when we got into Bryan/College Station area and got on home safely, thank the Lord. Just barely home, and the girls had to make a trip to Georgetown with the boys to see what’s going on. That was really important.

He still is our patriarch, but he has grown a little softer now. Time, babies, grandbabies, and great-grandbabies have a way of doing that to a person. It was already almost 30 years ago, Grandpa became “grandpa” for the first time. My sister Lauren was born in Dallas on February 12, 1984. Ray went on to be blessed with 7 more grandchildren. Now Ray is a great-grandpa to Ava Phillips and, as of last November, Harrison Hodgkins. As he would say, “That’s pretty neat…and a story for another time.”

Harrison and great-grandpa Ray, and Ava and great-grandpa Ray

Our funny family Easter 2014, minus Mike, Brecklyn, Cameron, and Ava

Our family Easter 2014, minus Mike, Brecklyn, Cameron, and Ava

Strung along

I am a sucker for sentimentality. I have a shoebox full of old notes from high school and every birthday card I’ve ever been given. The writing in them fills me with pleasure and restores memories long forgotten. I’m amazed at how a simple musical instrument can have the same effect. Judging from the story of my great-great-grandpa’s violin, I do believe sentimentality (and hoarding) must be inherited.

Grandpa Max would bring the violin out at Christmas, after much begging from the children. He would tune the strings, run the bow across the top, and play German Christmas songs.

Grandpa Max died, then Grandma, and here was grandpa’s violin. My brother, two sisters, and I were the recipients of their possessions since my daddy had died earlier. When it came time, the family got together to dispose of the merchandise, tools, play toys, dishes, radios, TV sets, and clothing. Being older and not able to play it, the rest of them didn’t want anything to do with the violin. I said I’d like to have it because I played the saxophone and could tinker on the piano. Since it was an auction among the family, the question was, “What would you give for it?” I said 25 dollars. The reaction was, “Well, it’s yours.” Grandpa Max’s violin wound up coming to our house where it stayed untouched in the closet for almost 30 years.

In September of 2004, Grandma and I were up in east Texas in Jefferson. Grandma took an Aladdin lamp to get an original lampshade. I noticed across the street was a music store called Der Baskit Kase. Damn, it hit me! I went over there and talked to that ole boy that owned the place. I saw that he made, rebuilt, and reworked—new, as well as antique—string instruments of all kinds. I asked if he would look at my grandfather’s violin and make it playable if I sent it to him.

“Oh yeah, just send it to me.”

So, I put it in the box and sent it.

He called back with an estimate. First off, he said the case was no good. It had dust mites, which attack the bowstrings. He threw it in the dumpster. He replaced the bow hairs and all other parts on the violin he deemed necessary; the total labor amounted to 40 dollars. He told me when he called about shipping it back that he was going to send along an estimate on the monetary value of this violin, as he is a licensed instrumental appraiser. What really shocked me was this letter:

September 6, 2004

Ref: Otto Bruckner violin - 1937

Dear Mr. Ray Mickan,

A fine reproduction of Antonius Stradivarius 1716 violin. In 1964 these violins sold for $450.00 dollars. In today’s market the value is estimated at $1,943.90. This estimate does not include a case and bow. The bow is original of pernambuco wood and select quality and has a value of around $200.00 dollars.

This would be an excellent violin outfit for an advanced student.

Sincerely,

Don Clampett

I called him and said, “What do you mean by Otto Bruckner violin?” He said “Well, if you would take that violin and look in the bottom of the case, you’ll see that it’s got a card printed with the words Otto Brückner, and the u has an umlaut, which means it’s pronounced ‘Brickner’. The date right under that is marked 1937, and then it says „handmade copie of Antonius Stradivarius“ Germany. He said he would recommend insurance to ship it back because it is a valuable violin. The insurance and shipping would cost 31 dollars and 60 cents.

I’m anxious to go back to Jefferson sometime. Someday, I want to take this thing out again and really play with it because he fixed me up with a good violin case and that told me that there was no bullshit about him. Especially thinking back to a time when he could have told me, “Nah—ain’t worth fixin’. Do you wanna sell it? I’ll give you fifty dollars.”

That’s the story on Grandpa’s violin.

Music to his ears

When it comes to Grandpa, music naturally comes to mind. When I think about his love of music and song, the stories are endless. Where do I start? The church pipe organ he painstakingly helped pick out and assemble. No, no, his song at my sister’s wedding—the same song, sung by him, echoed from the same church rafters for my parent’s wedding. Or what about his grandpa Max’s replica Antonius Stradivarius violin. Oh, the brass band would be good. And I can’t leave out the barbershop quartet!

Grandpa singing at my sister's wedding

It's best to let him put his love to words: 

I loved music, and put a lot of church hymns to memory. I was able to sing multiple parts in choir—bass and tenor. In the male chorus, I would sing first tenor and second tenor. I was also blessed with the natural ability to read music. A group of us drove to Granger once a week to study steel guitar, which Calvin Buchhorn still plays, among other instruments. Calvin also played in the Brass Band.

In those early years, I was so very proud of my dad. My daddy played clarinet in the church band, also known as the Zion Lutheran Church Brass Band. It was a thrill to see and hear him play the clarinet polka in accompaniment by the church band. I can still put him there on a bunch of trees with a platform about a foot and a half off the ground. There were approximately twenty eight players. When daddy would start off, you never knew when it was comin’. The fingering was unreal. That’s when I decided I knew why he was such a good mechanic—he could do everything the right way with his fingers, including music. In later years, after I was out of high school, my dad, along with my brother and I, played in that band and toured Central Texas during the summers at school picnics.

I’ve been privileged to experience my grandpa’s awe at a good song. This past Easter weekend, he sang in a Good Friday Cantata service. We listened to the somber songs for days before, for inspiration and entertainment. But it couldn’t compare to the live show that night. His strong voice also provided the narration for the service. Several weeks later, my sister and I went along to hear his Cantata choir perform alongside ten others. After each choir had performed, the ten of them stood together and sang one final song. When it was finished, I looked at him. He had tears running down his cheeks and he looked up at me and said, “That was beautiful. Imagine. That’s a small glimpse of what heaven will be like—‘singing him and praising’.”

Meeting more Mickans

On Friday, I was working in the shop when a man walked in. He was visiting the States from Australia and introduced himself as Rex Mickan. As it turns out, he was tracking down Mickans in Texas and had researched Walburg and Mickan Motor Company online. We chatted about the Wendish migration to Texas and he showed me the homeland of the Mickans on a map of Germany.

Rex is a retired pastor for a Lutheran church. On the other side of the world, the Mickans are not only part of a Lutheran church, but deeply involved, much like my own Mickan grandparents. The Lutheran legacy lives on through the generations and across oceans. Like my grandpa, he has a deep appreciation of pipe organs and showed me a picture of the organ installed in his church in Australia.

Unfortunately, my grandparents were in California watching my cousin Morgan play baseball so they didn’t get the chance to meet Rex who, ironically, was on his way to California on Monday to visit his family. Luckily, we exchanged e-mail addresses so more Mickans can keep in touch.

Made tough

My stubbornness seldom shows through more than when you try to get me to visit the doctor or take medication when I’m sick. I hate having to make the trip to the store, the price-gouging, and actually having to remember to take the medication. However, this past week, I went rushing to the store in search of a cure. I contracted the notorious stomach virus that’s been plaguing much of the world. I felt like a weakling as I lay around whining and moaning to anyone who would listen (when I wasn’t in self-inflicted solitary confinement). I also had plenty of time to dwell on the stories about the toughness of those with ailments and injuries in the days gone by when quick trips to the pharmacy weren’t an option or necessarily wanted. These made me realize I was lucky to be able to recuperate for days in bed and run to the store to get medicine. Some stories also made my stomach lurch—at least I think that was the result of reading the stories:

My neighbor, Mr. Zoch, was one tough man. Once, he was using his combine and got it choked up. He got off the tractor and walked around the back to see which belt was slipping. After he found which belt was slipping, he grabbed hold of it and pulled on it to help it roll around its pulley. The pulley was stuck tight causing it to slip. He kept on pulling and it finally turned loose. The pulley and the belt started together, only the belt forced his fingers on his left hand in the groove of that pulley and caused them to break. But like I say, Mr. Zoch was tough. He never cried or hollered loud; he just came up to the shop and held up his broken fingers for us to see.

Another time, Mr. Zoch was gonna show his grandson how to work the Farmall tractor with a sickle mower attached to mow the weeds growing in the pasture. Mr. Zoch was standing on the back of the tractor drawbar while his grandson Donald Haygood was driving. They hit some rough terrain and Mr. Zoch got too close to the power take-off drive shaft. It grabbed his loose overalls by the pants leg, ripped his britches, and almost tore his hide off. Mr. Zoch came to the shop and showed it to us after he wrapped it up with some old dish clothes. His pain reliever: a sick pack of Pearl beer. His daughter rushed him to Dr. Gaddy. Dr. Gaddy said, “We’re gonna have to bandage you up and keep you here overnight to check you.” Mr. Zoch said, “I’m not staying. I’m going home where I got my Pearl beer. That’s all that I need. I don’t need any of your fancy medicine.” Mr. Zoch came home, and he drank his Pearl beer. He recuperated.

Mr. Zoch demonstrated his toughness and remarkable ability to recuperate once again when he went to pick up the meat from a meat locker plant in Granger. He was going to the meat locker to pick up the fresh tongue, heart, and liver of his slaughtered animal. Kris Doerfler had taken a calf to the Granger meat locker plant to be butchered because Mr. Zoch didn’t have a trailer. On the way to pick up the meat, right past Scott’s grainery, Mr. Zoch ran off the road at a curb and hit a tree head on. Since he wasn’t driving real fast, the damage wasn’t all that bad, but he couldn’t move the car. He grabbed his bucket and dishtowels. Kris waited at the locker plant, knowing that Mr. Zoch was coming. Since he didn’t show, Kris decided to backtrack and sure enough, here’s Mr. Zoch walking along the side of the road toward Granger, bucket in hand. Kris stopped and asked him where he was going in a comical way. Mr. Zoch sarcastically replied, “That’s none of yer business.”

Well, they went back to Granger and got the heart, liver, and tongue. Kris brought them back to his home. Mr. Zoch said he had to have a beer because he was hurtin’. Lots of time, Mr. Zoch bought Pearl beer in quarts, and I think this was a quart job. It was that evening when Mr. Zoch’s son-in-law and daughter, Lewis and Gladys, came to visit. His daughter told him, “Papa, we need to take you to the doctor if you’re hurtin’ that bad in your side from the wreck. We went to get the car and it looks pretty bad. Besides, you’re gonna have to report the accident to the Highway Patrol.” Mr. Zoch said, “They don’t need to know everything.” But his daughter said, “This is the law and Papa, you better not drink anymore beer or else they gonna smell it on you.” Papa said, “I’ll drink enough to where I don’t hurt.” They took him to Dr. Gaddy again, and Dr. Gaddy wrapped him up and said, “You broke some ribs.” Mr. Zoch said, “I figured I did, and I figured I’m gonna suffer but Pearl will get me through.” That was my neighbor, Mr. Zoch.

Looking after a Legacy

“Well lookey yonder,” I hear as I walk through the shop’s double doors. I see his blue eyes shining through his thick metal-rimmed glasses above his big grin. I’m immediately introduced to anyone sitting nearby. “She’s one of the one’s who lived in New York. She’s the one who’s writing my book.” They smile and say, “Oh yes, I remember hearing about you.” I stock the Cokes and walk behind the counter to help a few people checkout and listen to my Grandpa tell stories and jokes.

Walking in the shop always makes me feel like I’m taking a trip through time. I look at the pictures on the wall of my great-Grandpa’s diploma from Sweeney Automotive School and the shop back in the 1940s. That diploma and land bought from Mr. Zoch helped my great-Grandpa overcome the title of “shade tree mechanic” and build the shop we know and love:  

When my dad decided to go in business for himself, he wanted some land close to Walburg instead of where he had been working under shade trees on the homeplace. The reason I say shade trees is there is an expression used, “Oh, he’s just a shade tree mechanic.” Not having a roof over his head or a shop to work in, my dad would be talked about as a shade tree mechanic. He would be working under a shade tree so he wouldn’t be out in the hot sun, naturally. A shade tree would also have a big enough limb to hold the chain-hoist; in the old days, you had a chain-hoist attached to the rear or front bumper of the vehicle to raise it. A shade tree mechanic was usually all by himself with little or no experience.

Yep, my dad was a shade tree mechanic who went to Sweeney Automotive and Electrical School in Kansas City, and then decided he wanted to build his own place. So he came to Mr. Zoch to buy a half an acre of land to build a shop. It was agreed Mr. Zoch would sell a half an acre to my dad, close to the corner of FM 972. At that time, the road coming down from Walburg was a straightaway and the road coming from St. Peter’s was a straightaway, so they formed a sharp t-intersection instead of the curve there today. Dad didn’t buy the exact bottom end of the t, he bought a little up from the t-intersection.

My great-Grandpa's diploma

Eighty-six years have come and gone since my great-Grandpa started Mickan Motor Company. Three generations of Mickan men have worked under the cars, trucks and tractors. Last summer, the fourth generation, Danny’s daughter, Maddie, worked at the counter where my grandma still works and I’ll work now. As of this week, I’m a full-time employee at Mickan Motor Company. Family-owned small businesses are becoming harder and harder to find. I think about what will happen to the shop but, as I mentioned in my earlier blog post “Plans”, the future is entirely unpredictable. My grandpa talks longingly about his Uncle Alfred’s old gas station:

If you drive by Norththrop today, there is no visible evidence of Uncle Alfred’s house, his shop, or his gas station. The children sold the property and now it is bare. There is nothing that would lead you to believe that there ever was anything there. Because he was a mechanic, his place was an important place in his damn time. Now it’s gone.

Some businesses fade but others endure and there’s no way of telling what will happen. For now, we do our best; I’m proud to help Danny, Paul, Grandpa and Grandma keep the lights on at Mickan Motor Company. Grandpa can be proud his place is still thriving and his son and son-in-law spawned two other family businesses. My cousin Brecklyn works for Tech Management, a family business run by her parents in Midland, Texas, while my cousin Branden works for his father, Tim, at Mickan Tool & Supply in Houston, Texas. We’re all close in age—27 this year—helping to ensure that family businesses aren’t all a legacy lost.

Mickan Motor Company, 2012

The Writer's Struggle

It’s been way too long. I know this. But every time I would sit down to write a blog, all I could think was, “It’s been so long. I’m ashamed I waited this long. I don’t want people to catch on to how long it’s been so I’m just going to wait some more.” It’s silly, really. Life gets busy and it’s an easy excuse to skip a day of writing, which turns into a week, and then a month. Not anymore; I am writing. Because Grandpa deserves his story to be heard and I certainly won’t be the one to hold him back.

Writing is hard. And harder when I know what’s on the line—doing justice to the seventy eight years my grandpa has lived. Courtesy of one of my coworkers at the dog daycare, I’ve been reading magazines and blogs about the craft of writing. There’s a gratification that comes from hearing about other people who are facing the same hardships. The biggest struggle for me is just sitting down and writing. I read a fantastic article from an advice columnist in which a woman had written about not being able to sit down and write and dealing with insecurities. The columnist, along with a wealth of other useful advice, wrote, “Writing is hard for every last one of us. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.” Such a simple principle. So I’m digging in.

Right now, I’m still editing. We have seventy eight years of stories to put down on paper before we’ll know how to begin to make a book out of it…which brings me to another labor: patience. It takes a long while to document 78 years of stories. But I have also learned a seemingly minor detail could be the thread that ties the whole thing together. Believe me—we won’t be leaving anything out. Luckily, Grandpa and I are trucking along and I couldn’t ask for a better subject. So stick around, I’ve got some good tales to put on paper.