He hated hospitals.

Dad hated hospitals. I do not mean that he strongly disliked them. He really despised hospitals. He felt they were breeding grounds for infections. 

He wasn't born in a hospital. He didn't die in a hospital. To my knowledge, he was never even a patient in one.

And he didn't like for his family members to spend any more time that was absolutely necessary in a hospital. At all.

Unfortunately, I haven't been as lucky as Dad was in avoiding hospital stays. During the last few years, I've had a couple of stays lasting a few days each. The first time, I was pregnant. Dad drove down to check on me. He visited me in the hospital, then went to take care of the girls, and let my husband come sit with me.

But the most recent time I was hospitalized, Dad came and sat with me. For hours. He sat in a chair at my bedside and read while I napped. He didn't scare the staff. In fact, he only asked appropriate questions about the medications and treatments when a nurse came to administer them. I was really proud of Daddy for handling it all so well. I couldn't believe it.

I was so proud of him that I was telling one of his sister's about it just after he died. Turns out, Dad was pretty pleased with himself, too. In one of his last conversations with his sister, he told her how far he had come in tolerating hospitals. 

I still don't think he would ever have come so far as to have been a good patient. 

Before we even knew for certain that Daddy was dead, I remember saying to Mom that it would be ok if Dad had died while he was working on the farm. 

He still hated hospitals too much to have to die in one.

Charles remembers the summer of '64

The only time I met your dad was when my Mom, Sister, and myself were traveling across country to spend the summer (a few weeks) in Nashville at my uncle's home in the area my Mom grew up in. We had stopped for a couple of days in Brandon, MS to visit relatives. 

   So much for a brief history, let me share about your Dad.

 

    I am not sure, but I think the year I met your dad was in the summer of 1964.  It was roughly 62 or 64, my sister would know/remember better than me.  I was an antsy, sports loving kid, so of course much of visiting relatives at  10 or 12 is a bit boring.  Your Dad would have been what, 18 ish when I met him?  I remembered him as being a really neat guy and someone I looked up to.  I have only fired a gun twice in my life.  Your Dad was the first who tried to teach me to shoot a .22 riifle shooting at tin cans off a fence out back behind the Hog area.  I remember that I didn’t hit anything, the target or otherwise but was amazed at how good a shot your Dad was.  After that he drove me into Jackson with him to go to a Hog auction.  I remember sitting up in the stands with him and him telling me what was going on and being amazed at how fast the auctioneer spoke and not really grasping the whole concept of everything. Well, needless to say the time I spent with your father was quite an experience.

 

I guess one measure of impact is how much experiences stay with us.  Of that trip that summer, the one experience - person wise -  that has stood out through the years was meeting and doing things with cousin Melvin.  For years I wanted to contact him and a problem was that since we were visiting the Browns, I always thought his last name was Brown as well.  It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that my cousin told me Melvin’s last name was Rhodes.  I’m very sad that I didn’t put more effort into tracking him down then so I could have made contact.  I would have loved to have spoken with him again after all the years.  

What I can share with you, bottom line is this, for him to have made that much of an impression on a young kid on a summer vacation I think speaks of the type of person your father was.  A very good person.

Cindy. (Or..... Melvin to the rescue!)

Back in 2004, with Hurricane Ivan bearing down on Fairhope, Melvin made a flying trip to the Columbus, MS, Lowe's to fill his truck up with plywood (which was completely sold out here on the coast) and supplies, and headed south to help us secure our home. Our dear friend, Cindy, also needed some assistance, so we threw our needs together and worked on both houses as a group. At the end of the long day, Melvin basically told us that we could stay and ride it out if we wanted to, but the children were heading north with him. So, we loaded up the girls and they rode home in the truck with him. Early the next morning, when Ivan was at it's strongest and bearing down on the Alabama coast, we gave in and evacuated as well. But, both houses survived just fine, even though the eye passed directly over Fairhope.

Well, that day formed a tight bond between her & Melvin. They just instantly loved each other, and kept up with each other all the time. Cindy was on the way to Birmingham to spend Christmas with her family when we called to tell her that Melvin had died. She was as devastated as anyone, I think. She left her family's Christmas, and drove to Starkville for the funeral. And, she did exactly what Melvin would have wanted - she came in jeans, because otherwise he would not have known it was her.

She found an email from a home-repair issue, and has shared it.

From Cindy:

Here's one of the conversations via email with your Dad. He was never short on words and always made time to help.

Dearest Melvin,

I'm sure you remember being our hero and assisting us with boarding up our homes. One of the many things I asked for advice on was the rotting around the bottoms of our doors . I remembered you saying to cut away the rotten area
and replace. Well, I have removed the rotten pieces. I need further advice on replacement of the wood, where to get, etc. Hope you are doing well! Thanks in advance!!!

Melvin's response:

Cindy, you need to go by Lowe's or building store and buy a stick of Brickmold molding. That is the outside-most piece that goes up against the brick and just cut a piece of it to fit as needed. I normally replace the door frame part first, and then cut the brick mold to be about a foot above the other piece. That gives it room to give strength to the ddor frame patch. The building supply store should have a piece of the door frame board and it can be cut to fit. The tricky part is to get it looking right with the rest of the part above. To do that, I use shims (about a dollar or two for a pack. They are are wedges that you can slide in the big end on one, and then slide in the little end on the next one in order to get a flat piece just the right thickness to hold it into place.

I have also been known to use a prybar to hold it just right for nailing and then letting the brickmold hold it solidly into place. The door frame will have to be cut at at angle at the bottom and slid into place. A good dose of construction adhesive (Liquid Nails or my favortie, F_26, will lock everything together. Then you prime really well, caulk after priming, and then one or two good coats of paint. I cheat a lot, whenever I replace a door frame, I save all of the parts and use them for the next repairs until I run out. That door frame part may run $30, to buy, but without a good table saw and really good lumber, it is hard to make. I would rather buy. The metal door threshold will probably have some staples holding the frame together, u just take a chisel or plyers and jerk them out, clean the bottom and then slide in the door frame part. I hope you saved the pieces that you took out, if so, use them for a pattern. When you get through with this one, go repaint all of the other ones on the house to keep from having to do them. It looks like you have done a lot of the work, I usually spend about 30 or 45 minutes to do all of it, but then, I do a lot of them, and keep everything on the truck. If I write a letter and do the work, you would expect a bill of about 150 for it if I was in a good mood and a friend, I put the screws to a guy last week who demanded it be done in 105 index weather with it having to be done one afternoow with the sun on me. If you have a question while you are doing it, just call me. Good luck, hope all are well.

Mother, currently 95 and less that three weeks from 96, is having problems accepting that her 23 year old cat has stopped eating and is about to die. Kinda hard to explain old age and death to a person of her age that just doesn't think you took the cat to the right Vet. Wish me luck.

Melvin

(I have to admit that it had not really occurred to me that someone might have an email from Dad that she would be willing to share. I've yet to make it all the way through this one without getting choked up, because it is just so Dad. My favorite lines are his mention of "F-26" and his discussion of Granny's cat. Dad's love of F-26 and his relationship with cats deserve to be posts of their own...I'll add them to the list of topics I have still to cover. tlm)