LISTEN DAD

He smoothed out the crumpled sheets slowly. In some places the writing was blurred by his tears–the ink had run together. Parts of the letter were undecipherable but it did not matter. He knew it by ear and could fill in the missing words.

Dear Dad:

I’m going to slip this letter in among your handkerchiefs so you’ll not find it until I have left. I can’t go away without trying to explain some of the things I’ve wanted to get off my chest for years. It was always hard for me to talk to you–I’m slow and sort of tongue-tied, and you seemed too busy to listen most of the time. I’d get tangled up and fumble my words and in the end I didn’t get it over. You probably thought I was practically half-witted.

Yet I always wanted to please you, Dad. Even when I was a little kid I was mighty proud of you–I still am. Big shot in business, yes, that was part of it; naturally, it’s swell to know that your father is head of one of the biggest firms in the country–but that wasn’t all. It went further than that. The funny old pictures of your team, you with the bunchy shoulders and the letter spread all over your sweater front. One of the famous Dervishes, no less. Boy!

I thought you were wonderful. And all the trophies in the library, the cups for golf and tennis and marlin and the muskies on the walls, the photographs of your ponies. You did everything so well, and I despaired of even coming up to your expectations. From the beginning you counted on my following your footsteps, but I knew it wasn’t in me. I wasn’t made of the same stuff.

Mother understood that I was different. She worried because you and I didn’t get along better and she tried to be a buffer between us. I think that must have been why you sent me off to that boys’ camp when I was only nine - against her wishes. Did you do it to toughen me up, Dad? All that happened was I caught a bad cold and from being ducked so often by the camp bullies and had to come home. You thought I was a sissy; you couldn’t help showing how displeased you were–but I had never been taught to defend myself. Those big boys scared the daylights out of me; that’s why they picked on me. You expected me to go back, but Mother put her foot down.

After that you let me go out to the farm for summer vacations (or did she persuade you?) I loved the farm – the horses and colts and the peace. The smell of pines and the sound of win...I like to sneak away and lie on my back and in the lower meadow by the brook and watch the birds. I don’t believe you an understand that can you? Tha was when I began thinking of flying, Dad. The birds all looked so happy, so free. They’d wheel and swoop and sing their little hearts out up there in the blue sky. It was marvelous.

I loved the cozy kitchen that was in the beautiful white farm house. It was so homelike to come in and hear the teakettle singing in the kitchen range. With grandmother there, it was like being at home with mother. On the sunny afternoons, when she was spreading a lunch of chocolate cake and ice cold milk before me, she would talk with me and encourage me to press onward to my goal in life.

The big, spacious living room will always retain a place in my memory. I loved to sit before the open fireplace and dream of the days when I’d fly. As I sat and watched the flames leap up around the logs, visions of myself as the pilot of the plane would constantly haunt my dreams. Sometimes I’d snuggle up in a big chair and spend my time reading books on planes and how they fly. Grandfather had a well-chosen library.

I remember how you fussed about the mess I made later with my ariplane models. Balsa wood and tissue paper over everything once you got in the blue and cussed at me. You frightened me when you bawled me out, Dad. I suppose you never realized that. You were so big, so efficient.

I tried to keep out of your way as much as possible, but now and then I’d get into trouble. You’d have thought this house was big enough for both of us without stepping on each other’s toes, wouldn’t you? After a while I found a corner out in the garage to keep my junk, and things went better then. Jackson was a good scout and didn’t mind the clutter. He never told you about me–did he? When he drove you into the office mornings. He swore he wouldn’t...because i didn’t want you to think I was a coward, hiding that way from you.

By the time I was 16 I knew how to fly. You talked about my coming into one of your plants when I finished college, and I didn’t argue. Luckily, an engineering course was necessary for flying, too, so we didn’t need to go to bat about my schedule. I was too light for football–which dissapointed you. I wasn’t so hot on the golf course, or the tennis courts, either. Because I didn’t dare tell you; you see I was spending all my time at the airport. I managed to get by in my classes, though. I figured it all out carefully. Put the heat on the courses that would matter later and don’t waste time on the things that woulnd’t be important to flying. That brought my average down, of course.

Mother knew about it; I am sure she was terrified at the idea of my flying but she encouraged me just the same. She realized what it meant to me. I nevr asked her not to tell you, but she just didn’t. Did she? She was often unhapy because she had to take sides, but when she thought it necessry she did it. She was so little, so brave. She reminded me of the humming-birds in the garden, quick and sure and so lovely.

When I first went off to school she used to call me long distance. Sometimes on a rainy night she’d call to ask if I had got my feet wet, or if exams were approaching to assure me that I’d be all right. Quite often she rang up no reason - she just wanted to talk to me. That usually happened when I was sort of low in my mind. She could always tell in that uncanny way of hers. Honestly, she could read my mind, high or low. After I got used to it, I didn’t get low very often, to tell the truth. I liked the university and the fellows in the house. I know you were furious when you found out that I had not joined your fraternity, but I think I was right. Your name still decorated a lot of cups and plaques and you were one of the legendary heroes of the campus. That’s the reason I never let on that you were my dad. I was such a poor copy, see. Fortunately, you were too tied down during those years to make the long trip to the university and I kept the secret. That would have hurt you if you had known. I wasn’t old enough to realize that then, Dad.

After mother died, I had a bad time. I wanted to come home and stay with you but you didn’t ask me. I expect it was awful for you, too alone in this great house. If her going left as big a hole in your life as it did in mine, it must have been horrible. You adored her. We had that in common at least.

I missed her letters and the phone alls and I prayed you’d fill in once a while for her, but you didn’t. The only letters you ever wrote were those you sent after reports were sent home. Those weren’t the kind I needed.

That was the winter I went a little haywire. I got drunk a couple of times and got mixed up with one of the town girls. For a while, that is, by spring I was out on the flying field again. I soloed then; for the first time in my life I felt really alive. It’s a thrill, Dad. I can’t explain it. You felt a kinship with the birds, a freedom from the earth–a soaring feeling, it is. It’s lonely flying but I think I’ve always been kind of lonely and I don’t notice it. It makes you conscious that you’re the master of your fate. Don’t laugh, sir; flying makes me sort of sentimental - I can’t help it. I’ve even written a few bad poems about it - and torn them up. By June of 1941, when I graduated, things had begun to go pf-f--t all over the world. We fellows talked seriously about our future. We were all rather unsettled and upset I suppose. Some of the men were already drafted. High marks didn’t mean very much. Nevertheless, most of us managed to skim through, though I imagine the other parents felt the same way you did, that we hadn’t made the most of our opportunities. Once I tried to write some of my ideas to you, but I didn’t send it. I was sorry to let you down but there it was. Your generation, my generation belonged in different eras.

So then I went out and enlisted in the Air Corps. Right after graduation and before I came home. It was the only way, Dad, because I had made my decision and I was afraid you’d be able to change my mind if I came home first. You generally got what you wanted. Probably that’s why you’re a captain of industry, a tycoon, but this time I was sure and I had learned a bit from you, too. It took me a long time to discover that a guy has to go after what he wants.

While I’ve been waiting for my orders I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I haven’t been loafing - I’ve been growing up, I guess. It has suddenly dawned on me that I am of age - I am a man. I can decide for myself. I am a good flyer - an exceptionally good one, they tell me. I am going into this thing with everything I’ve got. Before long we’ll be flying all over the world, and I intend to be ready by then. We make swell flyers, we Americans; we have what it takes.

I am glad I can do this job well, that I have found the one place where I can be tops. I never could have been that, Dad, in your factories. I’d just have been the big boss’s son. That isn’t enough for me. If I stick my neck out in this flying business, well, it’ll be my neck - my responsibility. Do you understand that, sir?

Listend, Dad, I want you to be as proud of me as I am of you. I want you to be able to say, "my son" some day and get a thrill out of it, the way I get a thrill when I read about you in the papers, or the way I feel in the air. I want you to be able to say, "Well, done, flyer," and mean it. That’s what Mother would say if she were here.

I remember something she said to me once. It was the summer before she died. We were out on the terrace watching a pair of robbins teaching their young ones to fly. One by one, the old birds would push the clumsy little things to the edge of the nest. They’d teeter and wobble but finally they’d take off uncertainly. After a few trial flights they’d be dipping and practicing and having a whale of a time. I turned to Mother and said, "You see? Hey soon find out how to care for themselves."

She kissed me and went on watching the baby birds. Then she said, "It isn’t so hard on the mother bird - she can fly, too. But it must be fun, darling." Yet she was afraid for me. It is fun, Dad, I love it and I’m incomplete without a plane. Try to understand this, and when I’m gone, remember that I’ll be fulfilling my destiny. You’ll never have to be ashamed of me. I’m going to succeed my way, as you have in yours. Goodbye. Your son.

He folded the letter gently and rose to his feet. Crossing the library he stood before his desk looking down through a mist at the portrait of his son. The firelight cast a life - like glow on the handsme young face in the silver frame; the steady eyes seemed to watch him and the lips appeared to be on the point of smiling.

He picked up the brave bronze cross, hung from its bit of bright ribbon, so newly presented. It felt cold, and he warmed it between his two hands. Then he wrapped it carefully in the creased letter and returned it to his box. He heard again the fine, high sounding words, intended to console and solace: "Distinguished Service Cross - post humously awarded - conspicuous bravery in action against overwhelming enemy air craft - beyond the call of duty...

And now it’s too late to tell you how I loved you. His voice shook a little. How proud I was of everything you did - your singleness of purpose, your honesty - your guts. I know a lot more about you than you realized son, but like you I couldn’t get it out." He raised a hand slightly in salute. "Well, done, flyer," he said softly and he thought he saw the corners of his boy’s mouth turn up in pleased response.