Not What I Was Expecting

1. Unwelcome News

   Three days before Thanksgiving, as I sat in a tiny room awaiting my turn to be examined, the entire situation seemed surreal. The padded chairs had upholstered seats with cameo backs in a matching floral print. The gilt-framed prints on the pastel colored walls were pink florals and there were artificial pink flowers in vases on the side table. The magazines on the table had a feminine bent; even the cover of Redbook was pink. It was as if I had entered a world turned genteel, soft and pink. There were no signs of virility; this was not a space designed for men. An uneasy feeling crept into my bones and a keen sense of awkwardness overwhelmed me. The sign on the wall said, “Please Remove Bra.” I tried not to let my mind go there. Why was I here, so obviously out of my element and out of synch with this environment? 

   After ten minutes, the technician came to fetch me. She led me through a labyrinth of halls adorned with more floral prints and after multiple turns we reached the testing room. “Step in here please”, she said as she stepped aside. I walked into the room and stared at the unfamiliar piece of equipment. I didn’t know whether to walk up beside it, stand in front of it or sit on it. “Take off your shirt please” she asked, with a little hesitancy. I did, and she looked at me as awkwardly as I was feeling at the moment. I’m over 65 years old, and my body bears the results of multiple surgeries. With my three-week old beard and hairy chest, I don’t think I fit the mold of her normal clientele.

  She quickly recovered and instructed me to step forward and face the odd looking device. She had me lean forward and then squeezed the sides of the device around my breast. When she had the precise angle captured, she stepped behind a screen and said, “Don’t breath”. I heard the machine wheeze and click and then she advised, “Breath”. After a couple of additional poses and clicks, she said, “O.K. that’s it, I’ll take you back to your room now.” I suppose that was so I could put my bra back on. I had completed my first mammogram.

   After another 10 minutes a nurse’s aide came and led me to the Radiologist’s office for a review of the mammogram and for an ultrasound of the surrounding area. As the nurse prepared me for the ultrasound, I said, “I bet you don’t get many patients with hair on their chest”. A wry grin appeared on her lips as she softly replied, “You’d be surprised”.  Lord help me, I wasn’t prepared for that answer, “TMI”, I said and quickly changed the subject. The doctor soon appeared and after scanning me with the ultrasound, she told me that the tumor was not large and it was smooth shaped. “With men” she explained, “that doesn’t mean a lot. Men don’t follow the normal patterns, we’ll have to do a biopsy and send it to pathology to determine if it is malignant”. She performed the biopsy with a needle extraction process and pronounced that the outcome would not be available until the next day. I arranged to return the following day at 11:00am so my wife could join me for the results.

   Four days earlier I had accidently bumped my chest with my hand and discovered the lump just under the skin on my left breast. It caused me concern because I have a family history of breast cancer in the females on my mother’s side. My general physician referred me for the imaging and it took a couple of days to set up the test. Now, I would find out the results on the following day. No need to alert the kids and grand kids until I knew something definite. As I left the clinic, I noticed that even the Christmas tree in the lobby had a pink bow topping the strands of white pearl and pink ribbon. I felt as if I had just walked out of a bad dream, because men don’t get breast cancer.

   At 11:00 the next morning, Cheryl and I sat in the doctor’s consultation room, expecting the worst but hoping for the best. The radiologist calmly sat in front of us, looked me straight in the eyes, and matter-of-factly declared, “It is malignant.”  It was a ductal carcinoma that may or may not have metastasized to other organs in my body. The bad dream had transitioned into a nightmare.  She then described the most likely scenario that would lead to the removal of the tumor, the breast tissue and the sentinel lymph nodes. I was light-headed as I realized that the word ‘benign’ had simply not been uttered. As I floated back to reality, she was saying, “I’ll set up an appointment with a surgeon and he will determine what the best course of action will be.” She was a consummate professional and I thought how she must hate her job at times like these. Surely she has to deliver that message several times a day. God bless her. This was Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the surgeon was not available until the following week. We thanked her for her candor and I drifted out to spend an anxious holiday.

   I struggled to determine what I had to be thankful for. I called all my children and my brothers to pass on the dismal projections and I held back the tears and despair that threatened to overwhelm me. I looked on the web and I was astonished to discover that one out of every thousand breast cancers are discovered in men. How unfortunate that I managed to be one of them. As the week progressed, I prayed that God would give me the grace and dignity to accept whatever the new day brought. Somewhere in the midst of the self pity and fear, the realization came to me that God, in His providence, has always watched over me and I had much to be thankful for. My family and all those I love are something to be cherished, even if everything else is wrong.

   On my Facebook page on Thanksgiving Day, I wrote:

 Psalm 118:24 "This is the day which the Lord has made, Let us rejoice and be glad in it"
There are times when I forget to be thankful for the real things in my life. I am thankful for life itself and the wonderful people that God has put in my life. These are the real things, that mean more than anything else. Thank you Lord and bless all those I love on this day of thanksgiving. I am grateful for each one of them.

     On Thanksgiving day, my brother sent me the following Email:

“You have been on my mind most of the day so when Kim asked me in the "family gathering" around me what I had to be thankful of, you are the first thing I thought of.  While pondering the question, I wondered how I could be thankful of the draconian news you delivered.  All I could think of was "if you have to have cancer, it's good to have the kind you have."  I've spent some time on the internet trying to understand what you have and only have a small sense of what you must be thinking and not looking forward to.  But then, I guess you are looking forward to getting rid of what you have and go on about your life.

And that's what I'm thankful of this year, that you are going to have many more years with your family and friends and doing the things you like to do.  It does bring the subject of trying to get together more often to the forefront of my mind though.  That's my goal for the rest of my life, to spend as much time as I can with you and Ted and the other members of my family.

I love you Brother and always will,

Mike”

   On Sunday after Thanksgiving, as we sat in church, I tried to concentrate, but my mind kept wandering to the uncertainties of the future. I carried a large black Bible with me that day; one that I rarely take to worship service. When the pastor asked for all with a special need to come to the front, Cheryl and I held hands, walked to the front and prayed together at the altar. During the sermon that followed, my mind wandered again. While holding the Bible in my lap, it just popped open to where I had placed a copy of a card that I had sent to a friend about a year earlier. It was a self-created card that I had written the verse and inserted my own pictures. When I read my own words of comfort that I had written for my friend, the message came back at me like a golden boom-a-rang.

   The surgeon was young, hopefully older than he looked, but he spoke with clear authority on the subject and he obviously had a wealth of experience in performing these types of procedures. He confirmed what the radiologist had predicted the week before and he described in great detail what the process would be. We talked about heredity testing for the genes that my mother’s family could have passed down to me, and he recommended having my DNA tested to determine if I had inherited the mutated genes that could cause cancer. My daughter, Mendy, listened with rapt attention as he described the testing process. It was Monday after Thanksgiving and he advised that a team of doctors including himself, medical oncologists and radiology oncologists would counsel on Wednesday to determine my plan of treatment.

                                2. Hope

   My wife, my daughter and I left the room with apprehension and yet, full of hope. I thought of Mendy’s email address, “faith.hope.love”, and as always, I felt the assurance that the grace of God would surely calm my fears. We all must face our own dragons and slay them with the power that only comes from our deep and unwavering faith. There is no other fountain to drink from, hope eternal springs from trusting in a power greater than ourselves. Again I prayed that God would give me the grace and dignity to accept whatever the new day might bring.

   The surgeon’s office called Wednesday afternoon, “Your procedure is scheduled for next Tuesday, December 6^th. The hospital will be calling you with instructions later today.” And they did. The genetic counseling clinic called and I made an appointment for the Friday before the surgery.

   I was thinking that I could probably blame my mother and my grandmother. Not really; they didn’t intentionally do anything to me. They must have innocently passed on a gene that traveled through the succeeding generations until I inherited it. A gene that bears a great burden to all who receive it. My grandmother, mother and all three of her sisters died from breast cancer. I explained all of these facts as the genetic counselor drew out my family tree with squares for the males and circles for the females. As she filled in the circles to indicate cancer, it became apparent that it was all on my mothers side of the family. She arranged for me to leave a blood sample in the clinic next door and then advised that the results would take a week or two for the DNA test to come back from the lab in Salt Lake City. By then, the surgical procedure would be over and I would know if the cancer had spread in my body.

   Over the weekend I tried to stay busy; both my brothers were flying in, so I helped my wife with chores around the house. On Monday, Ted arrived as I was finishing up with the pre-check-in routine at the hospital. We spent an afternoon nostalgically talking of childhood memories and when Mike arrived late in the evening, we all three sat around talking into the wee hours of the morning. I wasn’t sleepy, and we all talked of good times from the past, as only brothers can do. At 3:00am I retired for a night of troubled restlessness. I dreamed of Mother, I could see her and hear her, but I had to speak to her through a strange hand held device. No doubt, my anxieties manifested themselves in the form of one closely related to my circumstances. I had a calmness as she said things which I do not remember, and yet, their effect was soothing to my troubled spirit. When I awoke, I slowly began the process of preparation for my surgery. No food or drink since midnight and now a pre-surgery antiseptic shower. This is always the worst time, but it passes quickly. We made a quick ride to the hospital and I then changed into the infamous hospital gown. I can’t think of anything more undignified than an open backed hospital gown.

   Friends and family filtered in and soon I was surrounded by those who love me; not a bad feeling when you are about to drop off the face of the earth for a few hours, and you don’t know if you are coming back. You don’t overtly think about it, but that ‘hope’ thing is always there, always standing tall in the shadows, saying to you “It’s going to be OK, I’ve got you covered, don’t worry”.

God’s spirit moves in mysterious ways. The nurse advised all the visitors that the show was about to start and they needed to say their goodbyes. My associate pastor from my church said a prayer and then my brother-in-law who is a hospice chaplin worded a special prayer for me and my family. “John”, I said, “I don’t mind you praying for me, just remember that I’m not one of your clients today”.

   I kissed my bride goodbye and told her I love her, and I would see her soon.

Mr. ‘Hope’ was there, quietly bolstering my spirits, making sure that I knew that whatever happens, “It’s going to be OK”. They wheeled me into the pre-op and pulled the shower curtains around my gurney. Every nurse and doctor who spoke to me asked for my birth date. I began to feel as if it were a sanity test to insure that I knew who I was. I met the anesthesiologist, just before he knocked me out. Time flys in these circumstances. An hour passed in an instant. A nurse appeared with some strange devices and told the head nurse that she was ready to inject the radioactive dye into my nipple. “Don’t worry”, she said, “I’ll apply some topical anesthesia before I inject it, now what is your birth date?” The surgeon appeared and asked the head nurse if I had been injected yet. I thought, “She’s standing right there, why don’t you ask her”.  As I turned in her direction, there was no one there and I heard the head nurse tell my surgeon, “Yes, she finished several minutes ago.” Time flys; you’d think I would have remembered that one. That was my last memory in pre-op, I don’t even know when they inserted the anesthesia into my IV.

   I awoke in the same room but on an opposite wall. The smiling face said, “Hey, welcome back”. In the back of my head, Mr ‘Hope’ said, “I told you so”. I so admire these folk who care for you when you check in on your return flight, they don’t get enough credit for the good job they do. The female patient in the next stall, whose flight had returned shortly after me, loudly proclaimed, “Where am I, what have they done to me? Did they operate on my knee? I didn’t give him permission to do that. Why am I here? Oh my God, I didn’t give him permission to do this. Somebody is going to get sued!” Soothing voices of professionals calmly reassured her that everything was OK, and she finally came back to reality. In a whimpering voice she apologized profusely. I thought, “You need to meet my friend, Mr ‘Hope’”.

   After correctly identifying my age to two additional nurses, I was pronounced fit for travel and wheeled out to a private hospital room. The duty nurse was satisfied that I knew my birth date correctly, so she wrote her name on the whiteboard on my wall. Give me that whiteboard, I thought, and I’ll write my birthday down for everybody else to see. Why couldn’t they just look at my wristband; it had my name and my birth date on it. That would save me a lot of trouble.

3. More Hope

   My immediate thoughts were in one place. What did the pathology reveal in my lymph nodes that were removed? My future lay in the answer to that question. Was the cancer spread to other organs in my body; if so, what treatment would be required? How long could I expect to live? It’s the ‘not knowing’ that is most troublesome. It is better to know bad news than to wait in anticipation of news that could be bad or good. It’s a long road, I told myself, wherever it leads, I have those who love me, right beside me. “Don’t despair” came the soft whisper of hope.

   A beautiful, angelic redhead leaned over the bed and said, “Hey sweetie, they didn’t find any more cancer”. I tried not to, but my eyes filled with tears from a deep and satisfying well within my soul.

  Phillipians 4:6-7 GWT

⁶Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks.⁷Then God’s peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus.

   It would be wonderful if we could leap from one mountain top to the next without going through the connecting valley. Upon hearing that my cancer had not spread into my sentinel lymph nodes, I was filled with joy and awe that the immediate threat to my life was checked. The treatments I would need were still undetermined and would remain so for another ten days. I was resolved to endure whatever the oncologist recommended, in beginning this new lifelong struggle to survive. Whatever! And I needed to know if this dread disease had been genetically passed on from my mother, so my children and grandchildren could take precautions. We would know soon enough.

   My family left the hospital so that I could attempt to rest and perhaps, be released the next afternoon. As I lay in my hospital bed, I felt no pain from the mastectomy; only a discomfort from the drainage tube hanging at my side. Since the initial morphine in the post-ops area, I had not asked for any pain medication because I was not in pain.

   My indignity continued as the hospital gown beneath me became uncontrollable. I lay with a partial sheet over me, but I occasionally exposed my privates as I tried to adjust my position. My feet were tethered by pressure devices attached to my calves to insure blood circulation. The urinal stared at me with a silent smirk that said “before this is over, we were going to be good friends.” It was not to be. After the anesthesia, I had an insatiable thirst. At the same time I had something akin to zero bladder pressure on my kidneys. I never was able to use the urinal without standing, and I could not stand unless my feet were unshackled from the pressure devices. Needless to say, the nurses and technicians were in frequent demand for a few hours. At nine that evening I was urged to walk if I could, and I did. I walked with my IV stand up and down the hall for ten minutes. I could not believe that I was feeling so well.

Flirting with my nurse seven hours after surgery

After I gave her my birth date

 

   At ten-thirty, the night nurse introduced herself, and after I correctly guessed my birth date, she asked if I needed anything. My usual arthritic joint pains were hurting so I asked for a couple of extra strength Tylenol. She said she would order some and bring it to me. At midnight, I rang and asked if she had the pain medication yet. “No, but I’ll bring it to you as soon as it gets here from the pharmacy.” At one in the morning I called again and she finally brought them to me. I rested uneasily for a couple of hours and then at 3:45 in the morning I felt an intense urgency to urinate. I wrestled with the pressure devices on my legs and with great difficulty managed to unwrap them. I could feel a coolness at my side, but I had an urgent call to answer. I grabbed the IV stand and headed for the toilet, yanking the electrical plug out of the wall just as I entered the bathroom. A scene not unlike Tom Hanks relieving himself in  “A League of their Own” insued. As I flushed the toilet, I looked in the mirror and saw the blood running down from the bandage where the tube was inserted in my side. I waddled back to the bed and rang the nurse to staunch the bleeding and replace the bandage. I slept soundly for the next three hours.

   At seven, my surgeon came by to check on me. He looked strangely older than my first impression and he confirmed what my ‘angel of light’ had informed me the afternoon before. “The initial pathology during the procedure revealed nothing under the microscope, but they will continue to study it for the next few days.” I had guessed his age as early thirties, but my brother said that he had practiced in the Army for 11 years, so he had to be in his early forties. He yanked off my side bandage and then ripped off my bandage covering the mastectomy. Ouch! He said that they looked good and he would have the nurse replace the bandages.

   At eight in the morning, Johnny Horton wrote his name on my whiteboard, and after I took a wild guess and correctly identified my birth date, he replaced my bandages. I had a compulsion to ask if he would sing a few bars of “The Battle of New Orleans”, but he openly confessed that he couldn’t sing and the only thing he could play was the radio. The suction pump on my side wasn’t operating properly after my excursion during the night, so the doctor said he needed to add another stitch to seal it. After that I could check out and go home. After a few minutes, he told me to check out and then come by his office across the street. I bade Johnny Horton goodbye and took the wheel chair to the front door where my family awaited. The gentleman who volunteered to wheel me out looked significantly older than me. I was tempted to ask him if he would like to flip for who pushed and who rode.

   At 11:30 my wife and two brothers joined me for brunch at Mimi’s restaurant. Only twenty-four hours earlier, I had checked into the hospital for my surgery. I had been filled with anxieties; all those questions that hung over me like heavy dark clouds. Though not completely lifted yet, I could see rays of sun streaming through and filling me with genuine hope. The pathology was still being studied, the genetic testing was not yet back. But, there was hope, blessed hope, and I was surrounded by family who love me.

The day after my surgery with Mike & Ted

   My brothers returned home the next day and then on Friday morning the surgeon called and said, “David, there is no need for you to come by today, the final results of the pathology came back negative and there is no need for me to see you until things have healed up a bit.” He said that I should see him in another week and he would have his staff set up my initial appointment with an oncologist.

    At last, something definitive about the presence of cancer in my body. “Negative”, how odd that such an uncongenial word could convey such unequivocal joy. A few more rays of sun were blasting through those storm clouds. Hope returned in a full suit of body armor.

   Cheryl went back to work on Monday and my thoughts remained cautiously optimistic. It was my birthday and I still hungered for resolution of all the unanswered questions. While at my desk to look for the genetic counselor’s phone number, my phone rang and it was the genetic counselor, Nancy. “Í was just about to call you.” I said “I was hoping that you might have the analysis back on my DNA.” “As a matter of fact, that’s why I’m calling you, it came back early.” Our last conversation had been one of almost certainty that I had mutant genes passed down on my mother’s side. It was really only a question of which gene, the BRCA1 or BRCA2, or both. “Well which is it I asked, 1 or 2 or both?. “Neither,” came the reply, “Both came back as ‘No mutation detected’, with your history, I would have said with certainty that you were positive, but you are not.” “Wow, I can’t believe it, but that is wonderful news. I know some kids and grandkids who are going to be happy, I can’t wait to tell them.” She sent me a copy of the report via email and I sent it to all the family that was waiting to hear. I silently apologized to Mother for assuming that she had cursed me with some mutated genes. The only thing Mother ever passed on to me was courage and love.

      My email was succinct:

Dear Loved ones- The genetic testing of my DNA came back NEGATIVE! No mutations discovered that other family members may have passed down to me. Open the attachment and read the report and please pass this on to any other family member who may have questions. Praise God!

   There it was again, a negative that gloriously mushroomed into a giant positive. ‘No mutation detected’; a large number of dark clouds yielded to brilliant beams of warm and comforting sunshine. I felt as if I were wrapped up in a blanket in my mother’s arms. My kids were overjoyed. Life was getting better, but yet there were still unknowns; what treatments would be required, would I have to endure chemo or radiation or both. Surely the radiation, but hopefully not the chemo. My friend Sharon, who recently had similar surgery told me, “As far as treatment goes, they usually ‘ere on the side of caution.” “No matter”,  that frail silhouette of hope, like the shadowy cowboy images propped up against a tree in someone’s yard, quietly repeated, sotto voce, “Don’t worry”.

  The tube came out of my side after eight days and I now waited for the initial visit with the oncologist. My friend Mike stopped by the house and visited for over an hour, and it was good to reminisce about familiar things. While talking with him, I reflected, “I always wondered how I would feel if told that I had cancer. It’s like a sentence that you are branded with for the rest of your life.”

   “Like a death sentence,” he said; “not something we want to hear.”

   “My mother died from cancer when she was forty-six years old, so I have always wondered how she carried the burden so well and I wondered how I would measure up. I started reading in my bible and the Lord just kept showing me verses that said, ‘Be anxious for nothing.’” Mike and I have a similar faith and it was comfortable to share my inner thoughts with him. I have honestly put my trust in God’s providence and He has given me great peace within. I know that it is far from over, just beginning, really. I look around and I see and talk with so many survivors; I have come to accept that I am not a victim, but rather a fellow sojourner on a difficult road. Many have not survived, but I suspect that none ever gave up yearning for a cure along the way.

  

 Isaiah 41:9-10 (The Message)
‘You’re my servant, serving on my side. I’ve picked you. I haven’t dropped you.’ 
Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.

Memories of Dave

Dads and Sons

   David was my firstborn son so he got my name, and I was determined to try and teach him all the things my Dad had tried to pass on to me. That was no easy chore, because my Dad was a pioneer born out of season. He should have been a companion of Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett, he loved fishing and hunting and anything that involved the outdoors. He knew every tree in the woods and he knew how to make a trail through the wilderness or paddle a boat through the swamp. He was born in the early 1900’s and he truly experienced a pace of life that has long since been left behind. Dad was never in the Boy Scouts, he was the original boy scout. He taught his boys all that Mother would allow him to, and I’m sure he showed us some things that she told him not to. As a result, my brothers and I knew how to cut a pole, bait a hook, catch a fish and fix it for supper. We dabbled at hunting, but none of us really felt the call or the need to be a great huntsman. He also bestowed a good appreciation of the various kinds of trees that we observed, he showed us the different types of Oaks, Gums, Maples, Pecans and Walnuts; over the years he handed me hundreds of leaves as he identified the species. He taught me more of nature than I could ever learn from reading or studying. He was the real deal; a walking, talking expert on everything to do with the outdoors. He also taught me integrity, faith, truthfulness, sharing and caring, charity, taking care of your own, and respect for others.

   It was this awesome knowledge that I was now burdened to pass on to my children but I simply did not have the time. Dad’s generation passed on these wisdoms as an act of necessity, if you didn’t procure your supper, you had nothing to eat. I was busy working a full time job and attending evening college to try and get ahead. When David was nine years old, I realized that I had not spent much time with him to pass on the family tradition. Then out of the blue, my good friend, James, asked me if I would like to join him and his son in a YMCA club for fathers and sons. I had never heard of Y-Indian Guides so he explained the slogan, aims and pledge as listed below:

Slogan

"PALS FOREVER"

Aims

1. To be clean in body and pure in heart
2. To be “Pals Forever” with my father/son
3. To love the sacred circle of my family
4. To be attentive while others speak
5. To love my neighbor as myself
6. To seek and preserve the beauty of the Great Spirit’s work in forest, field and stream .

Pledge

We, Father and son, through friendly service to each other, to our family, to this tribe, to our community, seek a world pleasing to the eye of the Great Spirit.”

   Then James explained that it was strictly a father and son club and it would force us to make time to be with our sons; in fact, one of their upcoming activities was a big “Pow-Wow” of the Indian Nation, camping out in tents. I was in. David and I joined and he was really excited, we chose Indian names and we got to wear real leather vests with award patches. We were in a tribe of about ten pairs of father/son braves and we attended faithfully for about a month before the big campout. It was scheduled at a private lake and campground which is near the Red River just east of Denison, TX and north of Bonham, TX.  David was excited because he was going to get an opportunity to find a coup stick and start earning his feathers for achievements. Every time we accomplished goals together, he would earn new feathers that would be strung on a leather string from his coup stick just like the real Native Americans used to do. The camping trip was a sure way to find a stick and gain new feathers.

   We all crammed into several vans and drove a hundred miles late on a Friday evening in the middle of Fall. It was cool but not cold and so camping was going to be perfect. At least it would have been if we had arrived before dark. Each father and son was given a tent kit with no instructions and told to go and set up quickly, because we were getting up at sunup for breakfast. David and I stumbled out into a clearing and I had him hold the flashlight while I struggled with erecting the tent. It was a nice tent and not too difficult so we were able to get it up and enclosed after about twenty minutes. We didn’t have air mattresses so we spent some time moving rocks and sticks from under our sleeping bags. I slept very little, spending most of the night moving and turning in every direction as I tried to get comfortable. It seemed that I was either uphill or downhill and when I tried the other direction it was very lumpy. David slept like an exhausted nine year old that was on his first camping trip. At sunrise I awoke to a clanging bell and a call to breakfast. Stiff and sore from a miserable night, I unzipped the tent and crawled out to check out our position. My eyes came wide awake as I realized that I had put up the tent over a road bed with deep ruts and on a noticeable slope. So much for putting up tents in the dark. But you know, in my son’s eyes, we had done something pretty neat.

   Breakfast was served in chow line style and we had everything you could want on a campout; bacon, sausage, eggs and toast. We gobbled up a healthy portion along with some coffee for me and some milk for him and then proceeded to our first activity. To gain feathers on your coup stick, you did an activity together like canoeing or hiking or fishing. We chose canoeing as our first venture. The camp was built around a hundred acre lake that had woods up next to the shore and a small island out in the middle. We put on a life jacket and then grabbed the first empty canoe we saw and I showed David how to paddle from alternating sides to keep his progress straight. We stayed close to the shoreline for a while and I thought I would show him how to tie off on a tree limb on the shore. We maneuvered up to a rather large limb and I reached to grab it with my hand when suddenly the limb started submerging and I was following close behind it. My arm was up to my armpit in the water before I was able to turn it loose and steady myself back into the canoe. “That’s not the way you do it” I told Dave, “First you make sure that it’s not a floating log and then you reach out and tie off on it”, I explained. He giggled as he put his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

   “How would you like to go to that island out there in the middle?” I asked.

He just smiled because he trusted me, and whatever I said was OK with him.

We paddled around the lake for a bit and then I steered toward the island, letting him do most of the work, but helping when I needed to keep us straight.

He did a great job and he really seemed to enjoy it; I was having a wonderful time with my son. As we approached, I could see that the island was pretty small and looked a little foreboding. I suddenly had an inspiration that he would feel really proud if I dropped him off and then I paddled back and photographed him all alone on a deserted island. So I grounded the canoe and told him to hop off for a minute and I explained what I proposed to do. His face became very serious and he cast his eyes from side to side as he considered his options. Looking down he said “OK Dad, but please don’t leave me here very long”. I promised to get back quickly and then rowed out for about a hundred yards, so I could capture the whole island in my lens. I snapped a couple of pictures and then an unusual thing happened. A stiff Northerly breeze suddenly began blowing me away from the island. I dropped the camera into the canoe and began taking deep bites with my oars, but I was barely making any progress toward him. I began in renewed earnest and finally started making headway into the wind. After a hard ten minutes oaring, I ran the front of the canoe on to the gravel of the island. His worried look must have matched my own, as I was exhausted. I helped him back in the canoe and we had a fairly easy time scooting along with the breeze back to the lake shore. As we pulled up to the boat dock , he looked very seriously at me and said, “I don’t think I want to go back to that island anymore”. I assured him that he didn’t have to worry about that, neither did I.

   Our next venture was to follow a marked trail down to the Red River and to bring back a souvenir within a specified time limit. The trail was about a mile each way but we had to go through some woods and rough vegetation and down a steep embankment to get to the river. The trail was clearly marked and he had no difficulty in reading it, as he identified the markers and led me most of the way. When he wasn’t sure, I would help him and we actually made very good time on the way down. The Red River is just that, red with the boiling red clay and sand from Western Texas and Oklahoma as it winds it’s way to Lake Texhoma and eventually the Mississippi River. There truly is quicksand but we didn’t discover any. David picked up a small weathered stick from a sand bar where it had washed up and took it back for his souvenir and we headed back up the embankment. We made it back in plenty of time and he now had two feathers for his coup stick. When we were back into the wooded campground area, I helped him pick an oak limb that was just the right size and I showed him how to trim the limbs with a small hatchet and knife. He was very serious and very proud of all the things we had accomplished. I knew that I hadn’t been perfect and I certainly wasn’t like my Dad, but I think my son was proud of me too. We participated in some group inter-tribal activities and then packed up for the trip back. Dave had his coup stick and I had made an effort to pass on the family torch.

  The next major event was the Spring race car challenge. Each father/son was given a block of wood and some wheels and told to use their creativity to build a race car for the multi-lane track. I am quite possibly the least creative person on the planet and Dave was too young to come up with anything brilliant. As a matter of fact, I completely forgot about it until the day before the races, and so on Friday evening Dave and I begun work on the project. I remembered hearing some of the Dads telling their sons that they would use their power tools and power acrylic paint sprayers to put racing stripes and flames on their creations.

I looked Dave in the eye and told him we were going to whittle away some of the wood with my pocket knife and then we would use some sandpaper to smooth out the rough spots and try to make it run a little faster. He struggled with whittling the block, so I helped him and then we both spent considerable time in sanding down the rough spots. He didn’t feel comfortable with painting, so I got a water color paint set and began painting it blue. When we finished, it resembled a cross between a soap box derby racer and a 1930’s race car. There was a slot for a driver so I told Dave to get his Sesame Street finger puppets and see if one would fit into the slot. Ernie fit perfectly. We applied another coat of paint on Saturday morning and headed for the races around noon.

   David was a little timid in the throng of tribes from the entire nation. Dads walked around holding incredible racecars that looked as if the latest and greatest Italian Gran Prix winners had designed and manufactured them. High gloss acrylic paint jobs gleamed with ingenious pin stripping and the attention to detail was masterful. I was sure that one of them had probably gotten Andretti’s approval of his design. Dave didn’t seem to mind, but I was confident that this would be a very short afternoon.  We registered his car and the judges reviewed all the design flaws and the crummy paint job with amusement.

Dave found his slot track where he was to race and we lined up awaiting his turn. When the moment came, he placed his car in the slot and then stood back to watch for the six cars to be released. Ernie started out in the lead and was a full car length ahead at the finish line where he suddenly popped out of the drivers cockpit. A room full of little boys waved their arms and yelled “GO ERNIE!” as David went to pick up his hero. Ernie won four races before a car that I would swear had a Hemi in it, beat him out for the championship. Dave wasn’t going to get the trophy for the fastest car but he had a memory to last a lifetime. I can still hear those other boys cheering for his race car. We started to leave and they said that the judging for the best overall car was about to be announced. I waited to see if Mario’s creation would win. When the judge approached David and asked for his car, I couldn’t believe my ears as he announced “This year’s overall best car trophy goes to David and Dave Warbritton”. As the judge held his car up high for all to see, Dave grinned from ear to ear with a big toothy smile that came from deep down inside. I was about to burst as I heard the judge tell someone, “It shows a lot of kid work, that’s what we were looking for”.

   We attended meetings and had a lot of fun, we went to a baseball game and the whole tribe bonded in their own way. I could tell that some of the Dads were just doing this because their wives made them or because it made them look better, but most of the Dads found some common ground and an opportunity to share some of their precious time with their sons. Unlike the dads who just did everything for their boys, I think the ones who allowed their sons to participate at a high level benefited most. Summer passed and then we began planning the big Fall camp out again. We were going to the same campground, but this time, the entire tribe was staying in a large rock bunkhouse at the park.

   Upon arrival, we unloaded everything into the bunkhouse and everybody picked an upper or lower bunk bed to sleep on. This time it was morning so there was no second guessing in the dark. The activities included a football toss and a fishing tournament for the whole nation. Dave had been practicing his throwing so he was pumped up for the competition. I had volunteered to administer the contest, so I was busy picking out a good location and setting up the tape measures that would be used by the judges. I found things for Dave to do and eventually, we were ready to start the competition. Each boy got a single toss to see how accurate and how far he could throw a football. We taped the length of the throw and then measured how many feet it was off center from the straight line we had placed in the middle of the field. Each boy’s toss was recorded and then the distance off center was subtracted from the length of the pass. Dave wore thick black-rimmed glasses but that didn’t stop him from making an excellent attempt that wasn’t far off center. I told him how proud I was even though there were bigger boys making better throws, and he didn’t win any prizes.

   We attended a big campfire cookout that evening and we all shared a good laugh about our experiences with our sons. As we retired to the bunkhouse, one of the dad’s who I felt really didn’t want to be there, said “Let’s put the boys to bed and then we can all play poker.” Which they did, and then one of them opened up an ice cooler and pulled out a beer. Cigars were next and then they began playing in earnest. They were loud and even occasionally cursed their luck as they played. James and I stayed inside the bunkhouse with the boys and settled several of them down as their Dad’s made fools of themselves. Eventually the beer ran out and someone must have captured all the money for the game stopped and they dragged in one at a time to sleep next to their kids.

I remember thinking how selfish they were and what poor examples they made for their sons but mostly I thought “What a rare opportunity you have missed to share with your son, to have some quality time with him and share a part of your life with him.” I felt sorry for them. At six-thirty the next morning, I heard a sound that I used to hear back on the farm when a cow would stop over a large flat rock to relieve her bladder. I stumbled out of the bunkhouse and through a misty fog viewed one of the poker playing Dads standing on the edge of the embankment where our bunkhouse was in nothing but his BVDs, a cowboy hat and a pair of cowboy boots. The sound came as he arched a perfect golden stream over the edge onto a rock some five feet below his perch. The morning was quite cool but the beer seemed to have insulated him from the cold. It was a memorable sight, but fortunately all the kids were still asleep.

   After breakfast we attended the big event of the day, a fishing contest between the tribes. Three of the nights revelers were unaccustomed to anything to do with fishing, so they excused themselves and left their sons with James and I and our 2 boys. We showed all of them how to cut a limb and make a pole; how to attach the line, tie on the hook and how to bait the hook. Then we took them all to a long dock that had been built at the lake’s edge and watched them carefully while they fished and patiently waited for something to make their cork disappear. Everyone got nibbles and then one of the other little boys giggled with delight as he pulled in a small perch about eight inches long and we helped him get it off the hook. We praised him, but I thought he would probably have really liked for his Dad to have seen him catch that fish. A couple of hours later the errant Dads showed up and laughed at the little boy’s catch. I turned it in anyway for it was the only fish our tribe caught all day. At the awards presentations that evening, our tribe won the award for the most fish caught and the largest fish caught. It was, in fact, the only catch of the day.

  

 As the proud father accompanied his son to collect his ribbons, I heard him say, “My boy just learned how to fish today” and I thought, “And you still don’t know how to fish”. But I was happy for his little boy and felt gratified that my efforts had not been for naught. 

   The Y-Indian Guides are a wonderful organization and though there are a few Dads that aren’t there for the right reason, most are. For Dave and me, it was a good thing, because I was able to spend some quality time with him and I actually managed to pass some of the family traditions on to him. I also taught him integrity, faith, truthfulness, sharing and caring, charity, taking care of your own, and respect for others. My Dad would have done a much better job of teaching him all of the woodsman talents, but I’d like to think that I took the opportunity and helped make him a better person and better prepared for life, just like my Dad did for me. We shared a world of experiences that are still valuable to both of us today and I tried to teach him all the things my Dad had tried to pass on to me. Dave didn’t have children of his own for a long time, but as a youth minister in a church, he worked in a labor of love to help many kids without Dads learn valuable life lessons. Dave probably doesn’t remember much about those times, but he spent several summers as a camp counselor at church camps and he built some memories of his own to cherish. I know that I will always hold on to the ones we shared.

Written expressly for the Warbritton family by David Warbritton