My Father’s Thumb

My Father’s Thumb

So it has been nearly a year and a half since my father died.  No tears.  He was ninety-five, had a good life and really long life.  War hero, father hero, grandfather hero.

The funeral home that did his preparation and all those arrangements did an excellent job.  One of the things they did that was extremely cool, and something I have never seen or heard of before, was to take an impression of his right thumb print and cast it in sterling silver and hang that on a silver chain.  This is sort of a novel idea, I think, but as time has gone on I find this little piece of jewelry becomes more and more precious to me.

It’s pretty small, like about the size of a dime, or even a tad smaller.  I do wish it was bigger.  More like the size of his actual thumb print.  My father was a really big man and his thumb was   like   large also.  However, if it was more to scale, as big as HE was, I probably couldn’t have afforded all the silver it would have taken.  And, honestly I have to trust the funeral home that what they gave us, my sister and I, was the actual true impression of my Dad’s real and actual thumb.  But I do.  I just do.  I mean think about the bad karma if they tried to pull some shyster move like faking those things.

It made me think about my own lineage, however.  I was so fortunate in that I not only had a great Dad, but I had a great Grandfather.  My Grandfather was a dirt poor farmer who raised six children on a loosing proposition of leased farmland during the Great Depression.  He had, maybe, four or five years of formal education.  His own father died before he was sixteen and he raised his two sisters and a brother before he married and had his own family. 

I spent one summer with him, the one just before he died.  As an old man of eighty he couldn’t farm anymore and made his living hauling livestock from the local stock auction.  Rich farmers – ones who actually owned their farms – would come to the auction in fancy washed cars and bid on animals (pigs and beef cattle, sometimes sheep). Grandpa and I would load them into his truck and deliver the poor beasts to their last residences.  I was eighteen at the time.

Grandpa’s old Ford pick-up was –like – ancient.  Six cylinders, four on the floor.  Except the gear pattern plate had been worn into something like just a circle.  Because Grandpa was eighty, I did a lot of the driving.  However, even though I had learned to drive a stick shift (or manual as they are called today) – actually in those days manuals were all that there were, automatic hadn’t even been invented yet – driving that old truck took love.  That’s all I can say.  It took love, because that old piece of shit sucked all your patience and good feelings just trying to get it into the right gear.

The clutch plate was so old, it had to have been as slick as ice on a road, and the clutch cable was stretched beyond its sell by date by decades.  Just getting the clutch to disengage enough to start slapping the stick shifter around to find the next gear was an exercise in it self.  This wasn’t a double-clutch technique.  It was a pump down – pump down – swear – swear some more – grind, grind grind – clutch pump, clutch pump – grind, grind grind – swear!!! GRrrrr –runch!! And a lurch forward, or maybe a stall.  It was a total gearing crapshoot. 

Now, if the load was pigs or sheep, all this lunging, lurching and stalling wasn't such a bad thing.  Pigs ‘n sheep are short animals, built low to the ground, low centers of gravity.  Plus when things start lurching around, pigs ‘n sheep tend to lay down (I do not know why).  Beef cattle on the other hand are dumber than broccoli and have long legs and a high center of gravity.  It is really way too easy for them to break a leg being slung around in the back of an old pick-up.  And when they get frightened they shit buckets and buckets of green horrible shit – more than the gallons of brown slimy shit they shit just walking around.

Sheep aren’t bad, although they are also pretty dumb.  Pigs, on the other hand, tend to be smart, ornery (no, pigs are just mean when they’re pissed).  Pigs can actually control their shitters and choose just when and how much they want to unload.  Like on your boots when you have to zap with the prodder to get them up the shoot into the truck.  The little jolt from the prodder doesn’t seem to do much more than get their attention.  You know it is just meanness though, because after you jolt ‘em, they sort of turn their heads, look you in the eye and SHIT a wagonload of runny crap as high as they can force it to go.  Usually about knee high, running into your boots.  I just know they did it on purpose.

That summer with my Grandpa hauling animals, driving that old truck, cleaning up all that shit - well, it kind of made me appreciate the man.  More than just love him ,which I did, and more than respect him, which I did, but appreciate him.  He was a simple man, but he was a real man.  He was everything a real man should be.  That's an important lesson to learn when you're an eighteen year old boy.

So I have taken to attaching my father’s silver thumbprint to my motorcycle jackets.  I move it from my winter to my summer jacket as the seasons change.  Every time I notice it, many many cherished memories of both my father and grandfather pass across my mind and somehow I feel protected.

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Thank you so much for your time.