Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Monday, February 18, 2008 12:00:00 AM
Thank You
By
William D. Dannenmaier
In 1952 my mother wrote to me that my father was extremely depressed. At the time I was a 22 year old private drawing combat pay as a radioman and scout with the 15th Infantry in Korea. She quoted him as saying that he was a complete failure in life, he wasn’t even a salesman: he was just a salesclerk at Sears. I wrote him the following letter, which my sister saved and my nephew found and mailed to me just recently. I’m proud of it, meant it and still mean it, every word.
“Dear Pop:
In about four days one of those things known as birthdays will arrive for you. Though many have no reason to be happy on this day I think that you are one of the few who can be completely self-satisfied.
In sixty-one years of living you have been privileged to watch the transformation of the horse and buggy to the high powered automobile. You managed to survive not only the depths of a great depression but the equally dangerous periods of high prosperity with good health, honor and a wonderful spirit of giving, and that is something that few men can say.
Among your blessings – which are many – you certainly have one that stands out above all else – your wife. As a secondary factor you also have three children – all of whom you managed to put through college – a rare achievement! Now you certainly have their love and respect – that I know.
And, finally on this day, your birthday, you can look forward to many happy years with your grandchildren – Johnny, Ruth Ann and others that may join them in the years to come.
So Dad, I salute you with a happy birthday and the sure knowledge that there will be many more to come.
Love, Bill”
My father was a man of honesty, integrity and conviction. An anti-Roosevelt, conservative, Protestant; I listened as he sat and argued politics and religion with men of different beliefs and status in life. His friends included Democrats; Roman Catholics, Jews and an atheist who believed in communism (small c) and Blacks and Whites. Included among them were a millionaire, several small businessmen, a street sweeper and an unemployed workman. All were equal at his table and all were his friends throughout his life. There are millions of men (and women) in our nation like my father, working at the humdrum jobs that life and fate have bequeathed to them who probably, as they approach the ends of their lives, think of themselves as Dad did.
They are wrong. They are more important to our nation than any Hollywood notable, politician or philanthropist. Such men provide the strength and future of democracies. Were it not for them, there would be no United States.
The letter was wrong in only one place. My father died three months after I returned home. His best friend, Walter Bibbs, the Black unofficial “boss” of the Sears warehouse, told me at Dad’s funeral that Dad came to the warehouse every day at lunch and prayed that I return, uninjured and alive. Walter said his prayer was simple, “Dear God, let him come back and take me in his place.”
So, thank you Dad, have a happy birthday, and thank you God for giving me such a father.