In Memory of . . . : Reflections
August 20, 2006 - aka: The Greatest Man in My Life
Today is the 3rd anniversary of the death of my beloved father, Eugene F. Cleversey (aka Dad, aka Beansie). It is a rainy day today and I feel as if the skies are weeping along with me. This is always the most somber day of the year for me as I miss him very much. But…I do not want to feel sad all day, so I think of things about Dad that make me smile. I’ll share a few of these memories with you.
Memory 1: Dad would take our family toboganning, in a kamikaze fashion, down the far end of Lake Mac Gregor in Mahopac, NY, when I was a child. This was always semi-suicidal as we had to dodge trees before reaching the bottom of the hill. He brought out the dare devil in us all. And, then again, maybe this is why I have panic attacks when I drive a car! Hmmm … food for thought;-)
Memory 2: Dad absolutely loved living in Florida. When we moved there he decided that he was never going to wear long pants again (except to work at IBM, and only because they were rather stuffy about their dress code policy). So…we have photos of Dad in a dress jacket and shirt with bow tie, and shorts! This was his standard fancy dinner dress/going to funerals dress/ public speaking dress!
Memory 3: Dad loved to eat. He had a true appreciation of food, any food, especially if he could find it out in nature because it was free. One day, in the early ‘70’s, we took a nature walk somewhere in South Florida where we lived. Dad had heard that the fruit of the prickly pear cactus was edible. So, upon finding the fruit of several cacti, he carefully broke off the fruit without getting spines in his fingers, and put the fruits in his shirt pocket. Unbeknownst to Dad, the fruits of the prickly pear cacti also have prickly spines on them that are very small and not very evident upon casual observation. We continued our walk, and after awhile Dad was complaining of pain on his chest. He had lots of tiny, prickly spines embedded in his chest! This is one of those life lessons that he learned once and never forgot: “Not all free food is easy to come by!” And, to top it off, the darned cactus fruit wasn’t even that tasty! Dad never lived that one down. We still laugh about it.
Memory 4: Dad loved to go boating, just like his father, although he wasn’t quite as knowledgeable as his father. He and Mom bought a catamaran soon after moving to Florida. What a great boat it was. We were able to keep it at a friend’s house right next to the beach, in Boca Raton, where we resided. One gorgeous summer day we decided to all go sailing. When we got to the beach, we scanned the ocean and observed that there were no boats out. We thought this rather odd because the ocean looked nice and calm. What fools everyone else was to be missing out on such a beautiful day on the ocean! We shoved off and sailed out from shore. The farther out we got, the bigger the swells became, and the faster the current flowed. We decided we had better go back in as the ocean was rougher than we had imagined. So, we turned around and tacked for shore. The only problem was that we were now too far south of our starting point to be able to beach the boat near our put-in. We had to time our landing with the swells and surf. We almost ended up tipping end for end, but were able to jump off and pull the boat to shore just in the “TaDa…nick of time!” But, not before the front of the pontoons had slammed into the shallows with our stern standing almost vertical, and our mast snapping in two. Then, we had to drag the very heavy boat for probably a quarter mile up the beach. We learned that the locals knew a lot more about the ocean than we did!
Memory 5: Dad was a passionate environmentalist. He truly practiced what he preached. He instilled a love of nature in me that will never fade. He taught me to stand up for what I believe and to care about the planet we live on. It is because of he and my mother that I became a science teacher. They both allowed me to be “me” in every sense of the word. Our freezer was always filled with dead/frozen creatures (mixed in with Mom’s “secret stash” of chocolate), there was a lizard graveyard in the flower garden, and larger “road kill” animals were buried here and there throughout the yard for unearthing after their bones had been cleaned by ants (unfortunately, I forgot to mark most of the burial sites and whoever bought our Florida house probably found some interesting remains, because I never did;-). So…here’s to the greatest man in my life—my father. Cheers, Dad!
