Last Sunday was Father's Day and I thought I would try to remember some warm stories about my dad. But I had none.
He wasn't an abusive parent. He was a man who could barely cope with his own life, much less finding himself a single father of two small children.
Born in 1910, he was immediately abandoned by his mother. An elderly couple took him in for a few years but he mostly grew up on his own. At a very young age he was hired as a caddy at a prestigious golf course in French Lick, Indiana. French Lick is still a posh resort area.
It's where this photo was taken. He looks like a cute, well-to-do child but, in truth, he was destitute and alone in the world. I have no idea what kind of education, if any, he had. He was mysterious. He was a loner.
He married my mother and, shortly after having two children, first me, then my brother Paul, it was discovered that my mother had tuberculosis. She spent seven years in sanatorium prior to her death. I never really knew her.
My dad worked as a laundry/dry cleaner person. We had no car so he left early and came home late. Paul and I were latch-key kids before than term had been invented.
All of the above information is help you understand how counterintuitive the story below is:
During World War II, my dad ran the laundry at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. While it's not well known, nearly 425,000 prisoners of war were sent to detention camps in the U.S. Fort Harrison served as one of those camps. It housed German and Italian prisoners of war.
One of the German prisoners was assigned to my dad at the laundry. For whatever reasons, they became fast friends and remained so even after "Oscar" was reassigned.
There came a time when Fort Harrison became a site for an Army Disciplinary Barracks, a prison compound for American servicemen convicted of offenses by the military court system. Army regulations did not allow POW camps in the same military installation that housed Army prisoners, so the POW camp was closed and the German prisoners, including Oscar, moved to Fort Knox.
However, Oscar and my dad stayed in touch and when the war was over, my dad petitioned to allow Oscar to begin the process of allowing him to remain in this country and work toward citizenship.
And, after several years, it happened. I remembered the day they were reunited. Prior to that, I don't remember my dad ever being as happy as he was to see Oscar walk up to our front porch.
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