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They called him Skip

3K views 25 replies 17 participants last post by  Grumpy 
#1 ·
A reminescence in one part, about my first woodworking influence. (With addendum)

mom_dadcolored

At the LA Coliseum grounds, circa 1942, prior to mustering out for North Africa with the 35th Infantry Division.

Blame it on Ken Burns. I just have caught snippets of "The War" being shown on PBS. The poignant glimpses into the individual lives of men and women caught up in WWII has sparked memories of my personal war hero and my first wood-working mentor, my Father, Clark Edmond Victor Bordner. Although we buried my Dad 23 years ago this coming October 3rd (in blue jeans and an old Banlon shirt with his favorite fishin' pole), I have been flooded with a deep pain in my chest and a few sharp tears as I contemplate how much I wish he were here to see my woodworking projects.

Dad was an old man by the standards of the young men drafted into the service. He was a National Guardsman in the thirties (and for 41 years of service until retirement from the Guard), had participated in the U.S. Army War Games in 1939 in Louisiana. So although he was a Master Sergeant, and merely 24 when the war broke out, he was "Skipper" or just "Skip" to the enlisted men and shavetails that went to war in Africa and then France. He told me stories about personally ripping George Patton a new one for driving tanks over his field phone lines in Louisiana (as if!). But other than that embellished tale he didn't have much to say about his war days. It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties, living back at the family home after a bad patch, that we sat down together and traced his travels in the North African campaign through D-Day Plus 4 in Normandy and onward to Meinz, Germany on the maps of an American Heritage coffee table book on World War II.

And of course since he was my Father, I never thought about him being young once. And I could never have imagined him being in fear for his life, out in the country without cover for months at a go. Or about what it must have been like to have been raised Catholic and how "Thou shalt not kill" gets squared away with combat and survival when the chips are down. Despite the madness of war, I think he must have remained somewhat compassionate. One year we got a letter from Poland from a boy war refugee that Dad had befriended. "George" had grown to manhood and had his own family when he somehow managed to track Dad down by letter to thank him for helping him survive.

Now Pop wasn't a very patient teacher (at least to his own flesh and blood). If I flubbed about at some task, he usually took the tool and finished the project himself. So on the woodworking front I am pretty much self-taught. By the time he had grown patient and I had become a receptive pupil we did not have many years to associate. But we did some collaborative projects (I designed, he built) in the twilight years of his life, and they are all cherished pieces that have traveled with me through two states and four homes. To this day I have his army surplus locker and standing tool cabinet (really an old map cabinet) in my shop. And I have chisels and planes that came down from his father. Of course "Skip" inadvertently taught me to swear like a soldier, which has a tendency to come in handy in the course of most of my projects…

One of you fellas here blogged about having an aged father that was disabled (Parkinson's, I think) who felt that he was due an invitation to come over and help out in the woodshop. If your woodworking mentor is still around, I urge you to extend your hand in invitation. Maybe He feels "old and in the way" and too proud to come help unless invited. Once the book of his life is closed, you won't get another opportunity to feast on his accumulated knowledge. And I guarantee that you will have wistful moments when you look for an atta-boy from the old gaffer, and on occasion will shed the odd tear.

To those few of you that have vast seniority on me and have stood in stead as my woodworking "Fathers" on these pages, I thank you for your wisdom and your patience. For the larger few of you I account as my "Uncles" in woodworking (including that cowboy Uncle - you know who you are) I thank you for putting up with my wise-ass palavering and dopey questions. The rest of you, well I thank you for putting up with me as well. I hope there is something amid my blather that is of use. And, Pop, wherever you are, I swear sometimes I can feel you smiling over my shoulder…
 
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#3 ·
You can bet he's watching, Doug. Thanks for a great tribute to a great guy. He, like so many others was "just doin' his job". I grew up with these men who fought the great war and they shaped my character. They will always be my heroes. You can keep your rock stars and football players. I prefer real men.
Tom
 
#4 ·
Hi Douglas;

A very moving, and loving memory shared with us fellow jocks. My father too, was in WWII, but never talked about it.

I was very fortunate in that he came to live with me, and work for / with me, prior to passing away.

What a pleasure it was for me to be in a position to "spoil him". He did get a few extra benefits, being the bosses father. Like three hour work days, provided he visited a museum or something. (his passion)

How very strange it was to have our roles reversed, as I worked for him for a number of years. I can honestly say I was easier on him than he was on me! LOL

The older I become, the more I realize just how much of who I am was shaped by him.

I'll suppose I'll always miss him too, and I completely agree with Tom, regarding today's "heros", who catch a football, and feel the need to dance about it.

Lee
 
#6 ·
Well…not many things can get me all musted up, Doug. A well written memory. Six of my uncles served in WWII, with one of them, Leo (my father's mother's youngest brother) giving his life to liberate others. You must be very proud of your father's influence and I'm honored that you shared it with us.

Thanks, Doug!
 
#8 ·
Thanks Douglas. My father was never in the war. Well he said he was in for 2 days but left. I never asked him what that meant. He had brothers in the war and my mothers brothers and all came home but have all now since returned to the final home.

You memories of you father need to be passed on to your children and children's children. So they might feel the personal bond that you feel.
 
#10 ·
Douglas,

We share a similar background. My father has passed on many years ago, my father was a master sargeant in WWII, I have found memories of his "war" locker complete with uniforms, his Patton stories, training in Lousiana, his woodworking tools (my brother has them collecting dust and I'm the woodworker?), and more.

I don't really discuss my Dad since most people my age really have no interest in the distant past (the years have gone by) ... It was nice to read your thoughts on your father.
 
#12 ·
Doug, I had a similar experience with my father, Norman Fredrick Wurm Sr. He lost two brothers in the war and he himself joined at the tender age of 15 y/o because his circumstances of living on the streets in around Toledo Ohio, and Stubben were so bad. He got a letter from his dad and off he went. He got his feet wet on D-Day, so to speak and ended by getting wounded a couple years later at Remagen. He was also in the Bulge in a young battalion known as the 99th infantry, just a footnote in history because they were basically thrown in as young recruits to fill a hole in the line. They were wiped out. As I stated earlier he lost a brother in Italy and one in the Pacific and he never knew the particulars of their demise. My heart is filled and bruised along with yours as we think back about those times we did get them to open up about their friends they lost, and the heartache and horrible things they saw as young children themselves. I am amazed to this day he could have ever raised us 8 kids before going off his nut again and we lost him finally about 7 years ago to cancer. God Bless and Preserve them forever and ever. For they truly gave the ultimate sacrifice. even though they survived, with deep sorrow, mike God help me, I miss him, and his wrinckled old scared puss.
 
#13 ·
Doug -

Thank you for sharing this wonderful and very personal entry. Your concluding comments made me smile as I was thinking of my own father and the wonderful woodworking Lumberjocks community. We indeed have a large extended family with many mentors.
 
#14 ·
Thanks all for sharing your memories of your fathers and granddads. Mike's memoir spawned another thought I'd like to share. We forget that our country was still struggling to rise out of the hard-scrabble of the depression when the war broke out. The draft boards of the time had to reject quite a few boys who had suffered poor nutrition - bad teeth, weak bones due to a decade of substandard nutrition and living conditions.

One of my favorites of my father's stories of his youth involved his memories of his father and family as they made do in the depression. His father would clear farm properties of lumber (I'm not sure what the arrangements were exactly - whether he paid for the "logging rights" or whether the wood was compensation for clearing the land). They would pile up the cordwood into an open horse-drawn wagon for transport back home. Grandfather Bordner (Willis) would set in the wagon seat driving the horses at a slow pace. He had his break-action double Damascus barreled shotgun at the ready (I still have that wonderful old tool as well). When they would scare up rabbits on the drive, Grandfather would snap-shot the game as the team continued to pull the wagon. Dad would jump down and retrieve the carcass, run to catch up and throw the rabbit into the wagon as they continued home. Meat for the stewpot, wood for the stove and maybe enough to sell for a few cents to the neighbors.

My Dad spent summers at his step-mother's sister's (Aunt Lucy Garrety) farm in Reading, Lyon County, Kansas (45 miles or so down the road from Mark DeCou's). In summer, my folks would take all of us fishing there, and Dad and I hunted there for quail, rabbits and squirrel in the winter. I have a shocked memory of my Dad field-dressing my first rabbit bare-handed by Lucy's turnip patch in the frost of early November (Stretch the belly skin taut, poke a finger into the gut cavity, rip open the abdomen, grab the bunny by the hind legs and flip it overhead to send the entrails out on the ground, step on the head with your boot and pull it off). Then it was quick work to "Turn Mr. Rabbit out of his jacket" and into the game pocket of the old brown duck hunting coat, all within about a minute's time. I still remember how sweet the frost-nipped turnips were, after polishing the dirt off with a coat-sleeve, and the agreeable extra warmth gleaned as the rabbit cooled in the gutta-percha lined back pocket in the tail of that coat.

I know Alan Greenspan thinks it okay that our nation has turned from a manufacturing country into a service-industry based economy. I'm not so sure that being a nation of consumers has quite the same character building quality that comes from having a citizenry that built railroads, forged steel and welded together the infrastructure that now is eroding with time. We don't get our hands dirty, we have sanitizing wipes at the ready. Our kids don't eat a pound of dirt by the time they are five. Our immune systems grow bored so that there is an alarming rise in food allergies and auto-immune disorders. Children don't make up games (I recall playing surgeon with the crab-apples in the backyard with an old Remington hunting knife - perish the thought that an eight year old would be left alone with a knife). Give the choice between mumbly-peg and Mortal Kombat®, I think I would pick the later as the dangerous activity. I don't think there will be any lasting memories of the first Happy Meal™ your Dad bought you. It is a sadness that "the greatest generation" is fading into memory.
 
#15 ·
Doug, thank you for your candor and generosity in sharing these stories of your father. It's a great reminder to me to cherish my own while he's still around. It's too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind, and miss out on what's really important. Keep up the musing, it's contagious.
 
#16 ·
I sent this link to my sister, and she passed it along to my nephew. Looks like I am the family historian on martial matters. And there will be someone interested in receiving a shadow box with Dad's interment flag and medals when I shuffle off this mortal coil. Good, healing stuff.
 
#17 ·
Douglas,
You bring up an interesting point about the depression; in reality, it shaped us as well. My mother graduated from high school on Friday night and went to work in the H.W. Gossard crosset factory on Monday. The year was 1933. She was paid 10 cents per hour and worked a 10 hour day. Her first pay check had a take home of $4.37. She was so proud that she bought her mother a fret work shelf for 57 cents. Carleen dug it out and handed it to me the other day. It needs some repairs but it is very special.

The experiences of our parents during the depression had profound effects on their method of parenting. We too hunted rabbits and squirells for the pot and hunted mushrooms becasue they were good to eat. I began working for wages,stacking hay, when I was 13 because Dad refused to buy me a pair of cowboy boots that I wanted. He said, " if you want a pair of those G- D-- things get a job and buy your own". I did. I've never been with out a job since if I wantd to work. I watched some kids in town yesterday and it seemed to me they lacked purpose in life. It also seemed that they did not know themselves. They looked like they would be better off if they went to bed tired from a good days work. If they did they could at least look back at the end of the day and see what they had accomplished.
 
#18 ·
Yes Thomas and Douglas. The people who want the jobs and are willing to work are called illegals. But who do we get to do the jobs that others wouldn't get their hands dirty for.

You waklk through Walmart in Georgetown and over 50-70 % are Hispanic. We have 8-10 chicken processing plants in a stones throw from one another and chicken farms all over the place. The DelMarVa peninsula produce over 600 million chickens a year. And no one wants to work there. And so we welcome the Hispanic people to the area.
 
#19 ·
Karson, They are the new immigrants. In places here in the Northwest we are well into the second and third generation. They are business owners and very successful. They are neat, clean and willing to work for a living. On the ranches, you need to be bi-ligual or you can't talk. Es necessario hablar el Espanol aqui. I have many stories about these good people. I just wish we could trade off some of our do-less ones for these good ones. We too welcome them with open arms. They know what poor is and they will do what it takes to get away from it, much like our parents did. Lordy, I'm glad I no longer have to save hay wire and pull all the nails out of the boards before I put them in the stove. A rail road plate and a hammer were always near to straighten nails and put them in a coffee can. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
 
#20 ·
yah.. the best thing I ever did for my children when they were young was to starve them! ha. ..
although, they say today that they didn't know that it was sometimes hard to put a meal together…
They do value everything they have though.
 
#22 ·
Thank you for guiding me to this story Douglas.

Very touching.

I wish I was as prolific at writing as you are.

That's why I use more pictures, & less words.
 
#23 ·
You're welcome, Dick. Your pictures of summers on the farm reminded me of Dad's youth. I still got choked up re-reading it after a time. My Sis, Bro.-in-law and nephew liked it too, and it engendered a couple of nice family conference calls.
 
#24 ·
Doug, thats a wonderful story & a great piece of history. Thanks for sharing. My dad was also in the war, the Middle East. He was also a woodie, a builder of shearing sheds, homesteads & windmills. did a bit of share farming in his younger days. Never talked much about the war which was fairly typical of many returned diggers.
 
#25 ·
Grumpy, we owe the gentlemen from all over the globe, who gave their youth or their lives to defeat fascism. Their mission was clear, and the consequences of their failing would have been unfathomable. There aren't many of them left.

Things aren't as clear these days. I hope we haven't squandered the freedoms we were granted from their sacrifice.
 
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