Years ago, just after my mother had passed, when the funeral was done and we were in the process of trying to put order back into our life without her in it, I was driving into town one evening with my wife. We were pretty much alone in our thoughts as we headed down the highway into a gray mist of a late March dusk when she broke the silence by saying, “When my dad is gone, I want you to write something about him.” My eyes watered, and my nose ran, but I shook my head, yes. Her father, Gilbert Dickey, died at nearly 81 on Christmas Eve.
I am keeping my promise.
I knew Gib, as he was most often called, long before I knew and married his oldest daughter. As was recalled so much over the past few days by so many people who remembered him, Gib came to the house of my childhood to work on our television set, which like those of so many neighbors and friends always needed a tube or an adjustment, or in some cases, nearly the laying on of spirited hands, to keep it running. Televisions, like our Philco, were kept long past their primes in those days because there were men like Gib who could keep them going.
I came to know him as the funny man in green work pants who came to our house to sit in our living room to talk while he fiddled with parts unknown from that decrepit black-and-white set. He worked methodically, with a sprig of thinning hair in his face, a farmer’s cap balanced on the back of his head, and a pair of scratched reading glasses sliding down to the peak of his nose. He’d drink my mom’s tea, and he’d laugh, and he’d kid us kids, who sat around him in our pajamas listening to his tales. He’d leave after an hour or two with no more than a dollar or two in his pocket for his labors; we actually didn’t mind when our TV was broken…
I was re-introduced to Gib when I began to date Joanie. I took it as a good sign that he never tried to chase me off because he most certainly could have. He was a very quiet, very powerful man who had worked his farm, and his dad’s farm before that, from sunup to sunset, and more often than not, would then strike out after supper to repair televisions and radios into the late evening. After all, he had four daughters to feed and clothe and educate, and he wasn’t going to get that done on a couple hundred acres of soybeans and corn.
Gib was born the day after Christmas in 1927 on a Lafayette Road farm to Chester and Ruth Dickey. He was the middle child of three and attended both Mecca and Coxville schools before he moved on to Rosedale, where he excelled in math and science, graduating at top of the class of 1945. He never participated in sports — he was needed after school on the farm — but he once told me that a physical education teacher, who didn’t care for him much since he wasn’t involved in athletics, challenged anyone in his class to climb a rope suspended from the ceiling of the gymnasium. Gib scampered up the rope to the rafters in a matter of seconds.
“How’d you do that, Dickey?” the teacher asked.
“We have one like that in our barn,” he said. “It’s the fastest way to the loft.”
Gib worked for his dad for more than five years after graduation; he won a small scholarship to Purdue to study engineering, but wanted to farm, so he came back to Parke County out of that hankering, along with his self admitted home sickness.
He met Patricia Wisneski, five years his junior, in Clinton, promised to marry her when he got back from Korea, then headed across the Pacific for his life’s greatest adventure. Gib was a communications man in his time in the military, and often related stories to me of how he was kept out of serious front-line action primarily because officers wanted him around to fix their radios. He told me more than once that a man can be satisfied with very little if he can remember what it was like to freeze in a foxhole in Korea.
Gib came home and married Pat; he was a lonely young man until he found her, telling me once, “She saved me.” He then began to work his own farm. They lost an infant daughter, then raised four healthy ones.
Pat often said that he had nine lives; Gib survived a war, a serious heart attack and surgery, a combine fire, and kidney failure.
His was a life filled with broken bones, bruises and cuts, and little or no pay. Yet, he loved his church, loved his family — particularly his grandchildren — even tolerated his sons-in-law, including this one who pestered him for repair jobs and tool loans.
He played a big role in raising my two children. Who couldn’t love a man who strayed from his work to lay in the middle of his living room floor to play with Lincoln Logs with his grandson? Or a man who, nearing 80, didn’t want to ask anyone for help, so he’d place a ladder in the bed of his pick-up truck to change an outdoor light bulb? “He figured he wouldn’t fall as far,” Pat said of him when I told her I’d be happy to come down for those kinds of jobs.
Gib spent virtually his whole life less than four miles from where he was born, about five from where he was buried last week.
He worked his entire life to make something out of nothing, and in subsequent attempts to define him, I have heard him described in many ways: funny, smart, hard-headed, devout and laid-back, being just a few. He was a crossword puzzle man, loved to drive his ‘27 Oldsmobile in the Newport Hill Climb, and play his harmonica. He attended Farm Bureau meetings and Saturday morning auctions at the Sale Barn. He strung barbed wire for 50 years and taught a Sunday school class for nearly 30 more.
In Act V, Scene V of Shakespeare’s "Julius Caesar," Marc Antony describes the dead Brutus, decidedly not my father-in-law. Yet Antony’s words fit him well when he says: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him, that nature might stand up and say to all the world ‘This was a man.’”
But it didn’t take the Bard to describe Gib best. His wife’s cousin, Arnold Wayne Alexander, did that. On the night we stood as a nearly endless line of friends filed past my father-in-law for the last time, Arnold Wayne said, “He had a sweet spirit.”
Mike Lunsford can be reached at hickory913@aol.com or by regular mail c/o the Tribune-Star, P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. He will be signing and discussing “The Off Season: The Newspaper Stories of Mike Lunsford” at the Tribune-Star Building from 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday. Go to www.mikelunsford.com or the latest installment of “Terre Haute Living” magazine for details.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: A man of ‘sweet spirit’
- Mike Lunsford
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A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
There is a light drizzle of freezing rain tapping at the door of my cabin today. It is little more than a week before the words I am writing are due to appear on your breakfast table or work desk with your morning coffee and scrambled eggs. But I write when I can, and today, despite a full schedule of televised football games, and the stacks of ungraded papers in my briefcase, and a good book lying open on my nightstand, I am clacking away on a keyboard to the whir of a heater and the steady drip of my gutters.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
It began to snow about 20 minutes ago, as I write this, light, wind-driven flakes that fall silently into my woods as I watch from a window.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
More than a year after his wife’s death, the great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Christmas Day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
I have no idea how many times I have written a story that begins with the wistful phrase, “When I was a boy. ...”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
My 7-year-old nephew, Carson, came to visit us last week. That in itself isn’t earth-shattering news, for he often drops by with one of his parents or the other, the last time dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. But for a couple like Joanie and me, whose youngest child is now nearly two decades past Carson’s age, having a little guy like him in the house, even for a few hours, takes a bit of adjusting.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
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Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Feeding time at the homestead draws a host of new guests
I stepped outside into the warmth of an unusually mild early March morning last week to do what I always do just before I grab my briefcase and book bag and lunch bag and head off to work. It’s nearly always dark when I leave, even as the sun gets up earlier and earlier in the late winter, so I often go about the business of feeding our cats with porch lights on and a flashlight in hand.
- More Mike Lunsford Headlines
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CDC: Fecal Bacteria Common in Swimming Pools
Horse Saved From Slaughter, Goes on to Win Big
Dying Man's Blinks Lead to Murder Conviction
Terror Suspect Due in Court in Idaho Friday
Raw: Germany Protestors Picket Barbie House
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Officials Arrest Man in Idaho in Terrorism Case
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Coffee Stop Leads To Arrest Of YouTube Sensation Wanted For Murder
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Dad returns from Afghanistan, surprises family during Rays' first pitch
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Woman tricked into taking abortion pill
Emma Watson Goes Pantless
IRS scandal: Republicans seek to tie Obama to agency's woes
Play of the Day: Flipping to Safety
Pregnant Kim Kardashian Squeezes Her Swollen Feet Into Stilettos
Top Videos of the Week: Angry Taco Bell Guy, Glacier Moves on House, Dog Hates Baths
Cindy Crawford Stuns At Cannes
Raw: Marines Come to Obama's Aid in the Rain
CUTE: Monkey shares lollipop with dog, then HITS pooch on head with it
Miranda Kerr Looks Sexy in a Bikini Photo Shoot
