Reflections on Dad’s Death

March 16^th marks the one-year anniversary of the death of my dad, Karl Love. The probate process is almost complete. The less said about that terrible experience the better. I took the high road and never wallowed in the gutter like others. Money exposed people for who they really are.

It took considerable effort but I finally transferred my dad’s Oklahoma gas/oil mineral rights to me. So, I will now receive a monthly royally payment that originated from my grandmother’s side of the family, a grandmother I never met, who died when Dad was four, from dust pneumonia in the Dust Bowl. Her lungs literally drowned in dust. A few years later, Dad and his two brothers made their way to Oregon with their step mother. Later, they returned to his Southern roots. And then he made it back to Oregon again.

My dad’s died when he was eight. The old man really did live a Grapes of Wrath story but to Oregon, not California. He saw Hoovervilles and lived out of a car and an abandoned rail car as a kid.

In my will, upon my death, my estate will transfer the mineral rights to an Oregon-based animal welfare organization. Yes, it’s money from oil, oil killing the planet, but at least it will go to a good cause and keep on giving. As Dad always told me about raising money from evil forces to do good: The Devil’s had it long enough.”

There are so many rich stories to recount about Dad’s life. Most of these he shared with me the last four years of his live when I was caring for him in Portland. Smuggling a 32. pistol into Brazil to sell and raise funds for our Church of Christ missionary service. Meeting Ted Williams. His Marine tour of duty during the Korean War where he saw heavy combat and once killed an enemy soldier at point blank range with a burst from a 30-caliber machine gun. Meeting Pele and Elizabeth Bishop at a party in Brazil. Attending segregated high schools in Arkansas. The high school spinster English teacher who had him memorize a hundred poems while she sipped sherry in the classroom from a flask. Playing offensive football in a single wing formation with no face guard on his helmet. Squirrel stew and possum pie for the football awards banquet. (Shot and cooked by the parents of the players!)

I could go on forever. I doubt I’ll do anything with the stories, although the gun running for Jesus one feels like an action novel!

Yes, we had our brutal times together, not violent, just the results from his wayward ways. But we got through them.

Rest in peace Dad. It was an honor to see you through your last years and dispose of the estate with integrity and alacrity.

Alacrity was my dad’s favorite word. It’s the perfect noun on how to conduct one’s life.

I never heard Dad ever utter a cliché. He was a coiner of phrases, many of them related to his long teaching career. One of the more memorable ones: don’t prop up mush.