Personal histories are filled with a variety of characters past. All of them have stories that inform us of who we are, and what we’ve learned. Some characters are elemental to our make-up. Some characters we’d rather forget, but are as important. Some we learn more about as time passes, and after they’ve passed.
I went home last weekend. It was for a wedding. I have a ton of wedding experience. Being an only child of an amazing mother who tried for a larger family, but her health prevented her from successfully carrying my two sisters to term, I am instead rich in first cousins. I have fifty of them. Prolific German and Polish Catholic roots, don’t cha know. So yes, lots of weddings.
When home, I always try to unearth stories about my parents. They’re both gone now, and I’m alone, but not really. Here are three stories about my father I discovered this past weekend, Leo Edward Kawski; Lee.
My dad had an unassuming and brilliant sense of humor and impeccable comedic timing — a man of deep observations and few words.
I come from a hard-working, farming, and outdoors-loving family. I’ve been on quite a few deer hunts with my Dad and his brothers and their sons. One wintery November day, while I was still a kid (too young to be in the field), my dad, cousin Doc, his dad (uncle Victor), uncle Jim and uncle Bill were on a hunt. While the rest of the crew were at the roadside where they started earlier and were preparing a meal of Czarnina (polish ducks blood soup), Lee was hiking back. Well, it seems Jim had leaned his loaded shotgun against the truck. The local game warden known as Gooch came upon them. He proceeded to give Jim and the boys an earful and was prepared to give them a serious legal hassle for not securing loaded firearms properly when my dad came up from behind. Assessing the situation, he calmly cleared his gun and with the breech open and empty laid the gun down in the pickup bed with the breech facing up, properly showing it was an empty gun. He looks up, and with his way that is hard to capture in words, he smirks, with a twinkle in his eye and says, “No leaners Boys.” Well, this sets everyone, including Gooch, to belly laughs and guffaws and backslaps and it leads them all into a fantastic field feast.
After World War 2, my father came home and was hungry to make his name. He ended up giving 35 years to steelwork, but before that, he was a farmer. He was a hard-handed, hard-working, handsome man. His grandfather's homestead was lost to the bank in 1891. Having his eyes on this prize, he set out to grow money from tomatoes. He leased 5 acres and single-handedly managed, cultivated, planted, weeded and harvested 5 acres of the best bumper crop of tomatoes the county had ever seen. The proceeds from this one crop covered nearly all the costs of buying back the family homestead at the bottom of Harmon Hill road.
In World War 2 Lee was part of the USAF stationed in Lakenheath Airbase, UK. He flew as a crew member on six sorties. Having a high aptitude as a marksman, he was made a Ball Turret Gunner on a B17. Protected by only a glass ball that jutted out from the bowels of the plane, it was a most dangerous assignment. On his final return over the English Channel, they were forced into evasive maneuvers when a collision with another plane seemed eminent. The wingtip of the B17 grazed the water, and before the plane could spin nose-first into the drink, the pilot pulled up. Many of the crew were reassigned after that harrowing experience.
Lee was a communications guy by stateside training and was reassigned accordingly after the near-crash. He was both a Morse Code operator and an air traffic controller. He was so adept at bringing in bombers that senior officers would seek him out and take him out to for drinks on the town. Overconsumption of libations was commonplace amongst the flyboys. Well, those city slickers lacked the constitution of my dad, and they always had to be helped back to the base by him.
My dad was a master of physical and observational humor. He was an entrepreneur. He was a modest team player. And, my dad was a leader. I learned all these things this past weekend. Imagine how it makes me feel today.
Don’t wait to get your foundational stories about those you love. Honor the memories of those passed by recounting their lives. Keep them alive with those stories. You might find an unexpected wellspring of inspiration as I did.
