One Last Candle

Doug Vassall

On the evening of June 2^nd 2015 the crowd carried a birthday cake covered with flaming candles out to the dark yard where Beth was sitting while singing Happy Birthday in a wide variety of keys and tempos.

She took a deep breath and blew almost all of them out, but she didn’t want to stop before the job was done so she gave one last POOF from the depth of her lungs and got the last one.  She gasped because that last POOF caused her to inhale the cloud of smoke above the cake, but she had completed her task.

The next morning Doug and Beth returned to the hospital to visit their Dad, Douglas L Vassall Sr.

Dad is a very good friend of mine and a very interesting fellow.

He spent the first half of his life proving that he was tough as nails and the second half trying to convince people that he was the opposite, with occasional flashbacks to the younger Doug.

Most of the people still alive today know Doug Sr. as a hugging, peaceful zenster, with a prayer-bead necklace, that can’t hear worth a bean, can’t see much better, and is always willing to tell a joke and share a cookie.  People in Antrim know him as the guy that was always hitch-hiking or walking around town and in the woods, hanging around in the library, eating at church suppers, and in general being the small town character.   He volunteered at the kindergarten class for years until his failing hearing became an issue with little kid’s voices that only dogs can hear.

When I first met him in 1970 or so, he presented himself as a tough guy that would either bluff his way out of a fight or just take someone down.  He was trim, had shoulders wide enough so that by habit he always put one shoulder through a door and stepped sideways, had a severe crew cut, and was shorter than most men, which in combination with EXTREMELY bad hearing and thick glasses contributed to becoming a fighter.  His kid brother Richie was much taller but the story is when somebody was picking on Richie as a child, Doug told the bully “wait right here” and ran off to get a box.  He ran back and in front of a curious crowd, he placed the box in front of the bully, stepped up on it and decked the big kid.  That is how you build a reputation.   Most of his stories about childhood were about hunting and fishing, but various fights were an important part of the mix.

When I met him he was still promoting the rough tough image.  The first thing that I was warned about when I was interested in Beth was that “her Dad threw someone over a car and that her brother looked mean”.  The throwing over a car story was that some suitor of Beth that mouthed off to her Dad so he tossed him over the car.  Simple to understand (Don't mouth off to the big guy with the severe crewcut).  Another story was about Beth and a girlfriend walking back from a party and a carload of young boys were driving slowly behind them attempting to entice them to join them.  When Beth arrived home Doug Jr. was in the yard and starting chatting with the carload of boys to illuminate the error of their ways.  Doug Senior suspected a problem and leaned out of the kitchen door sideways, his chest lit up by the yellow porch "bug-light" like a shell gas station sign and said calmly: “Son, you need any help?”,  Doug Jr turned to him and said “Naw, there’s only six of ‘em”.  So Beth’s Dad said “oh, OK”, closed the door and shut off the outside light to give them privacy.    The carload of boys apologized for being in the neighborhood and sped away. 

I’m a pacifist, but I was a strong and optimistic pacifist that really doesn’t scare easily, so I did not have a problem dating Beth.   There was the time when Beth and I were planning to travel to California to visit Steve Schroeder after graduation and Dad took me for a “ride” in his old beat up chevy station wagon and parked it at a secluded spot to explain in no uncertain terms that if anything “happened” to Beth on this trip that he would hunt me down.  I told him that I understood that, and I thanked him for caring about Beth that much and that we would have a fun trip.  Did I mention that I was pretty stupid?

That first trip was a relative success with the only “iffy” part being when we had arranged to Beth’s Grandmother and his Uncle Richie’s family in San Diego, and then the day before we left Tucson to return to California for the visit, we found out that Beth’s mom had said that we were supposedly traveling as part of a “church group”.   The visit did not go well.

After Beth and I got married in 1974 Dad and I really learned to like each other.   He started to drop the tough guy image and was evolving on his own.  He first earned his High School Diploma, and then started attending college classes.  In the evenings after work he worked the phones at a drug hotline.  His hair grew longer and he starting hugging people.   He wore rainbow colored suspenders and replaced a rifle with a walking stick when he tromped through the woods.

The change was gradual so I wasn’t really aware of it until a good friend of mine mentioned that “Beth’s Dad had changed more in the last two years than most people do in a lifetime”.

When Dad retired he moved to New Hampshire and bought a teeny little house one mile from us.

That is when Dad and I got really close.   We would go for long walks at least once a week.  When you spend that much time together you talk about a lot of things and we now know each other very well.

He would confide in me while always repeating “don’t let this go any further”.   I am the person that was supposed to make sure everything was handled the way he wanted them to be after he died and we were taking care of Ma.   He was supposed to die young because of a “heart issue” that would kill him off before he was 45 years old, but he attributed living longer than that because he was so cranky. 

Doug had a tough life as an adult because shortly after he was married, his lovely bride had a severe case of Eastern Equine Encephalitis that left her with agoraphobia and mood swings that were beyond belief, but he kept his vows of “till death do us part”.  Sometimes he was not a very good caregiver, and at times he was a horrible caregiver, but he took care of her for the rest of her life.  He had to evolve. 

He really regretted the environment that his kids grew up in, but he claims he really didn’t know any better.  He wanted forgiveness but he knew he could never ask them for it.   It was just too awful to ask someone to forget such events.  

There was one time in the late seventies when he was drinking heavily and I talked to him about it.  Like all drunks, he thought that he had it pretty well hidden.  I told him that I knew junkies who hid their “issue” better than he did.  He looked shocked.  He stopped.  I would make him a rum and coke at holiday parties, but other than that, drinking was no longer an issue.  He could evolve when needed.

He loved playing with Derek in a way that he probably never played with his kids.  When Derek died, it not only knocked the stuffing out of Beth and I, but Florence and Doug were never the same either. 

When Florence died a few years after Derek did, Dad thought that he could live alone but found that being without the ultra-sensitive hearing of Florence to guard the perimeter, he would not feel secure in an environment where anyone could do anything while "the deaf guy" was sleeping and he would not know.  Beth and I had left New England for our final Adventure to nowhere and he was alone and couldn’t sleep.  He found a roommate, Nancy, who needed a place to stay.  She happened to have ultra-sensitive hearing too and made a perfect partner to inhabit a teeny house because they both were happy with being alone but could help each other when needed.

Beth and I returned to New England because Beth was worried that her Dad may need her, but he actually was doing fine and we found that we weren’t really welcome at his house anymore because Nancy slept during the day and Dad slept at night so any unscheduled visits would interrupt somebody.

Our close friendship drifted apart during the year because I was spending a lot of time in his garage working on the Marmon but I was not allowed into his house.  Things change.  He needed a roommate if he was going to live in his house and the circumstances required that we could not visit.  It was better for him to live in his home so it was time for US to evolve and accept it.  We were cranky about it, but we understood it.

Dad has spent the last eight years doing what older folks do.   Slowing down, eating less and lousier, reading more, sleeping more, and complaining about having too many things to do if there is more than one thing to do per month.

On July 1^st, Dad had a heart attack.  He was trucked off to the hospital in Peterborough which packed him up to send him to the Catholic Medical Center in Manchester NH.   Peterborough Hospital has become the equivalent of a “pak-n-ship” facility for distressed humans. 

When he arrived in Manchester he was still in the process of having an attack, so it was a big one.

True to form, Doug recovered.  He has been joking with the nurses and being polite.  He apologizes for all the trouble he is putting everybody through.  On Friday there was an incident with low blood pressure causing him to stop breathing (all medicines have side-effects).  This probably damaged his kidneys.   He is tired but is looking forward to moving on.  He told me he is “not well”.  He is proud of the fact that he never got sick so he kept explaining to the nurses that he didn’t know how to be a patient so bear with him.

Yesterday he was assessing the situation and I suspect that he was making some decisions.  These things are tough to think about when you are so tired.  I kept thinking of the candles.

An hour ago Doug L Vassall Sr. had a stroke or brain bleed.  They are going to do a brain scan.

Most of the candles have gone out except for the one that is still flickering….

                                                            

   ... now it is up to Doug to decide when to go...

                                                                                           … POOF!

Love you Dad.

Photos that I could find quickly...

This post was moved from The Adventure to this one, because it really isn't part of our Adventure,
I posted a link to the original on Facebook on July 5th 5:10pm.  The original post and the first comments can be seen HERE

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