A great goodbye

To the editor:
On October 20th, 1957 (my 18th Birthday) my history with the United States Marine Corps began. On that morning my Father woke me as he had on every morning of our shared Birthday (I was born on my Father’s Birthday) with his giggling rendition of “Happy Birthday to Us”. A shared Birthday and our last name was all we had in common, I thought.
I was convinced that he hated me and I knew I hated him. He did not endorse my enlistment in the Marine Corps he told me “Son, you have a wonderful mind and you should use it to help and to teach people; you should become a preacher.” I had always attended church schools, grades 1-12, and with that educational background he felt I should use my knowledge to help people instead of learning how to kill people.
I could not think of a more disgusting life’s work.
He drove me to the Greyhound bus station where I would board the bus that would take me to Indianapolis to be sworn in. I had to leave at 7 a.m.; my Father had to be at work at Cummins Engine Company at 7 a.m. I had never known my Father to be late for work but on this morning he chose to be late to work.
I hopped out of the car and we said our hasty, stilted, goodbye to one another. He drove off to work and I boarded the bus thinking, with relief, good riddance.
Leaving Columbus, Indiana the Bus drove 10 miles north on Highway 31A and, rounding a sweeping curve, turned onto Highway 31 to Indianapolis — 40 miles north — to my swearing-in ceremony.
It has been 54 years since that crisp, clear and sunny, October morning and I remember vividly the next sequence of events.
The highway had railroad tracks that ran parallel to the highway for 10 or 15 miles; the tracks were elevated 6 feet or so. As I sat in my seat on the bus I watched the vistas of my youth slip away as we sped north. Off to the right, up and over the railroad tracks and back some distance from the tracks, sat a large church with enormous colonnades.
On the road that went up and over the railroad tracks, parked on the tracks at the pinnacle, was my Fathers 1956 Ford automobile. He had parked it there after what had to be a mad dash to get there before the bus carrying me drove past to Indianapolis.
He stood, at 6-4 and 230 pounds, with one foot on the front bumper and his wide brimmed fedora (church hat) waving wildly to gain my attention.
A heart full of Fatherly love, saying, “bon voyage, son,” to a heart full of teenage hate.
And he waved and he waved as we drove out of sight.
I sat back in my seat and wept as I was, by his beautiful loving gesture to his smart-aleck kid, suddenly aware that it wasn’t dad’s problem but mine that we were always at loggerheads.
I can’t remember my father ever saying, “son I love you,” but oh how I remember the morning he showed me.
Semper Fi!
Phil Lutz
Bryant
Note: The Tun Tavern (the “Tavern”) was a brew house built by Samuel Carpenter in 1685. It was located on Philadelphia’s historic waterfront at the corner of Water Street and Tun Alley leading to Carpenter’s Wharf near what is today known as “Penn’s Landing.” On November 10, 1775, Robert Mullan, the proprietor of the Tun Tavern and son of Peggy Mullan, was commissioned by an act of Congress to raise the first two battalions of Marines, under the leadership of Capt. Samuel Nicholas, the first appointed Commandant of the Continental Marines. Nicholas’s grandfather was also a member of the Tun Tavern Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons and it is this relationship between Mullan, Nicholas and the Tavern which has resulted in Tun Tavern being acknowledged as the birthplace of the United States Marine Corps. There are an estimated three million active and retired U.S. Marines worldwide who have been exposed in their military training to the historical significance of Tun Tavern. Each year on November 10th, around the world Marines toast the Marine’s birthplace on the most significant date in the history of the Corps.[[In-content Ad]]