Another early memory

Another early memory is one of me riding with my dad and namesake in his Chevy Luv pickup.

Much like this one.

We were driving across the Madison Ave bridge over US 30 in Wooster and witnessed an accident. I think it was a head-on collision of a semi truck and a full-size pickup, but I'm unclear on that. Dad pulled to the side of the road and got out (he probably told me to stay in the pickup). I was very young, somewhere between 5 and 7, and I think I didn't pay much attention to the accident or didn't see it or avoided seeing it (I never have liked the site of blood much). I'm not sure on that part, but, for some reason, I think when he came back I asked Dad what he was doing.

What freaked me out here was when he came back in the pickup and started rubbing his hands together and remarking about the blood. Repeatedly.

And that's all I remember for certain. Obviously, there was some resolution to this scene where I may have asked him what was wrong or something like that and he probably shrugged it off after a moment and then continued our trip to wherever we were going. I have no clue, though. At least not right now. Maybe some psychologist will want to delve into this and can extract more detail someday. If that happens, I will probably expand on it here.

Years later, when I was a teenager, that hand-wringing and the repeated words about blood would reoccur. Dad was sitting on the floor of our house between Walnut Creek and Trail and started doing this as if in a trance. I don't recall the situation otherwise or what set it off. What I can be certain of, though, is that either he and Mom were arguing or he was watching TV. That covers 90% of what I remember of regular life with my namesake.

In high school, my Senior English teacher, Mr. Pratt, hosted an assembly with some Vietnam veterans. They talked openly and honestly about their lives with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was during this that it finally dawned on me what part of my father's entire problem may have been. I confirmed with Mom that he had served in Korea, something which I don't recall him talking about, although I'm sure I should have known that already. I do remember finding his discharge paper in the attic one time.

That was a lightning bolt of understanding for me. Dad and I never got along very well (something that I could write pages and pages about, and just might do so in the future). We still didn't even after this, but I had more... empathy? ...for him once I had this knowledge.

Of course, he never got treatment and died of an aneurysm two years after my revelation came to me.