birthday

My father was born 115 years ago today, June 11, 1911 in Pensacola, Florida. Several days later he was brought home to St Andrews on the steamer SS TARPON, by his parents A D Weller and Carrie Lee Godfrey Weller - - the coming home event was recorded in a current issue of The St Andrews Bay News. 

Somewhere around here I have a photograph of Mom, my grandmother, holding my father as an infant as she sits at the top of the steps out front of their house, which at the Time was where The Old Place is now but before it was built. It was the blue house that is now at the SE corner of 9th Street and Calhoun Avenue in St Andrews. My father's oldest memory was as a baby, watching the electric lightbulb hanging down from a wire in either the dining room or the kitchen, swing back and forth as that house was rolled across Calhoun Avenue on logs, from its old place to where it is now, so The Old Place could be built on its lot. 

Somewhere around here also, I have a photo of my father, five years old, which would have been 1916, dressed in his Sunday morning Little Lord Fauntleroy Finest, sitting up high on the leaning trunk of an old cedar tree down in the front yard. That old cedar grew to be in extreme danger because of its lean and heavy weight, and I took special care of it the years I owned The Old Place, by propping it so it could not fall. It did finally fall to Hurricane Michael winds October 2018, after we had sold the place and relocated to 7H. 

My father died at age 82 in July 1993, and The Old Place came into my ownership. In the cubbies of my mind are many memories of growing up with my father. Because our minds seem to hold on to difficult things, not all those memories are positive, good ones, and, much as is the case between many fathers and sons, the relationship between us was always tense and strained, though at Times over the years, both of us tried to make it better. 

But I do have happy memories too. My father taught me to drive when I was twelve years old, before any of my friends or schoolmates learned to drive. I learned in the two cars we had at the Time, a 1942 Chevrolet and a 1936 Pontiac; and I learned to drive the large refrigerated-type trucks that my father owned in his seafood business. I was trusted with a car alone first when I was fourteen and drove to the evening fourteenth birthday party of a Cove School classmate, at her home. Everyone there was astonished, and Bill, Scotty, Warren and maybe Robert wanted me to drive them home after the party! 

As WW2 was ending, my father came home from the war and set up his seafood business, and I worked in it for him from my age nine, almost ten. Every Saturday during the school year, and Monday through Saturday summers and Christmas vacation. Every Saturday morning my father had what he called "checking up time" with his truck drivers, and then it was my job to take the week's cash and check receipts, usually several thousand dollars, to Commercial Bank at the corner of Beach Drive and Harrison Avenue, driving alone, one of the large Dodge, GMC or Chevrolet trucks - - that task, which I loved doing, started when I was fourteen years old; a memory is that I was always wearing fishy smelling clothes and got lots of glances by other bank customers waiting in line with me. 

My father trusted me. We never really "hit it off" as close and loving father and son, but he trusted me and depended on me and I don't think I ever let him down. Which led to my strong work ethic and sense of responsibility such that my mother used to say, "Bubba was born thirty-five years old!" 

My life included a US Navy career, then a business of my own, teaching in a university; then theological seminary and ordination in my middle and late forties, in Pennsylvania. When I was forty-eight years old, we relocated from Pennsylvania to Apalachicola, Florida in part so I could be near my parents and look after them as they aged, which I did, working on The Old Place, driving them to out of town medical appointments, and visiting almost every week. Then I was with mama in Gulf Coast Hospital an evening in July 1993 when my father died, somewhat sudden and unexpected; and looking after my mother from then on the rest of her life. 

My brother Walt and I had almost the same relationship with our father. Our sister Gina was one sassy person, who all our growing up years argued and fought back, finally throwing a broom at our father when he insisted she do a sweeping task his way instead of her way. Gina threw the broom, shouted, "Do it yourself," walked home, packed a bag, and got on the next bus for Gainesville. She would have been late teens or maybe twenty. Away in the Navy at the Time, I heard about it over the years! 

When our father died, Fr Bob Battin, rector of Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, was on summer vacation in England with his family. I was the priest at Trinity, Apalachicola at the Time, and I officiated his funeral service, assisted by my brother and several of our parents' grandchildren reading lessons and prayers. His ashes were interred at Holy Nativity until our mother died eighteen years later, July 2011. At their request and Mama's direction to us, we mixed their ashes together then some months later, on a bitter cold, rainy winter day, a group of us took them in John's boat and, with liturgical prayers, scattered them on local waters in several locations that Mama had specified.

My father was Thomas Carroll Weller, named for his father's sister's husband, John Thomas Carroll. For some reason, he was called Carroll all his life, never Thomas or Tom. That his mother, my grandmother Mom, must have been a bit spacey was brought home to me the day I was given a silver belt buckle that Mom had given to her son, my father. The buckle was engraved "CTW." I asked why and was told that when she bought the buckle, Mom couldn't remember whether his name was Thomas Carroll Weller or Carroll Thomas Weller. This was my grandmother, whom I absolutely adored; she lived to age 69, January 23, 1947. 

For all its ups and downs, heres and theres, back and forth, Life is Good, fragile, risky, has been and is a blessing, and I am grateful.

RSF&PTL

T90