Dad

It is not possible to capture a lifetime in a few words, so with just a few, here are some things to remember about Keith, my Dad.

He was always strong.  Both mentally and physically.  When he set his mind to doing something, it would get done.  There is a very nice window in the boathouse at Keuka Lake in the center of a cement block wall.  You can glance up to look out toward Hammondsport while you wash the dishes.  Dad cut through that wall with his circular saw and a number of masonry blades.  Dust went everywhere as he inched the blades first through one side and then the other, since the blades did not cut deep enough to get all the way through.  Then he put in a very nice window with an extended sill for passing things back and forth.  Most of us would not even have considered this, opting instead for hanging a picture over the sink.  But Dad went ahead regardless of the half inch of cement dust he wore by the time he finally finished.

55 years of smoking was a less than stellar decision.  Thankfully, the cancer in his lung was limited to a single lobe, and that was removed a few years ago.  He came through the operation nicely and was in good spirits when we left him that night.  We got the call about 4 in the morning indicating that Dad was having some issues.  When I arrived, an intern met me at the door of the unit.  “Are you Mr. Fredlund’s son?” he asked.  When I answered in the affirmative, his eyes got big and he said, “Your father is REALLY strong.”  It seems that Dad woke up in the middle of the night, medicated and confused with tubes running out of his body, and only knew one thing.  He was getting the hell out of there.  It took 2 security guards, two interns and two nurses to secure him back onto his bed.

Keith was brave.  The night before Halloween, we got a knock on the front door, and were surprised to hear “Trick or Treat!” from about a dozen older teens.  Half were burly young men who looked like they enjoyed football.  To my 7 year-old eyes, they were huge.

“It’s not Halloween,” offered my mother.  

“We’re here tonight,” said the leader.  Dad came to the door.  

“Come back tomorrow,” he said, flatly.

“No, we’re here tonight.”

“We’ll have something for you tomorrow.”

“No, tonight.  I guess we’ll just have to do a trick...let’s go see what we can find in the back yard.”  The entire group left our front door and walked down the driveway  beside the house to the back.  Dad shut the door and walked through the house and stepped out the back door.

“Look at this...a nice picture window,” said the leader, picking up a fist-sized rock from the garden. “Still no treat?”

“No,” said Dad, “Come back tomorrow.”

“Then I guess I’m just going to have to break that window,” the leader said, shifting the rock from hand to hand.

“Go ahead,” said Dad as he took two steps forward toward the bully.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” he said again softly, “but realize that you’ll be on the ground before the glass.”

“Er...ahhh...well, maybe we should come back tomorrow.”  

“See you tomorrow.”  As they made their retreat and disappeared, I knew for a fact that my Dad was the bravest man in the entire world.

Keith was bright and creative.  He grew up a Yooper in Upper Michigan.  The rural nature of the place lent itself to familiarity with guns.  Since that was not much of an option for his suburban son, he fashioned rubber band guns out of a wooden gun cutout and half of a clothes pin.  My friends and I spent hours in battles with plastic army men and sometimes each other.  During one of the battles, the notion arose that the guns were great, but limited due to their single shot capacity.  Dad heard, and the next day, a double-barrelled pistol appeared.   “This is great, Dad.  Now if I only had a machine-gun.”  He retired to the workshop, and soon I had a string-activated 12 shot rubber-band machine-gun that was the envy of all my friends.

Dad was always kind and protective.  He made his children’s spouses feel at ease entering the family.  His Grandchildren always knew he wanted only the best for them.  His purpose in life for the last few years was to make sure that his wife Anne was cared for and as happy as he could make her.  He instructed innumerable novice curlers on the basics of the game even though his skills were among the best in the Rochester Curling Club.  Several of these curlers have gone on to lament the fact that he was unable to transfer this skill level to his son.  He led our group of misfits in Boy Scout Troop 43 to a love of camping and hiking and being together while keeping the tug of adolescent deviant behavior from creating a descent into a personal version of Lord Of The Flies.  If you didn’t learn to appreciate diversity after being in that group, there was no hope for you.

There was always a certain dignity about Keith.  There was never any doubt what he stood for or how he would respond.  His commitment to doing what was right was unwavering, and he brought his considerable resources to bear to make sure that would be the case.  Even toward the end, though he knew Alzheimer’s was robbing him of so much of who he was, he brightened when he saw or heard his family enter his room, giving comfort to them.  In a condition he would never have wanted, he maintained his dignity, enduring without complaint while showing the absolute minimum of distress.  

He was a fine example for us all.