MEMORIES OF MY FATHER
DECEMBER 13, 2003

I have been given ten minutes to speak at my father’s funeral about my father’s life. As I outline the highlights as I see them, I realize ten minutes could not possibly suffice; so I am writing my thoughts, and will print them so that all who wish may read at their leisure the highlights that I believe portray the nature of this great man.

Dad died in the Utah Valley Hospital on Saturday, December 6th, 2003 of Pneumonia.

Dad was in some ways quite uncomplicated. Things to him tended to be black or white, right or wrong. His faith was pure and simple. He believed in God, and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as put forth by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons. There are many reasons why I believe that Dad’s faith was indeed pure and without question:

As a small child, before I learned to knock before entering a closed door, I sometimes entered the bathroom to find my father kneeling on the floor, resting his elbows on the edge of the bathtub in such deep prayer that he didn’t seem to notice my intrusion. As a family we knelt and prayed around the kitchen table every morning before breakfast. In the evening before retiring to bed, my mother and father always knelt together in prayer. Yet my father also had his private conversations with his Father in Heaven, and then went forth throughout the day acting in accordance with his understanding of his Father’s commandments. I do not believe Dad had a false side. I don’t think there was anything phony about this man. I believe he spoke the truth when he spoke; and I believe he lived his life in harmony with his belief system. I know Dad was not a perfect man, but I also deeply believe he was not capable of fraud or gross deception.

Dad spoke with the Lord so often that it was totally natural to call upon Him as he was driving to Moroni one winter day many years ago. It was in the afternoon. The sun was low enough in the sky to cast a shadow across the highway that previously had been wet from thawing snow; but within the shadow the water had frozen into what is called black ice. Dad didn’t notice the ice as he rounded a corner until it was too late to slow down and straighten the wheels out before hitting the ice. Immediately upon encountering the ice patch, the car turned sideways. The cars in those days had a high center of gravity, with inferior suspension systems, so Dad realized that if he hit the dry asphalt of the highway while sliding sideways, the car would very likely roll over. Without hesitation Dad called out to his Father in Heaven: “Father, please straighten this car out”. The car instantly righted itself just in time to meet the dry asphalt straight and true without even a wobble. Dad was on direct speaking terms with his God, and did not question whether or not he should call upon Him for help. He pulled the car to the side of the road, appropriately expressed his gratitude to his Father, and continued on down the road.

Dad was a strictly honest man in his dealings with others. In order to supplement their income, Mom and Dad purchased a vending machine business. They had placed gumball machines in various businesses throughout Colorado and Utah. People would place a penny in a slot on the machine, turn the handle, and a piece of gum or a charm would fall against a lid that the person would lift up in order to retrieve their purchase. Four times a year, Mom and Dad would hire someone to work the general store they owned in Fairview, Utah so they could travel their route and service their machines. I remember Dad saying that they made as much money working four, two week trips as they did working six days a week in the store the other 44 weeks of the year.

I traveled the two-week trip with Dad on one occasion when I was 15 years old. We had no automobile in 1958. We hadn’t had one for several years, the previous car having been a 1946 Hudson. We didn’t have a TV then either. Mom and Dad worked very hard to provide music lessons for their six children, see to it that all of us attended college, and never wanted for the necessities of life. But TV and our own automobile were luxuries they could not provide at that time. So we used Grandpa Carlston’s Willy (sp) sedan. The original Jeep Company made this strange looking car, and the construction of the body was as poor as the aesthetic quality. However, the four-cylinder engine purred along like a Swiss watch. It was stick shift on the column, and had overdrive in the top two gears.

So Dad and I removed the back seat, loaded up the car with bags of gum balls, trinkets, extra parts for repairs, and extra preloaded containers so we could slip off the empty top to the machine, dump the pennies on the scale to weigh them, place the preloaded container on top of the base, calculate by weight the value of the pennies, pay the owner of the business where Dad had placed the machine a percentage of the income, and be out the door within a few short minutes.

One day we were traveling across a sage brush covered valley in Colorado, flat and quite barren. We came to a place where two highways came together to form one that continued on through the valley. In the Y formed by the coming together of the two highways was an old wooden combination gas station, convenience store. Nothing like the ones we have today. This was 1958. Dad and I went into the store and serviced the machines. While I replaced the head full of gumballs and trinkets, Dad weighed the pennies, computed their value, paid the owner his percentage, and we left. Even though I was only 15, I was allowed to drive when not in the cities, so that Dad could make repairs etc so we could keep moving. Occasionally Dad would manually count each penny so that he could make sure the weight scale was still accurate. On this particular occasion Dad counted the pennies, and said that we needed to turn around and go back to the station since the scale had given an inaccurate value for the pennies we had collected. He said we had not paid the man his fair share. We had traveled about ten miles while Dad was counting the pennies, so I turned around and drove back to the station. As I stopped in front of the old building with the sagging sign, washed out paint, and overgrown trees and shrubs, Dad reached over and handed me eight pennies, and said, “Take these in to Mr. So and So, and apologize for our error. We had driven twenty miles out of our way to pay eight cents, so Dad could steep that night!

I learned many valuable lessons from my father simply through observation, by his example. He also taught me through personal conversation on many occasions. I will state emphatically that I do not remember ever having had a spanking from my father. In my memory he never touched me in anger. Instead, he chose to tactfully rebuke me with the spoken word whenever he became aware of a mistake I had made. His chidings were always controlled and tempered with kindness, calmness and compassion.

I remember the first “hard” lesson my father taught me. Our family was living in California on a large ranch that was owned by the Church. Dad was the foreman of the ranch and among other duties was in charge of running the working crews that came each week consisting of church member volunteers from the various Mormon congregations in the surrounding communities. Also, as I recall, there were seven or eight full time families living on the ranch since it was quite large.

One day Dad asked his only son to clean and shine his shoes. I was eight or nine years old, and had previously been taught how to do this small chore. I agreed to do this for him, and said I would get to it soon. He reminded me a couple of times, but I never did shine his shoes on that particular occasion. Nothing was said about the incident until the following weekend when all of the children from the various families on the ranch were getting together to travel the three miles into Perris, California to see a movie. I went to my father and asked him for twenty five cents, (the year was about 1951), so that I could go to the movies with the rest of the “ranch children”. Dad asked me to sit with him in private, and without anger but with kindness and compassion asked me if I remembered him having asked me the previous week to shine his shoes. He asked me if I remembered him having reminded me twice. I told him that yes I did remember, and for the first time I remembered not having done as he had asked. His request had completely left my mind until that moment. Dad said, “You know son, you and I are the men of the house, and we have to work together as a team. I do things for you, and you do things for me. I want you to understand how important it is that we respect each other and help each other, so I am not going to allow you to go to the movies with your friends. I want you to understand that I will always support you in all that you do, but I expect the same in return from you.”

Dad always left my dignity untouched by his chidings, (while to chide means to scold, scold is much too harsh a word for my memory of my father’s “conversations”). These special times while embarrassing and humiliating for me, were always two way conversations where I was allowed to interact with him; and I was never left questioning his sincerity, concern, and love for me.

Dad never claimed anything as being his to the exclusion of other family members. He and Mom always shared what they had with their family. It seems that everything they did in life was geared to unselfishly providing for their children. Mom stayed up many nights making dresses, coats and blouses for her children. She made each of my five sister’s wedding dresses, and most of their wedding cakes also. When Dad received the loan from Mr. Rasmussen at the Bank of Ephraim to purchase his new Rambler, it never occurred to him to deny his children the use of the car. He never called it His car. It was Our car. Several times I asked Dad if I could use the car for a date. He not only freely provided the car, but on more than one occasion, I would walk home form the bus after school to find the car sitting in the driveway freshly washed and gassed up, ready to go.

Later in this writing, you will understand that Dad walked on feet and ankles that had been crushed like chicken bones which left sharp spurs that caused pain with each step he took for the last sixty years of his life, so it was no small thing for Dad to drive the car home, wash it, and walk back to the store so that he could close up and do the bookwork and then walk back home again so that his son could use the “Family Car”. These were not isolated incidents of random kindness. This was the very nature, the fabric of the Man. The Iron Man the doctors called him when he refused to die. Yet this man of steel was kind and understanding and gentle to his children in good and bad times alike. Like the time Kathy drove the car too close to an open half door on the ranch in California. The top half of the door was open, and as Kathy drove by, it created a deep scratch the entire length of the car. Kathy was mortified and crying. Dad saw the accident, and called her to him. “Dear, please don’t cry. Come here and let me talk to you. One time I missed the end of a culvert and broke the right front wheel off my Dad’s car. Another time I hit a Horse. Another time I was backing out of the driveway, and forgot to close the door, which hit a tree, which tore the door off the car. I am not scolding you, because my wonderful Dad did not scold me”.

Dad never talked down to me. He never called me stupid, inept, or anything else that might convey a negative connotation towards me. Indeed, on many occasions, he actually confided in me even while I was just a teenager. I remember how he called me into his room where he showed me a letter he was writing to the Bank of Ephraim where he was laying out his assets and liabilities and the reasons why Mr. Rasmussen should give him a loan so that he could purchase a new Rambler Ambassador. George Romney was the President of the company that made the Rambler. He was a definite underdog in the automotive world, and Dad, already feeling the squeeze from large supermarkets, was all for the underdog. He would drive out of his way to patronize some one who had treated him fairly, and yet he would not hesitate to speak bluntly, yet tactfully to let people know when he felt he had not been treated fairly. Just ask Don and Sonya about taking him out to dinner. He was never rude, but if things weren’t up to Dad’s standards, he would make it a point to let the management know about it . . . much to Don and Sonya’s embarrassment.

Dad had an acute sense of fairness that along with his understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ made him different from most men that I know. I never heard him join in on the racial jokes that were quite common in the area as I grew up. I have a vivid recollection of a trip to Salt Lake City, (100 miles North of Fairview). I believe the entire family was in the car except maybe Susan Gay was not yet born. I must have been four or five years old. As I remember, I was standing between the seats of the 1946 Hudson, and I could just see over the door and out the window. The year would have been about 1947 or 1948. As I looked out the window I saw some people who didn’t look like the people in Fairview. Their skin was very dark. There was no television at that time, at least none that I was aware of in the central Utah mountain valley that was home to Fairview; so life in Fairview was “protected” somewhat. I remember saying: “Look at those people!” One of my sisters said, “Oh, those are Niggers.” My father calmly pulled the car over to the side of the street, placed his arm on the back of the front seat so that he could rotate around and face those of us in the back seat. He calmly and gently said that the term Nigger was not a respectful term, and that we were to call these people Negroes and always remember that Father in Heaven was also their Father and He expected us to treat them with respect. I do not remember ever hearing my father make disparaging remarks about those we call minorities. Nor do I remember him making fun of others with disabilities. Although Dad could be very opinionated with regards to politics and religion, he was never disrespectful or condescending.

One measure of the love and loyalty that is created between family members when parents set the example for their children, and lead them into an understanding of the principles of honesty, integrity, work ethic, tolerance, justice and mercy, is illustrated in the fact that when Mother became ill and too weak to continue caring for Dad as she had all those many years, my five sisters created a calendar which covered an entire year where they would each spend a week at a time rotating between them to stay with Mom and Dad full time during their rotation to help Mom care for Dad. This kind of love and sacrifice is the natural result of years of total devotion by loving parents who always put the needs of their children above their own personal needs. Parents who never degraded or belittled their children and always trusted in us first, yet gently guided us back when we made mistakes.

Indeed, while I am certain my father raised his voice to me in frustration on several occasions throughout my life, I must say I remember only two occasions. One was when I was sixteen years old and driving Dad’s new Rambler Ambassador to Salt Lake City with several members of the family. Dad was riding “shotgun” with one of my sisters in the front middle. Mom was in the back seat where she always seemed to end up when her children reached driving age. As I recall, the car was full, and as we approached a stop sign some where around North Lehi, (no freeways that I know of in Utah in1959), the light turned yellow. I don’t know about the rest of you, but one of my early driving frustrations was trying to decide whether to stop or proceed when the light turned yellow. On this particular occasion, I hesitated until it was too late to stop, and the light turned red before I entered the intersection. Most of you reading this do not adequately appreciate the volume of sound that escaped my father’s lungs when he needed to get ones attention … (this came in handy whenever he wanted to summon me from any where within a two-block radius of our home in Fairview, Utah. Whenever visitors came to “Hotel Fairview” to sample mother’s legendary home made whole wheat bread and down home country cooking, Dad would invariably need to showoff his son by asking me to entertain the company with a piano concert. “SON COME HOME!!!” reverberated through the crisp country air at 6000 feet above sea level, no megaphone needed; so I would drop what I was doing and run home, clear the chain link fence with a single scissor jump, visit briefly with the company, play the obligatory concert, and go back to whatever it was I was doing.) So as we entered the intersection on the red light the windows of the car nearly shattered as Dad screamed: “DEAN,WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED!!?” I have never forgotten that episode, because Dad always talked to me as though I was his most important confidant and friend.

I remember a trip to Salt Lake City when he took me to a Jewelry Store and bought me my first fountain pen. He bought me my first deer rifle, my first watch, and my first electric razor. He gave me a credit card to use for emergencies and gasoline while attending college.

The only other time I remember my father yelling at me in frustration was while he lay helpless in the hospital last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Dad had gained so much weight, (5’10”, and 245 lbs), that the combination of weight on top of ninety-two years had rendered him helpless. His legs could no longer support his body; and when he fell several times during the last month of his life, Don Rogers his devoted Son-In-Law would have to go to the neighbors and summon two strong men so that the three of them could lift Dad back into his chair. The most recent fall had broken a toe and severely sprained his stiff inflexible knee and hip to the point that the ambulance crew could not load him into the stretcher without inflicting great pain. Dad entered the Hospital for the last time, and I took over for Kathy my sister and began sitting by him Thursday morning, December 4, 2003. Dad had contracted a slight case of pneumonia while at home; but while in a mostly reclined position in the hospital bed, the “Old Mans Friend” slowly spread throughout his lungs in spite of massive intravenous and oral antibiotics. As the liquid gradually filled Dad’s lungs, and he began experiencing oxygen deprivation to the brain, he began to sense that he was going to die.

Prior to this time with my Dad, I had not truly appreciated his passion for living. I was gratefully appreciative of his nature to see and enjoy beauty in all of God’s creations. Even on a cloudy day Dad would find something positive to say about the shape and to him beauty in the dark gray rain filled clouds. “His” mountains above Fairview were a constant source of beauty and solace. He never tired of the drives through his mountains, (or any where else for that matter), and I am particularly thankful that this year in September, Dad, Mom and I drove the Skyline Drive from Soldiers Summit to Fairview at the time when the entire mountain seemed on fire with the varied shades of yellows, reds, greens, and oranges that frost creates in the fall of each year. Dad and Mom both commented that the mountain had never been so beautiful in their memory.

So as Dad became agitated and restless from the combination of the frustration of not even being able to roll over in bed unaided, and the deprivation of life giving oxygen in spite of the oxygen being pumped into his nose piece, he reached up and grabbed the rectangular bar which swings by chain from the horizontal pole attached to the bed. As he strained to pull himself away from his pillows and swing his legs over the side of the bed, he realized that this ability was gone. Only days earlier, he was able to pull himself from his hospital bed, (in the apartment that Don and Sonya had built attached to their home in Mapleton to house these wonderful Parents for the past 10 years), and stand next to the bed with the help of his walker, rotate sideways to sit in his wheel chair, wheel himself into the bathroom where he could stand, prop himself against the sink and give himself a birdbath, shave, manicure his nails, brush his teeth, etc. This process took some three hours, but Dad did it day after day without complaint … except for little good-natured statements such as, “Beth honey, it’s a good thing I’m not a horse, or they would have put me down years ago.”, or “Golden you old bum, why can’t you move faster?”, “Well, and so it is.”, “There is no finer woman on this earth than my wife. My cup runneth over with joy.” “Beth, you cute little scamp, will you get me a toothpick?”

So as Dad struggled against fate, he looked at me and said, “Son, help me into the chair so that I can get out of this bed.” I said, “Dad, you have pneumonia, and the Doctor has given you strict instructions that you not leave this bed.” Prior to this time I had attempted to make him comfortable by pulling on the blanket the nurses had placed under his hips and torso. Depending on which side of the blanket I pulled on, I was able to change his position from left side to right side to back.

At home every morning, Dad could not wait to get out of bed and into his “automated” chair that aided his sitting and standing. I am sure that as long as he would be able to see, hear, read, watch his news on TV, Little House On the Prairie reruns with Mom, eat real butter, whole milk, half and half, cream, Jimmie Dean Sausage, and candy whenever he could sneak it, Dad would have been content to go on living forever … but those days were gone, and Dad seemed to be beginning to understand.

During one thirty-minute period, I changed Dad’s position at least three times. I barely got him settled on his left side and sat down in the chair next to his bed when he said, “Oh dear, son, I am afraid I’m going to have to be on my right side, I am so sorry to trouble you so much, but I don’t remember ever being so miserable …I just can’t get comfortable.” This went on repeatedly over many hours until he reached up and grabbed the triangular “life line”, his ticket out of there, his ticket back to his comfortable apartment with his treasure, his honey, his pride and joy, the girl he fell in love with from her picture in the high school yearbook. Lying in bed was not Golden Dean Carlston’s idea of living, and he wasn’t about to give up without a fight … and fight he did. He would not let go of the rod. He summoned the same tenacity with which he fought sixty years earlier when he fell feet first some 36 feet and landed on solid stone. The workers pulled him by a rope tied around his waist from the construction site cesspool at his future home where he and Mom would later raise their five daughters and one son. They didn’t know his back was broken. They saw his feet and ankles were crushed when they removed his bloody shoes. They saw bones protruding from his legs, his broken wrist, and elbow. They saw his jaw twitching back and forth towards his ear each time his heart beat. They knew he could not live, and since there was no hospital in Sanpete County, Utah in the forties, they laid his writhing body on an old mattress, and dragged it one block to the East to his father’s house where he lay for three days while all expected him to die. When he refused, they placed him in the town Hurst since there was no ambulance, and drove him on dirt roads 50 miles north, to Provo where he was later transferred to Salt Lake City. For many nears, his x-rays were used in lectures at the University of Utah Medical School to show what could be done with the impossible. His doctors gave him the label of “Iron Man”. His recovery took a year, and left his ankles fuzzed and inflexible; his right knee would bend only to a 90 degree angle, so when he fell for the last time last week, the 245 pounds severely played against the inflexibility, so his suffering in bed was unbearable no matter how he was positioned.

So Dad’s final struggle began as he grasped the rod with a death grip that I could not release without fear of injuring his hands. His face flushed with the strain, frustration and oxygen deprivation, he fought for several hours.

“Dean, please put some pillows behind my back so I can sit up”. “Son, please help me out of this bed, I think I’m going to go nuts. I want to go home”. As the liquid filled his lungs, the feeling of impending death agitated him to the point that he began screaming at me. “Dean, why won’t you help me!? I’m going to die in this bed! Please help me Son!” I tried to reason with him, I could not lift him, and if I summoned the nurses for help, he would not have been able to sit up in a wheel chair even if they had been willing to go against the Doctors orders.

There have been times in my life when I have put myself in situations where I felt helpless, frustrated, and had no idea what to do next; but when Dad began screaming at me, his voice carrying out into the hallways, I must tell you it broke my heart; and as I write of this episode, I will say I have been relieved somewhat by having to remember and write down the chronology of Dad’s deterioration into a useless body still inhabited by a sound mind, … a spirit unwilling to succumb. But I suppose I will forever be haunted by the possibility that my Father’s last lucid thought was that his Son was refusing to help him. He finally stopped asking me to help and instead yelled to those passing by in the hallway, asking for help. I had purposely opened the door wide so that the staff could see and hear what another human being was going through. I had repeatedly asked for morphine to calm my Father, relieve his extreme discomfort, and aid in the transition that I knew had to come, but which Dad refused to recognize. Dad simply would not quit. In total frustration, weeping profusely, I went to the nurse and told him that what was going on was inhumane. I insisted that he call the Physician, and obtain morphine for my father.

Finally, after many hours, morphine was administered, Dad released his grip on his ticket back home, settled back onto the pillows for the last time; and although he would periodically stair at the rod and strain his arms to reach it, his arms would not rise more that a couple of inches above the bed; but the determination would not leave his face.

I have heard it said that when we humans are backed into a corner, where we see no way of escape, when we reach that moment where we realize that struggle is futile, our true nature comes flooding out, and whatever is in our hearts, the real person behind the masquerade will come rushing out, and for many who have lived double lives, four letter words and expletives will flow from their lips revealing a clear view into that person’s soul. The truth of the matter is that I have not as yet given you a complete quote of my father’s statements during his last and greatest frustrating time when his son stood by his bedside, helpless and weeping. “Damn it Dean, why won’t you help me” were the actual words Dad screamed. It simply was not in this great man’s nature, vocabulary, habit, or lifelong conditioning to bring forth those expletives that most men would have produced under similar circumstances.

I never understood the sheer will and determination of the man Golden Dean Carlston until those very trying hours on his final day. I rank my father at the top of a short list of great men I have had the privilege of knowing personally. And though to this moment I am haunted by his words, I believe I would rather live with that memory than with the thought that my father might have been laying there screaming “Damn it Dean, why aren’t you here?”

 

PAPA, YOU TAUGHT ME WELL

PAPA, YOU TAUGHT ME WELL FROM THE CRADLE TILL TODAY. YOUR COURAGEOUS EXAMPLE MEANS MORE THAN WORDS CAN SAY.

AS LONG AS MY BODY DRAWS BREATH, AS LONG AS THOUGHTS STILL FLOW I’LL FOLLOW YOUR EXAMPLE; TREASURED MEMORIES WILL HELP ME GROW.

YOU TAUGHT ME THE ART OF WORKING, HONEST WORK FOR HONEST PAY. GO THE EXTRA MILE; A FAIR EXCHANGE IS THE BETTER WAY.

NEVER GIVE UP, PUT YOUR SHOULDER TO THE WHEEL NO MATTER HOW YOU HURT, NO MATTER HOW YOU FEEL KEEP YOUR PROBLEMS TO YOUR SELF, RATTLE NAILS WHEN CASH IS LOW.

IF OTHERS KNOW YOU’RE DOWN, OPPORTUNITY MAY NEVER SHOW.

SPEAK KIND WORDS OF ENCORAGEMENT, POSITIVE ATTITUDE GOES A LONG WAY

DO WHAT IS RIGHT AND TRUE, YOU’LL FEEL BETTER AT THE END OF DAY

YOUR IRON WILL, YOUR PRINCIPLED LIFE, WILL INSPIRE AS YEARS COME AND GO

YOU’RE MY DAD, MY GREATEST MENTOR, I LOVE YOU MORE THAN YOU KNOW

Dean L. Carlston Sr.