Editing Dad’s Work

I’ve gained some important personal insights while editing my father’s books for republication as Kindle ebooks and Amazon paperbacks. And it has been downright depressing. Why?

What I realize in reading these is that Mom and Dad were much wiser than I appreciated and respected. Don’t most adults realize this at some point?

Off to College–Big Time

Also, when I went off to the University of Missouri in pursuit of my journalism degree, I kind of left them behind. While I went home for long breaks and the first three summers, I really had left the nest, so to speak. I didn’t think they had much to offer me. After all, I was a college student, something they hadn’t dreamed of achieving, though they made it possible for me.

Feeling Disquieted

Leaving the nest is expected, of course. My parents wanted this, but especially in reading the way my father talks about his own parents in his columns I’m feeling disquieted anyway.

Alzheimer’s Pulling Away

Until my father became severely lost to Alzheimer’s disease I enjoyed discussing and dissecting politics and national/international affairs with him. Once he became less skilled due to his illness, I frankly began pulling away. I still visited him regularly in the locked Memory Care Unit where he spent the last year of his life, but I really wasn’t very attentive. I just felt disappointed and sad for him.

But Not Molly

My daughter, Molly, who has an affinity for geriatric care and dementia care, was much more attentive and loving. So it’s probably no wonder the last day of his life that Molly was able to get through to Dad in ways neither my mother nor I were able to do.

Mom and Dad moved from Gallatin to San Marcos in the early 2000s to be closer to my family, so I participated in their lives a great deal in later years. Mom still lives in San Marcos, at age 99, in the same care center where Molly is a management trainee.

County Seat Paper

I first re-edited and slightly updated Dad’s book County Seat Paper, which is a delightful account of the people and town my parents loved and served with the newspaper for nearly 50 years. That was a little emotionally draining but didn’t leave me feeling so remiss.

I hope those who already have read the hardback book or order it on Amazon as an ebook or paperback find it as lovely as I did. Then again, I’m biased.

My Own Book Seemed Unworthy

See what really happened was I started to write a book about growing up in Gallatin, the finest place I think my parents could have picked to raise a family. But then I started reading my father’s writing and thought no one could express the sense of place, Gallatin, any better.

Baring of a Soul

Now I am updating a smaller publication of Dad’s called Post Scripts, a collection of some of his favorite weekly columns. I’m leaving out a few and adding a few, editing a bit as I go along. What’s gotten to me in that endeavor, is that I really wasn’t there for the ins and outs of life in Gallatin after I left high school, except for those brief holiday and summer breaks.

Again, totally to be expected.

But I’ve found that Post Scripts really contains a baring of my father’s soul.

Litton Tragedy

One of the tragedies I missed was the death of Democratic Senate nominee Jerry Litton and his whole family in a private plane crash the night of the Democratic primary in August 1976. The family was en route from Northwest Missouri to Kansas City to a victory celebration when the crash occurred.

I wasn’t even reachable because my husband and I were camping in Colorado. And in days before cellphones, it was several days before I learned of the incident. Dad always said if he’d ever had a son, he’d have wanted him to be like Jerry.

Big Thompson Canyon Flood

Of course, I phoned my parents as soon as I heard the news. It turned out there also had been a horrendous flash flood in Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon, killing 143 people, and my parents had no idea where we were. So, in their anguish over the Litton’s, I added to their despair.

Daily, Not Weekly Journalism

I know some of these things can’t be helped. I could have left journalism school and gone back to Gallatin. My father always encouraged me to strive for daily newspaper journalism. I did that for 13 years and then turned to college student media advising that occupied the last 27 years of my career. Dad and Mom always expressed great pride in my accomplishments.

I Have Regrets

But what if I’d shared their lives a bit more enthusiastically? I’d feel a bit richer right now, I think.