My parents attended Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, where my Dad grew up and this is where I assume they met. They both graduated and both were excellent scholars. I just wish I had inherited their ability to spell.

As I said in discussing my grand parents, my Dad was one of three boys. He grew up in Delaware, Ohio but to this day I have no idea where in Delaware he lived, went to school or played with other kids. Other than growing up in Delaware, the only thing about his childhood I know is that he contracted polio which resulted in one of his legs being reduced to about 1/3-1/2 the size of a normal leg. It was his left leg and for the rest of his life he had to wear a heavy, iron brace on this leg so he could stand and move without crutches. I am not sure of when I first noticed his leg and brace but I will always remember that whenever he sat down in or stood up from a chair he had to unlock or lock the brace. Sometimes the lock would not work and then he had an pretty good chance of falling. Over the years, when I saw the lock fail, I don’t recall ever seeing him actually fall. Probably due to the fact that he learn how to hop on his good leg to maintain his balance. Even with the brace on his leg he had to use a cane to walk to maintain balance.

The brace was heavy as it had to support his weight when he was standing on his left side. Remember, this happened when he was very young, probably before 1910, and as a result, the material that was used to make the brace was rather heavy. It completely encircled his leg and was held together by rivets and strong leather straps. The top of the brace supported his hip. Later in his life when I was a kid, he had a new brace made of lighter material, which I am not sure, but it certainly was an improvement for him. Fortunately for him, there was a man living in Lansing, Michigan, where he spent the end of his life, who could make and repair braces so his brace was always in good condition.

Even with the brace he managed to live a comfortable life, go to college, get married, father three children, and hold down a responsible job. I learned early in life that life is not fair. Not everyone is equal and some must overcome certain problems. Some let the problems rule their life where as other take control, like my Dad, and they ruled their lives even with great problems.

The brace was both a handicap and helper to my Dad raising us three kids. It was a sever handicap as he could not play with us like a normal father, i.e. play football, baseball, basketball, etc., i.e. those games that involved running. But he was an excellent swimmer and developed very strong arms and upper body muscles, which we respected early on in life, i.e. we didn't want Dad to spanks us - too strong! Oh, the spanking were not excessive when a single whack was usually enough to convince us to stop whatever it was we were doing that was not to his liking. Dad could play golf, well sort of as he could not really make a swing with his legs like a normal golfer but he could still follow through with his upper body and hit the ball pretty good. This is how I learned the game of golf, a game for all your life.

His "iron leg" handicapped him when it came to discipline as he could not run after us and catch us to spank us. We could easily stay out of this reach. Trouble was we all knew that sooner or later we had to come within an arm's length of him and, since he never forgot the incident, we would get it sooner or later. Therefore, as if my magic, we all learned to "come" to my Dad when he wished to discipline us as the punishment sooner was always, and I mean always, less sever then than later.

Driving a car was difficult for him due to the necessity to shift, i.e. use the clutch to disengage the drive shaft so the drive could change gears. Remember, Dad was born before automobiles were common and all early cars had a clutch for changing gears. Since his iron leg was on the left leg, he could use his good right leg to regulate the gas petal to control the speed of the car and use the brake petal. But stopping the car, well, that could be a problem. He had to both stop the car and disengage the gears at the same time. Naturally, stopping came first but if he could not disengage the gear quickly enough, the car would stall and stop running. I often marveled at his ability to do these two things almost as once. Fortunately, he was a very careful driver and I don't recall him ever having an accident due to his failing to stop the car in time.

We kids never called him Dad. It was always Pop. I can't recall every calling him anything else, even when he was in his 80s, it was always Pop.

Dad graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio and I can only assume it was in the early 20s since he would have be in this twenties then. He worked in retailing all his life, i.e. initially selling in stores but ending up the head of the Vocational Education Department for the state of Michigan. He did work for a time at Macy's in New York but I have no idea as to his position.

Mom was born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio. As I said before, Mom's dad was a doctor and a darn good one. I have no idea how many doctors were in Sandusky when he started his practice but I am sure the town was quite small at that time. He, like most doctors at that time, which was the late 1800's, went to the patients home or the patients came to his home. Mom was very intelligent and went to college at Ohio Wesleyan University. To the best of my knowledge, girls at that time rarely went to college. They were expected to marry young, have children, run this house, and be a good hostess. Mom was all of these but a college graduate too. Perhaps it was because both my parents graduated from college that all three of us boys were expected to go to college and we all did and even graduated.

Two of Mom's brothers followed their father into medicine. Watson was in a general practice while Lester was a surgeon. Both married, settled in Sandusky raised a family and remained their entire lives. There was a Doctor Parke in Sandusky for nearly 100 years.

Mom was a small woman, maybe 5'1" or 5'2", but we kids never took advantage of that fact. After all she was our Mom. I can almost remember the day that I discovered that I was actually taller then Mom. I believe this was when I was about 12 or 13. It took several more year to become taller than Dad, who was about 6' I believe. I remember one time my Mom asked me to "break in" a pair of shoes she had just bought. No, they were not high heels, Mom never wore them. To hard on her leg. At the time, she and I had about the same size feet. I wore her shoes around home and the breaking in worked fine so far as I recall. It wasn't much later that my shoes size increase to about a 12 and now days I have to try and find a size 14!

We kids grew like weeds as Mom was an excellent cook. Remember, up until the 1970s or 1980s, all women generally stayed home and took care of the kids and the house, i.e. cleaned and cooked. I feel sorry for the kids of today who will never know the pleasure of watching their mother fix dinner, making desserts and licking the mixing spoon and scraping out the left over batter in the bowl where many delicious things stuck to the inside. With three boys, Mom always had to divide up the privilege of licking up after mixing.

It was Mom's job to have dinner ready when Dad came home from the office. We generally ate about 6PM as that is when Dad wanted his dinner. Mom always cleaned up after dinner but us boys had to help. We started young in the kitchen doing simple things like getting things from the ice box and taking them to Mom at the small kitchen table. Oh, yes, you probably don't know what an ice box is. Well, you know what a refrigerator is. An ice box is the same thing but without electricity to run the compressor that generates the cold air to keep things cold. The ice box was kept cold by the use of large blocks of ice stored in the top of the ice box so the cold air would flow downward (cold air is heavier than warn air so it "sank"). An ice man came around to your house ever few days to deliver a block of ice. You told him what size block you needed and he would cut the block out from another block, use a pair of ice tongs to pick it up, hoist it on his shoulder, which has a thick, leather pad on it, and carry it into your kitchen and deposit it in the ice box. I am not sure if the ice man came in a truck or a horse drawn wagon.

At one time, during World War II, our milkman did delivery milk in a horse drawn wagon. Really not a wagon in the true sense but more like the back of a truck. The milk wagon had four rubber wheels and the font one could turn so the wagon could go around corners. It was always fun when the milkman came and we were home as then we could go out to his wagon and pet and feed his horse.

Mom made sure that we kids did our chores whatever they were, from helping in the kitchen to cutting the lawn. We all did chores as this was expected of us. I am not even sure we got an allowance for doing these chores but, if we did, it was probably very little. There was not much need for money except to buy comic books or go to a movie. Anything special, like a trip to an amusement park, my parents provided the money when it was needed.