Memories of My Dad

 

My dad, Frank E. Bowers, died almost 20 years ago, on February 11, 2002. He was 60, and I was 10.

Here are some memories in roughly chronological order.

I remember my parents asking me when I was around kindergarten age, whether I wanted to take piano or violin lessons. I said piano, because my dad played the piano and I wanted to be like him. Sometime later, when I was in 1^st or 2^nd grade, I was practicing a piece, and my dad would listen to me practice and correct me when I made a mistake. I made a mistake, and he said, “Do it again.” And tried again, and I got it wrong, and he said, “Do it again.” And I tried again, and got it wrong, and he said, “Do it again.” This happened what felt like another 40-50 times to my young mind. Finally, I ran out crying to my mom who was working in the backyard. I told her, “Dad is being mean and making me practice the same part over and over again.” Dad came out to talk to her, and I listened to them talk. My dad said vehemently, “I know he can do it, I know he can do it.” And then I realized my dad wasn’t being mean, he just believed in me more than I believed in myself. They agreed I could take a break and then try again. I went back in and after a few tries, I got it right.

When my dad worked at the Des Moines Register, he would take me to their newsroom to sit and I would meet journalists, and he took me down to the printing press to see the newspapers printed in the basement. I remember great metal slabs stamping ink on blank pieces of paper and was in awe of these machines that could have crushed me, and surprised that he trusted me to be in there with them. He retired, maybe around the time I was in 3^rd grade. After he retired from the Des Moines Register, he taught General Educational Development at the YMCA to young adults who had dropped out but wanted to earn their high school diplomas. I would sit through his classes with the GED students during the summer. There were eight to ten kids in his class, he would personally pick them up from their homes to take them to his classroom if they asked. He was a bookseller at Barnes and Noble, and also made bread at a bakery called Great Harvest. He enjoyed baking bread, and he invented a lather that made a baguette-like bread’s crust crumbly, and it was a bestseller called Frank’s Faux French.

My family lived, and still lives, in a duplex. When I was growing up me, my mom, and my dad lived in the lower half of the duplex. My dad would let recent refugees live on the second floor of the duplex for 6-12 months and not charge them rent, and then when they got a job and legal status, and had been stable for a few months, they would move out. We had a refugee from El Salvador live there, a mom and her daughter, who had fled the civil war. We had a refugee from Sudan live there with her son, who were also fleeing civil war.

Dad would also give money to people who asked for it. I remember a woman asking him for money at a gas station, and he asked how much, and she said $10. And he went back in, withdrew the cash, and gave it to her. There was a guy who came to our house to ask for money, and he said he needed cash to feed his kids, so my dad gave him some money. I don’t know how much. And then the same guy came back later and said he needed more money. My dad asked him, why, what did you do with the first money, and the guy said he’d bought groceries but also some cigarettes with it, and he needed money for diapers. My dad told him to quit smoking and gave him some more money.

My dad told me a few aphorisms, and I remember two. He would tell me, “Women are inherently dangerous.” He would also tell me, “Parking lots are the most dangerous places on Earth.” On the first quote, I think he was warning me not to underestimate women, which I think is good advice. I think people do underestimate women to their detriment. On the second quote, parking lots are filled with people from every class and walk of life, and you don’t know anything about them, and they are often in a rush. I think he intended these aphorisms with some humor, too. 

One summer we were camping at Jester Park, which is just outside of Des Moines. I was playing on the playground, and he was reading the newspaper. I was on the monkey bars, and I fell flat on the ground and had the wind knocked out of me. He kept reading the newspaper and didn’t notice, and another dad helped me to my feet and get my wind back. I was angry at him, and he said, “I thought you were someone else’s kid.” And I said, “You wouldn’t help someone else’s kid?” And this instance of him doing the easy thing instead of the right thing is so exceptional, because he usually did the right thing. He set a high moral bar for himself, and this case was an exception because he usually reached it.

When I was in 4^th grade (Spring 2001), he asked me whether I’d like to go to France or Iceland on my spring break with him. He suggested France or Iceland because he checked exchange rates in the newspaper and would choose a place to go when the exchange rate was favorable. I chose Iceland, because I’d already been to France several times with him and my mom. It was a blast, we walked onboard an Icelandic Coast Guard ship without asking anyone first (Iceland doesn’t have any military, but they do have a Coast Guard), visited the Rejkjavik zoo several times and witnessed a calf being born, went to an outdoor geothermal pool and the Blue Lagoon, and Godafoss Falls. We stayed at a bed and breakfast, and the older couple who lived there fed the guests Icelandic bread called Thunderbread and tomatoes for breakfast, which is traditional Icelandic breakfast. It’s called thunderbread because it makes you pass gas.

We also went on two summer road trips, I believe in 1999 and 2000. On the first one, the two of us drove from Des Moines, IA to Arizona to visit my Aunt Sue and Uncle Cactus, and to hike the Grand Canyon. We just did a day hike about halfway or a quarter-way down the Grand Canyon. It was fun. He let me be the navigator while we drove for the entire trip. I remember looking at the maps and counting miles between towns and letting him know how far until the next highway change. I felt responsible and important being the navigator. I also saw my first James Bond movie on the trip in 1999, as the campsite was playing Die Another Day at their theatre. There was a restaurant in New Mexico called Bobcat Bite, that sold one-half pound cheeseburgers, and I ate the entire thing. In 2000, both my parents went along on the trip to Arizona, and this time we hiked all the way to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and stayed at the campsite at the bottom for a couple days. We made it out of the canyon fine, but after we were in the hotel room at the top of the canyon, I become dehydrated and was sick for several days.

In 2017 or 2018, I bought a subscription to a genealogical website, because they have archived old newspapers. There are many articles written by my Dad because he was a journalist. One that he published in the 1980s was about him being drafted into the Vietnam War. I will include a brief summary. He was given a draft number and it was pretty low, so he went to volunteer for the Army. At the Army recruiter’s office, a Marine recruiter walked in, and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for the Marines. My dad said in the article, “I’ve always had a problem volunteering,” and raised his hand. He wanted to be the best, and considered the Marines the best. He was a smoker since he was a teenager or younger, and during a routine chest x-ray through the medical onboarding process, a mass showed up. He was told to seek medical treatment in the civilian world and to return when he had recovered. He was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma and given a medical exemption from military service. He used to tell me that being drafted saved his life.

My dad died of pancreatic cancer in February 2002. The summer before he passed away, in Summer 2001, he led a referendum on a $300 million dollar construction project in Polk County. My family received threatening letters, presumably from the contractors who stood to make millions of dollars from the construction project. My dad refused to go to law enforcement, because like many activists, he believed that law enforcement is on the side of big business. My dad was born in 1941, so he was in his teens to 20s during the Civil Rights Movement. He was a freedom rider, so he drove people to Civil Rights marches in the South. I think he looked at law enforcement and saw people who only followed rules for the sake of rules and protect the wealthy and their property. A more recent example might be law enforcement’s targeting of climate activists or Black Lives Matters activists.

I look at how common threats are now in political discourse, and I understand that it’s because the wealthy, corporate interests are being challenged, just like when my dad challenged them. And I am proud of his moral courage. He wasn’t perfect, but he did what he thought was right, even when it wasn’t easy or comfortable, far more than most people.