{"id":6598,"date":"2015-06-21T16:48:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-21T21:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/?p=6598"},"modified":"2017-01-18T15:47:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T21:47:24","slug":"ode-to-an-artist-my-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2015\/06\/21\/ode-to-an-artist-my-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Ode To An Artist: My Father"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dad_1947_Paris_Straight\"On this Father’s Day, 2015, I would like to honor my father, Donald, and talk a little about his life and legacy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A short bio would go something like this:<\/p>\n

Born to the son of a Czech brewery owner and the daughter of a German brewmaster, he grew up in western Minnesota during the Great Depression and learned art from an aunt. He quit school, married young, and spent his early years as an itinerant sign-painter. After two sons were born, he was drafted in World War II and was sent to France where he fixed\u00a0jeeps and also painted signs to help the swiftly advancing troops know where\u00a0to go. After the war he became divorced and raised his two sons alone. \u00a0Later he met his second wife and had four more children. In the late 1960’s he started a rubber parts business and its success meant he\u00a0had to give up sign and portrait painting until his retirement in the 1980s. He passed away December 1991 at the age of 71.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the youngest of his six children<\/strong>, I\u00a0was 24 when he died. Now that I am 48 … I have now spent half of my life without him, and that is hard to believe. \u00a0My two oldest half-brothers were more like uncles to me, and one had four children before I was born, making me “baby-uncle”. \u00a0This also means that, since one of my nephews is a grandfather, I am now a Great-Great-Uncle … very strange!<\/p>\n

My father had many faults<\/strong>, and these have left a legacy of scars throughout my extended family … as well as myself.<\/p>\n

Yet he also had many positive traits<\/strong>, among them was his artistic skill, which he endeavored to pass on to any who would learn from him. This artistic legacy\u00a0still lives on to this day.<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/p>\n