THINGS I WISH I HAD SAID AT MY FATHER'S FUNERAL

THINGS I WISH I SAID AT MY FATHER'S FUNERAL: When Dad died in 1995, he had cancer of the prostate. If I remember correctly he refused chemotherapy and hormone therapy. I do not know if he had surgery but he did have radiology treatment when it went to his back and it worked pretty well. All of us kids came home to be there. He was in the Boise VA hospital. The nurses were very kind and moved a bed that did not work so we could have a private room. It was pretty crowded as it was. He was pretty heavily sedated when we first visited. I walked in and his hand was on the raised rail. I leaned over to kiss his hand and said, “I love you, Daddy.” The nurses got an order to back off the sedation and he perked up and we played a decent game of Pinochle. In a couple of days he was moved to a step down unit for palliative care. My brother asked what palliative care meant. I told him it meant they were keeping him comfortable until he died. The funeral was held at Potter's. The officiant was a man from the Boise Veteran's who knew nothing about dad He gave a short speech about Brother Berglund's service and that was about it. Gale gave a reading, she was utterly heartbroken. I was simply numb. I think some else spoke but I do not remember. Among the music chosen, Mom selected “Wind Beneath My Wings”. Great another song I can hate forever. If I had not been shaken I would have liked to tell all sorts of stories that Dad told me. He ran away from home when he was 13. He rode his bike to Ontario, sold it for 10 or 15 dollars and took the train to Minnesotta. He worked the summer on relatives' farms during the harvest, mostly hay. He then wandered south to New Orleans where he was picked up for vagrancy. The judge decided to keep him for a while. I do not know when or how he got home. I wish I had asked. He told me about how he went AWOL in WWII and got away with it by having a buddy answer “Berglund” each morning when roll call was taken. He told me about the time he and his older brother got in trouble with a next door neighbor. It was cold they were cleaning trash out of the ditches and set some hay on fire to warm up and burned down the farmer's hay stack. Grandpa Berglund made them do some chores for the farmer. Then they decided they would get some revenge. One evening the farmer and family were gone somewhere. The boys sneaked over to the farmer's place. They decided the gentle bull needed a better view of the place. They stacked some baled hay and led the bull to the top of one of the barns. Then they sneaked off. The farmer got home and found the bull on top of the barn the next morning and he was furious. He was absolutely convinced that the Berglund boys had done it. He called the Sheriff. He called Grandpa Berglund but the boys denied having anything do with it. They stayed clear of the farmer as well as the sheriff for quite some time after that. Dad also told me about having a Chickeree. That is when a bunch of young people get hungry and decide they want fried chicken. A bunch of them drove to one of the kid's homes that had chickens. They caught three of four chickens, butchered, defeathered, cut up and fried the chicken. All without permission of the parents. Hope they cleaned up their mess. This is a story more about my Uncle Clayton than Dad but it is funny. In the summer Tater and Fern and the cousins would move to the Cow Camp. It was a two story concrete block house with no plumbing, water or electricity. There was an out house. The beds were upstairs with thundermugs beneath them. After peering into a used one, I never viewed canned tomales quite the same after that. One day Dad and Tater went hunting. Clayton was the marksman. He shot a deer just a teensy weensy bit out of season. Since there was a good eight or nine blabbermouth kids available to tell interesting tales, they decided on a bit of deception. They dressed the deer in the barn and wouldn't let us in to watch. We were wildly curious, Tater brought out a lodge pole pine just studed with porcupine quills saying they had killed one. They brought in the organ mean in a white tin bowl and for years after that, my show and tell at school was, “Do you know how big a porcupine liver is? It's almost a big as the porcupine!”. Years later I was home visiting retelling the tale including the bit of how big a porcupine liver was. My folks started laughing. The told me that it was not a porcupine liver but a deer liver. Well that was a little embarassing. Dad taught us how to approach a strange dog. Hold out the back of the hand, let the dog sniff. Tail would wag. He would take us fishing at a kid's water hole where any trout the kids caught were free. Our bait on the hook was a piece of hot dog. It worked just fine. I did not like to put worms on the hook. Dad taught us that a man could always find work. He was discharged from the Army as a mechanic and it did well for him. He and Mom loved to dance. We learned to dance at home and at Country dances at Montour. It was a family affair. Everyone went. If Mom made a raisen spice cake we knew we were going. I leaned to two step, waltz and I mostly watched the Schottish. It was lovely. There was usually a three piece band consisting of piano, violin and drums. They I remember that someone brought caviar on crackers. I ate some, it was salty. They held the supper at midnight and then passed the hat to pay for the musicians. If anyone brought liquor they had to leave it out in the vehicle and then go out for a nip or two. Richard told me he knew where to get free liquor when he was a little older. The only time Dad ever cooked was when Mom was in the hospital having a baby. He would bake a cake. He was a meat, potatoes and dessert man. He liked to make a quick dessert by tearing up bits bread in a glass, pour milk and sugar over it and eat it right up. I never cared for it all that much. I asked Dad what he used to eat for breakfast as kid. He told me, “We were so poor we couldn't afford cereal. We had to eat steak!” Does anyone else remember anything? We would love to hear it.