Debra posted a condolence
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Dear Dad My HERO The strongest and most determined person I've ever known. I use to lay awake at 711 Tremont Ottawa, Ks. upstairs in by bedroom listening to the wind blowing and watching for your carlights through the iced over windows. Waiting to hear your vehicle pull in the driveway on the crackling ice. When your headlights shined in my upstairs window I knew you made it home safely and hence we were safe and secure because you were home. You took care of everything! You kept us all safe and taken care of at 711. You were the one that battled the outside world to support us and keep us safe with you. The best bath I ever took was upstairs in the big claw foot tub next to the icy window in the winter. Dad I never had that true luxury and security again. Dad it doesn't even rain right anymore like 711. The true rain storms. That beautiful fresh clean smell and those gorgeous rainbows. I've never seen again! DAD that lightening that sent mom and us kids to the "Basement", mom screamin at you all the way to come on and you would go straight outside to the metal lawn chairs to enjoy for a few in the storm (if you were around).
Well there was that one night that Big Shot brother of mine got to play war with that Big Time Tony & David Keim at Eugene Field when the rainstorm blew trees down. War and grenades took my bro into his first combat zone preparing him for Major Doug. I don't think the army ever paid him or YOU for that on duty war zone injury. He took the grenade (street light bulb) in the head & you had to rush him to RMH. Blood gushing & MOM SURE his brains were layin EVERYWHERE! Dad to the scary world rescure to save BRO! Yes HERO, that was you Dad, saving Bro & the world! After all Dad, if not for you to the rescue and paying that bill, Major would be dead,and sorry for UNCLE SAM. And also sorry for Ottawa, Ks. whom would never known the FINEST CITY Father ever,Tony Keim. Mom would have cried & screamed Father Tony to a young death, and Uncle Sam would have not known Major Doug. Thank you GOD for my DAD, the HERO!
What about DAD rushing Kathi to RMH with appendicitis attack.
Thank You Kathi, NOT, for disturbing my Calvary Baptist Church service.
Which brings me to remember DAD drove me back and forth to church more times than I can count. I am still in ah DAD. You never complained. NEVER! DAD you and GOD never ever let me down! It was you at 711 when I told you "Dad David's in jail". Humiliation you endured Dad and never cringed, never batted an eye! You, you faced it with your silent strength and dignity. When I asked you to go to the jail, at that moment you had never seen the inside of a jail nor ever been on the wrong side of the law! I said DAD will you go visit him and take him some cigarettes? You said hmmm, YES. You did. You of all people, straight lace, Mr. clean, burr hair cut and all, YOU! Well before you could turn around I disappointed again. GOD, myself, my unborn perfect daughter, MOM & yes you DAD! But again what man came to the rescue my entire life, you DAD! You and who-GOD.
The GOD I learned about at Calvary Baptist Church that TRUE LOVE, I could count on ALWAYS!
JESUS saves still today and forgives, gives GRACE, PEACE, STRENGTH to those in jail, unmarried scarlet A girls, innocent babies,the adulterous,and SINNERS!
MY church perfect people not born into sin and without sin turned their backs, shunned me,then came to our safe home at 711 that you kept secured. They informed us,that they NO LONGER had room for me and my babe in my belly! Praise GOD the great IAM still had a place for me and so did you DAD! YOU kept us safe. And yes DAD you covered all expenses and got me thru high school and never complained.
Of course we had that secret weapon, Major MOM carrying a spirea branch. No wonder she kept that yard right up to snuff by hand! Lois always said slow down with the alley, what is the city crew gonna do. Those sneakers Lois wore. I'm tellin you she kept Bob's butt husslin keepin her in those color coordinated sneakers. We all loved that woman. Those sneakers and all that coffee her & MOM drank solving the world problems! Now they did get er done BIG D! What a "wonderful life" those two girls gave us all. We owe them more than we can ever tell them!
DAD it was 1975 I met him and I got him. "THE MAN" like dear old dad. The man I loved was young, big, and strong. He could take care of gettin er done, that would be Joe.
Dad, later on you had that semi tire rim blow up and take your head off on that sweet June evening at the shop on West Wilson next to Ainsworth school bus shop.
Dad that Glenn Ainsworth helped me out so incredibly much at Ottawa Retirement Village some years later after "THE ACCIDENT"!
Well DAD let's you and me just say that accident changed the course of all we had and knew at 711 forever! OR did it? I still remember when.
Right now the Fuerborns are giving you and me the chance to say our see you later conversation.
The boy left us DAD but you didn't. He didn't leave before he gave us RUBY DAWN, keeper of the family jewels, and Joe Bill, my manny man.
All these thirty three years have been similar to hell. GOD keep us from HELL.
All that was something we could have lived without or was it? Joe loved you, showed you respect, and listened to all that talking you did after the accident. He also gave you your namesakes, Rachele Dawn, Ruby Dawn and HaleyJo Dawn. He also gave you my only son, Joe Bill. None of us will ever see skoal or pinwheels without seeing you.
You were so out of character with brain loss. DAD you were not recognizable not due to outer flesh and bone but because of all the brain matter loss.
That tire rim stopped and let your body down when your precious head hit that concrete wall. Mom was not at the shop that day to say "DON take time to use that cage". She took the call from you at home saying "I'll be there in a little bit." You didn't show up but the phone rang again and it wasn't you, only about you.
Dr. Strehow not on call that evening. Dr. Philgreen bandaged you at Ransom Memorial and sent you by ambulance to KU Med Center. Oh don't forget not one but two FRANKLIN County ambulances broke down that sweet June 29, 1978 sweet evening along the highway, shipping you to KU MED. Yes you were transferred on three different ambulances. BREAK DOWNS. At least two hours lost while you laid in an abulance on the highway. Why were YOU not life flighted I cannot answer and of course Franklin County Ambulance service never did seem to know any breakdown answers or apologies. Lack of integrity and class. They weren't made of the stuff you were Big D. The director and Franklin County should have been sued. Depends on who you are, they didn't realize who you were, my DAD, MY HERO. Anyone else would have sued, but not my parents! The charactar of my DAD & MOM would have never tolerated their loss as the responsibility of another! Robert Morantz MD the biggest hot shot doctor other than Dr. Chester Herman Strehlow that this world will ever fancy knowing, saved your life and put you back together as close as the LORD made you other than the loss of destroyed brain and that Frankenstein line of stitches. Oh yes there was no instruction booklet included and no what do we do now list. After he cleaned what brain was left with the old scouring of liquid comet and some wire fencing.
I mean whats a man to do after he throws up on his dinner tray and starts eating it on his fourth of July, 1978 paper goods at KU Med in his hospital bed?
No brain guide or doctors or how to survive with the brain gone person. The abusive, crazy, mean man that chatters silliness constantly. You know bad check writing, speeding, humiliating, embarrassing idiot that spends more time in jail than out. The man that had always spent his life being the perfect citizen, perfect husband, perfect father and perfect grandfather.
This man that never ever was given a dime from disability or social security. That man that lived thirty something years after complete loss of the frontal lobe of the brain. How were you expected to survive mannerly like before? What did our country do for a man like that at a time like that.
Speaking of DR. STREHLOW he was and is the great physician's right hand man. Doctor Strehlow, man of GOD had that great mind. GOD's love, mercy and forgiveness. He saw me through the scarlet "A" days of my life. He delivered my baby and treated me with GOD's love and guidance. DAD thanks for covering that bill and affording me the very best of medical care.
You sure did respect that Fred Bones. You leased yourself and truck out to Bone's Transportation. His death had just devastated the hell out of you. Caused you more pain and hurt than my eyes had ever seen out of you. Well you even told the doc at KU MED not that he was PRESIDENT of Bones Transportation. NO PRESIDENT of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA! Sorry DAD they were only human, like YOU they were brain damaged. Not the ole tire rim kind of damage, the human factor kind of damage.
Oh DAD, you and MOM were the kind of people that felt we made some money drivin a truck. We GET to pay some big time taxes to the government, because we made some real money there for a little while.
GRATEFUL, proud to be AMERICANS! PROUD to serve your COUNTRY. DAD during that "CONFLICT" over in Korea, gave you a paycheck, a Veteran house loan for 711 Tremont. DAD proud as the dickens to drive around those big shot generals and majors when you weren't being the finest damn foot soldier stompin that ground. Skinnier than a bean pole cause you didn't know food. You didn't know MOM's good cookin, baking, candy makin skills yet in those days. Pots of beans and the likes our youngins are not ever gonna know except for mom.
NEVER but NEVER are children allowed to be anywhere near where dad's work. Work is work. That' a DONALD H. NICKELSON LAW. That law came into effect the year HE was born, I think!
DAD there was that one starry summer night I got to ride with you in that ole Lee Mace's milk truck. I saw the clear night sky full of stars through the big windshield of a milk truck going through those spooky trees blowin in the wind, smellin the cool country wind and no one but me and you lingers still in the back of my simple brain. I was important like I'd never been and never will be again. Life was about working hard, relentlessly, only the true amount of sleep someone needs to survive. You deemed that to be two hours and maybe a catnap of seven minutes approximatley twice a year. Before the accident, you worked three jobs to get to the big times.
And then along came Jay and then Shaye. I say let's pass over the stolen car episode that was parked right in front of the place I don't want to talk about. What was that about?
The grandbabies and great-grandbabies kept comin thru the years.
Then came the knight in armour, "urban cowboy", lace and white satin, smooth talkin, walkin, let me take your picture baby. Bob the picture man , "bullet" to the rescue. You can drive my car, which was a van man. Money poor, kid poor, child support poor, car payment poor, debts poor, everyone hates us kind of people. We worked our butts off like you taught me Dad and we got money daddy o.
You died daddy. He said I will pay to bury your daddy.
I thought you don't look like my daddy to me but I think you'll do!
Dad how you survived until age eighty I cannot imagine.
But what I do know and have always known is your blood runs deep under my skin. Having you as my DAD makes me who Iam. I owe you a debt I could never repay. The honor of being your first born child. I carry your genes with honor.
Just as you signed your name on that freebie filling station christmas card with the pen inserted that you gave to me on Christmas many years ago Donald H. Nickelson
I love you Donald H. Nickelson
Debra L. Nickelson
