My dad was a dirty little man. A farmer, who worked the
dirt dawn to dusk most days of his life.
I hated the long, hot, dirty, sweaty summer days we
spent together in the corn fields and cotton fields.
Today I cherish the memories.
Volney Hickman was a child of poverty, heading a family
at age 11 in Eclectic, Alabama, after his father died of
a heart attack. He had no middle name. "Couldn't afford
one," he always said, grinning. He grinned a lot.
His mother, overwhelmed at how to feed five sons, soon
moved to Texas where her brothers could help. They soon
lived in a small, 4-room house on the edge of Celina,
north of Dallas. She paid her brother $10 for it.
The youngest son, 4-year-old Dean, died "of a fever"
their first winter in Texas.
Volney grew up working hard to help provide for his
family. He graduated from high school at age 21, four
years older than my mother in the same class.
Dad had a clean heart, though, and clean feet every
night. He cleaned up on Saturday, in pressed khakis. And
always wore one of his three ties to church on Sunday.
Despite a life of barely enough, in church my dad
always prayed the same prayer: "Our Father, we thank
thee for...." and he would list several things for
which he was
particularly thankful that day. I always wanted to
say, "Dad, why don't you ever ask for something?"
But I never did.
My dad and I were the same size, short and thin. I could
never chop cotton as fast or pick as much as he did.
Though I also worked hard, he insisted I take breaks he
never took. "You rest while I go a round," he'd say
as we chopped cotton. I
was grateful, yet as I got older, I also felt I didn't
really need the breaks. He insisted.
Though at dawn I was in the field beside him by age
eight or nine, I got to take a long lunch break and
listen to the baseball game on radio. I was back out by
3:00 and worked until dark.
And yet, spending so many hours alone with Dad in the
fields, I don't remember us ever talking much. He was a
quiet man. He worked.
I don't remember Dad ever spanking me, though I do
remember some hard spankings he gave my older brother.
When I got a driver's license at age 14, he told me,
"Always tell your mother where you're going and what
time you'll be back. She worries."
And I always followed his only rule.
In 1951, Dad had a good cotton crop, and sold the
100-acre farm he had been paying interest on since the
Depression. He had never made enough money to pay
anything on the principle. Yet I remember it as one of
his happiest days. He drove up, got out of our old 1940
Chevy, smiled, and said, "I don't owe anybody anything
and I feel great and I think we should celebrate!" He had store-bought
ice cream.
Dad was always happy, except at Christmas. His childhood
memories were just too much. He would go into a back
bedroom, close the door, and stay for two or three days,
coming out only to eat.
He still provided gifts for my mother, my brother and I,
but not having had gifts for his younger brothers at
Christmas tore at his heart all his life.
After a good crop in 1952 we bought a TV, which my Dad
watched very little. He would walk in peeling an apple
and grin at me, "Well, I guess it's time to watch a man
knock another man down," he'd say. "It's not something I
should be watching, but I reckon I enjoy it." And we
watched "Wrestling from the Sportatorium."
He also loved to laugh at Grandpa McCoy, Walter Brennan,
without his teeth on "The Real McCoys." Dad has been
toothless since his 30s.
My Dad laughed a lot. The only time I ever saw
tears was as we stood on Gaston Avenue in Dallas,
outside the first room I rented after high school in
1957 when he shook my hand, and he and Mother got
into the car and drove home without me.
In September 1964, Dad hugged me when I got off the bus
in McKinney, returning home from the Army after three
years in Germany. It was obvious he was happy I was
home.
I am Volney's son. He taught me to work, and I love to
work, though I am thankful my work is easier than his
was. He also taught me to love by loving my
brother and my mother. And me.
On Thanksgiving morning, 1964, after driving home from work in
Dallas at 1:00 a.m., I scrunched down under the covers
and I remember feeling so good. It was wonderful to be
home for Thanksgiving for the first time in three years.
It was a great day, and the last time I saw my Dad. Two
weeks later he
died in his sleep of a heart attack at age 57.
Lord, that was 43 years. And I still miss him. I miss
walking with him across a pasture looking for a missing
calf, or hanging around the barn on a rainy day.
Not talking.
Just being.
