My dad had to quit school when he was 14 because his own dad died.
He had to become the one who worked and provided for the family and he did so as
well as a kid in the rural south of the early 50's could.
He drove a lot of what he called "ten buck cars" which constantly broke down or got
flats from bald tires or what have you, so he never got to be a typical teen gearhead...
when he worked on a car, it was because he HAD to in order to get to whatever crap
jobs he had lined up.
Despite all that, he wound up being recruited by an executive of Alcoa (yes, that Alcoa)
who happened to be a regular customer in the little grocery store my dad was the butcher
in in Oak Ridge.
From there, he was introduced through aptitude testing to the just beginning world of computers and things took off from there for him...
Despite his not getting his GED until many years later, he wound up in charge of what was then the equivalent of the IT department of the USPS in Atlanta - and all us kids (4) had arrived by then in the mid 60's.
That man never complained, was very firm but fair as the head of our household, worked insane amounts of hours each week to feed us all and even became president of our region's Little League for a while - just for us kids.
So...."cooler" than me?
Screw that noise....
He was my damn HERO.
Miss you, Pop.
