It was a beautiful day, the sky a flawless shade of blue, interrupted only
by cotton candy clouds. He had just got off work at the turnpike, and he
was hot and sweaty, but happy. Having arrived to pick up his best girl
to go cruising in his new periwinkle, four-door convertible, he found she
was still primping inside the white house her father built. So he waited,
passing the time chitchatting with her father and chain-smoking. It was
the summer of '67, not even six months after his eighteenth birthday. Highschool
was already a distant memory and his days of goofing off were numbered.
But that day, life couldn't have been better. A nice car, bluer than the
sky itself, and the prettiest girl in Greenville, West Virginia, soon to
be at his side--no wonder he was smiling hugely.
Since I was yet to be born, some thirteen years later, I cannot say
who took this picture of my unsuspecting father. I suppose it was taken
to preserve a memory, but the photographer could not have known how much
of Gary W. Furrow had really been captured that day. As he sat and waited,
loosely grasped between his fingers was a cigarette, halfway smoked to
the dirty tan filter.
I remember my Daddy smoking. He always had a cigarette dangling from
his lips. He kept those numerous packs of smokes in the breast pocket of
his checkered shirts. Doral Lights, cheapest brand on the market, that
was his cigarette of choice. He always said he bought them because they
were cost-efficient, but secretly, it was the red and gold wrapper with
the gold crown on the front. Perhaps it made him feel special, even kingly.
He had been smoking since he was fourteen, and he blew the best smoke
rings, sending one thick cloudy ring through another, and another, until
the room was filled with overlapping circles. I started smoking when I
was eighteen, and as skewed as it may sound, my smoking created an even
stronger bond between me and my father. We used to sit outside and smoke.
That was when we talked and told each other our deepest, darkest secrets,
giggling like school children. Nowadays, when I fire up one of my Camel
Ultra Lights, I think fondly of him. Looking at this picture, I'll never
forget hugging him, hard pack in his breast pocket pressed against my face,
and a cigarette, dangling above me from his lips, dropping ashes in my
hair.
It was August of 1967, and the sun shone brightly, glinting off the
light blue convertible. It was so bright, even the rolled back canvas top
cast no shadows, nor did the man sitting inside the roof of his shiny car.
His short, brown hair, slightly curled at the front, barely covered his
sweaty brow. His tan face gleamed with the heat of the day. The sleeves
of his red and blue checkered shirt had been rolled up in defiance of the
heat. His brown work pants, with the pocket peeking out, could not have
been comfortable either. Daddy always wore long pants, even in the summer,
with his plaid flannel shirt sleeves rolled up. The only time he ever wore
shorts was to go swimming, so he had the epitome of a "farmer's tan." His
body, minus his forearms and face, was whiter than a fish's belly. Looking
at him, sitting on that car and smiling, I know Daddy was young once. His
face was baked golden brown by the sun, and his body taut from hard work
on the turnpike where he laid asphalt and fixed engines. He never really
lost his youth, like so much hair and hard muscles. You could see, each
time he smiled his sweet smile, the boy he had been. I didn't know him
then, still yet to be a twinkle in his eye. But I see his pure blue eyes
dancing with laughter mirrored in my own face. Even though he was much
younger then, the man in the picture, sitting and smiling, is the same
as the father I will always remember.
Seeing him sitting on his car on that beautiful afternoon with his
white teeth gleaming (still yet to be stained yellow from years of
smoking and drinking black coffee) makes me smile. As I was growing up,
his teeth were so decayed he had partial dentures. He was always pushing
that dental plate out over his bottom lip and braying like a deranged donkey.
Once he made the joke of a lifetime. There was a car driving up the gravel
road, a Ford, and he cried out, "It's coming right Taurus!" And even though
it was a horrible joke, you couldn't help but laugh at him, laughing at
himself. Daddy always laughed the hardest at his own jokes. He was the
greatest father a kid could have, never a harsh word or hard hand. What
I remember most was that goofy smile, just like the one captured, eternally
plastered to his face, in August '67.
As I look at him with his legs hanging inside his convertible, he
is many years younger than when I knew him, but the man in the photo embodies
everything about the father I grew up with. A tragic tumor took him from
me, and I miss his laugh. I yearn to see his mouth full of yellow, crooked
teeth, smiling at me. I wish I could smell stale cigarettes in his flannel
shirt while hugging him close. I want to watch him send smoke rings up
to the heavens while we sit and drink coffee on the front porch. As I look
at the strapping young man in the photo, sitting, smoking, and smiling,
I see my Daddy, the man who called me George, and never told me why; the
same man who wore long pants almost everyday of his life; the man who never
wore a shirt that didn't have a breast pocket for his smokes; the man whose
infectious sense of humor brought joy to all our lives. Even after his
passing, he still fills our hearts with laughter. Who knows why the photographer
chose that day to snap my father's picture, but in doing so, he or she
captured all aspects of my father, Gary W. Furrow, in one forever still
frame.
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