The Red Flannel Rag

Dad let me “help” him change a tire on his car. We worked on the cement slab

front porch. He was very patient with me as he explained each step of the process.

When he finished with the tire, he quietly drove the car, with me in the front seat beside

him, into “Pop” May’s garage. I knew by the way he looked at the car as he closed the

garage door that it would be a while before we rode in the car again.

I also watched him chop some firewood for Mom just before he left for the army.

I was leading my little brother, Larry, by the hand, and he was just beginning to say

“daddy.” Dad looked so handsome standing on the woodpile with his axe in his hand.

His curly brown hair was moist from perspiration and hung in ringlets across his

forehead. He stopped chopping wood and picked up my brother, and held him close for

a while. Tears were running down his face as he said, “I love you, son.”

While he was away, Mom cried a lot and waited every day by the mailbox for a

letter. Dad sent us Christmas cards and birthday cards addressed to “My darling

daughter” or “My wonderful son.” He sent us a toy rifle like the one he was carrying in

Germany. We were thrilled with it, but immediately lost it in a crack in the foundation

of Pop May’s barn. We searched and searched but never found it.

Dad came home for short visits before he went to Germany. He didn’t have any

of his curly hair left. It was cropped short, thinner on top, and had a strand or two of

gray in it He was quiet and his face wasn’t the same. His ever -present smile was gone.

He didn’t want us to hang on him as much as he did before he left. But Mom told me

how much he loved all of us and that he was just worried. “Everything will be okay

when he gets home,” she assured me.

Dad was gone to the war for nearly two years. It seemed like forever to me.

Once in a while, I would sneak into Pop May’s garage and look at Dad’s car. At first it

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