An ode to my father

BigUn

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Big’un@Big_un

April 23, 2023

An ode to my father

It was hot for a late June Alaska morning on the Russian river.
The mosquitos were out, and his cigar stump went out…
The smoke was effective in keeping the bugs away…
So he told himself.
His four year old son was playing on the bank behind him.
He was standing on a ‘spit’ of mud, and the king salmon were thick.
The ‘rule’ was, you couldn’t just snag the fish, you had to ‘hook’ them in the mouth, or in front of the gills.
Just then he felt a ‘nibble’ on his fly, so he gave his rod a little flick with his wrist to set the hook..
Damn it!!
The hook set too far back…
“Zachary James!!” He called to his little boy.
“Yes Daddy?”
“Get over here and land this fish…”
Another ‘rule’ was there was a limit of three salmon a day per person, based on who ‘landed’ the fish.
So, he brought all four of his kids.
His oldest son fished for himself now that he was 13. His two daughters would land theirs early and would walk the banks of the Russian, selling his hand tied flys from a cigar box. He would split the money 70/30 with the girls. After the baby, Zak ‘caught’ his three, the girls were responsible for him also.
The little boy was standing expectantly next to his father. Zak had done this several times and knew what he was supposed to do.
“Here take the rod, and reel it in like I showed you..”
He knew he was going to throw this one back. There were Rangers everywhere watching. Some even undercover as fishermen.
They would fine you in a heartbeat.
He reached into his pocket to retrieve his Zippo.
Popped the top with a ‘click’, and struck a flame.
Held it up and relit his ever present cigar.
He watched his little boy fight the salmon. They both were ‘big’uns’.
It was a fair fight…
They both weighed about 45 pounds…
The boy slipped and fell, immediately got up, and yelled in anger at the big salmon.
He had gotten the big fish to within three to four yards of the mud spit, when a Ranger stepped out of the woods.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to help that boy?!?” The Ranger asked
He looked up and answered
“Well, no, it’s good for him, tires his little ass out, besides, have to throw it back anyway…”
The Ranger watched the boy fight mightily with the salmon.
“Wow, that’s one of the biggest kings I’ve ever seen… I’ll be damned…” with that the Ranger grabbed a net, and waded into the river.
The Ranger reached out with the net and netted the fighting fish…
It was a big one. The Ranger began wading back to the mud spit as he reached in and lifted the fish..
It was huge, easily the largest he’d ever seen.
The hook was in the fishes back, just behind the gills.
“See, I told you, I’m going to have to throw it back.” The father stated.
The Ranger smiled and looked at the little tow headed boy “I’ll be damned, he fought this fish, he gets to keep it. Hold your arms up son, like you’re flying.”
The little boy looked up at his father “Go ahead Zachary, do as the Ranger tells you.”
The little boy held his arms up, shoulder height, palms forward.
The Ranger squatted down in front of the boy and with effort held the salmon up. It was about four inches longer than the boys outstretched arms.
“You’re pretty big for a six year old..”
“He’s four..” the father said.
“I’ll be damned..” the Ranger said as he put the salmon on the fathers stringer..

Over the years, when fishing ‘tales’ were told.. He would tell the story of his little boy’s salmon. It would end with a call for the boy to demonstrate with outstretched arms.
“He was this big and four inches longer…”
The father thought this a great joke the older and larger the boy grew.

The last time Zachary visited his father in the hospital.
He was almost 91. He wasn’t always lucid, he had moments when the old man knew who he was talking too.
Zak walked up and stood to the right of his father’s bed.
He was 60 now.
A grandfather himself.
And a very large man.
The old man looked up at him, smiled and said
“How big was that fish Zachary James?!?”
He held his arms up, shoulder height, palms forward, just like the Ranger said.
“This big Daddy, and four inches longer…”

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Tonight, we have 20 oz med-rare Sirloin, sous vide @ 137F (58.3C) for 1 hour 45 minutes.

I’ve also been doing longer fasts. I’ve been doing OMAD, which is one meal every 24 hours. I’d started doing 36 hour cycles. Which cuts out one meal over 3 days by eating a meal every 36 hours instead of 24.
I’ve realized, that the most difficult part of the cycle is the first day when you don’t eat at all. The second day, is breakfast, I’m usually not hungry then. Therefore I now just wait until supper. Which makes it a 48, or 48 hours between meals.
I’m just doing it as a cycle every so often to jump start my weight loss.

Big’un@Big_un

8 hours ago

Of Pocket Watches

Recently I wrote about a pocket watch that belonged to my paternal Grandfather.
I now believe it was his mother’s watch. It is a Lady’s pocket watch, and the chain was meant to be worn around the neck, with the watch as a ‘pendant’.

I showed it to MBB at the recent nuptials, where he volunteered to give me another pocket watch.
This one was given to him by our Mama the summer after he graduated from high school in 1971.
He never wore it, or used it. Although he did have it cleaned and appraised. It’s filled gold, and was most likely manufactured in the 1880’s.
The date is rather obvious because it is a ‘Double Hunter’ (has two sides that open) with an inscription on the obverse that reads;

Wm. Kroll
From Mother
21st Birthday
Aug 26, 1890

We are almost certain it was hot when Mama bought it. She was a professional mixologist (bartender) at a neighborhood bar, off of Marlboro Pike, In Forrestville MD.
A close in suburb of Washington DC.
She always came into ‘good deals’ while working ...

Big’un@Big_un

June 18, 2025

Down in the Valley

We are visiting My Big Brother (MBB), after @The_CINC ‘s Weight Watchers meeting in Couer d’Alene, which is about 2/3 of the way to MBB’s. Therefore we just kept heading west.
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Big’un@Big_un

November 30, 2022

The Day I Retired

Its almost the sixth anniversary...

Some of you may have looked at my photos and thought; what young looking handsome man… He couldn't be old enough to retire …

Thank you Mama

Anyway, I am 60 and I retired at 55 in July of 2017. I was given a retainer for two more months in order to be on call. I couldn’t always get a reliable Internet connection and I can’t take someone’s money for nothing, so I shut that down in Sept 2017…

So you are thinking, what day in July did you retire? I didn’t really retire in July 2017. I quit going to work then…

I retired Thursday, around 1:35 PM, December 15, 2016…

Life was good for @The_CINC and I.

It was shortly before Christmas 2016. Tiny dancer, our surprise baby was a junior in college. We had a 4K sqft house on 7 acres, 40 miles south of Washington DC. It was our second house in 33 yrs of marriage. We had lived there for over 20 yrs. The final house payment was due Nov 10, 2017.

The CINC was at the highest point you can achieve as a civilian Govt Employee without going into the Senior Executive Service. When she was offered SES, the CINC had gotten to the point at which it would have meant more work, more time away from home, for no more money (because of the pay structure) for at least five to seven years. We also knew we wanted to Retire, so it made no sense to invest the time required for an SES position.

She worked for OSD, DOD, WHS (The office that runs the Pentagon, they are the ‘Landlords’) for 34 years. At one point she ran a division that had a yearly budget of $1 Billion.

She would be eligible to retire in April 2017. We really hadn’t decided what we were going to do. My top-secret NSA/DOD clearance was supposed to be coming through anytime. One of my specialties was encrypted secure communications.

I was a subcontractor for IBM and they were paying $50,000 for my vetting. It had been 2 years because I was a traveling consultant that didn’t associate with my neighbors… I was gone all of the time and I couldn’t see any of them from my house anyway..

Once that clearance came through, I could double or triple my salary which wasn’t small in the first place.

Here we were, at the top of our earning potential, few bills, house almost paid for, kids all gone…

Life was good…

Then Thursday, around 1:35 PM, December 15, 2016, happened…

I was in Birmingham AL, working at the US HQ, of a regional US bank that had been acquired by a Spanish bank. I was digitizing and updating their manual and electronic bank and treasury transactions. I had been on this contract for three years. The last 10 months or so I had been mostly remote, working from my lazy boy.

They wanted me to come in for some end of the year meetings and Christmas parties.

I flew in Monday mornings, getting to the office around 10:00 AM. I would work 10 hours Monday, 12-14 Tuesday and Wednesday, 6-8 Thursday and then catch a flight home around 4:00 pm Thursday. I would have 40-45 hours in 4 days by the time I caught my flight home.

I was sitting at my ‘station’, there weren’t really ‘cubes’, just tables with 3-4” dividers that had plugs. It was basically a giant open room, semi closed at each end by meeting rooms. My seat was near the meeting rooms. Behind me to my right was a large opening which led to a spacious elevator lobby.

The bank of elevators were the divider for another large working area. If you really tried, you could easily get 150-200 people in the elevator lobby.

I had just come back from lunch. I was trying to wrap a few things up before heading to the airport. A woman calmly walks behind me and says “Does anybody know first aid?”

I stood up “Excuse me?!?” She pointed to the elevator lobby behind her.

So I walked that way to see what was happening…

I am a trained first responder. I was a police officer at the pentagon and I was a FFX County VA police officer. I am also a trained BSA leader with back country first aid training.

As I entered the elevator lobby I saw an extremely obese man laying partially on his back. A woman by his side rubbing his hand looking concerned. Another man near his feet watching. I looked around, there were about 10 gawkers.

“MA’AM!”

I startled the woman to look at me…

“We have to treat him for shock”

First thing I could think of, get him flat on his back, elevate his feet.

"Go get that footstool"

That gave her something to do and think about.

I looked at the gentleman "Find me something to keep him warm."

I got him on his back. He must have weighed 400 Lbs.

I ripped his shirt open, put my head on his chest.

No Breathing, no heartbeat.

I took his pulse at his carotid artery to make sure.

No, pulse, his face was white, blue lips, his eye lids were partially open, his eyes were already clouding over...

He was already dead.

I looked up for a second...

At least 175-200 people were watching me...

I could hear people sobbing..

Where the hell did they all come from?

So I measured up his sternum, and began compressions..

If you've never really done CPR...

The first time will gross you out. I broke every bone in his chest away from his sternum. It sounded like I was crushing a bag of potato chips.

Another gentleman, kneeling beside me asked "Shouldn't you do the breaths?"

I was doing this for show. I knew he was dead. I have seen and handled many dead bodies. He was already dead, he wasn't coming back.

I looked over at the decedent's face, my compressions were forcing his lunch out of his mouth.

"Turn his head to the side, sweep his mouth, knock yourself out."

About that time a woman came over with an automatic defibrillator.

As I was giving compressions, I talked her through placement of the electrodes. She was so upset, she couldn't read the instructions.

She placed the electrodes, hit the switch, and audible countdown started from 15. When it got to one, it would send the charge.

I kept doing compressions until the Defib audibly said 'CLEAR', at which time, for some reason , I through my arms up like a touchdown. As soon as the cycle was over, I started compressions again.

I was starting to get winded, when I heard the elevators open and EMTs emerged.

one immediately kneeled across from me and took over.

I simply stood up, and walked away.

I didn't want to be there anymore.

I walked back to my station, and packed my stuff.

I was going to the airport.

As luck would have it..

I followed the gurney down to the lobby, one of the EMTs on the guy's chest still giving compressions.

On the drive to the airport, the shakes hit... I can stay extremely calm in the most stressful situations, but it takes a heavy toll later.

After arriving at my gate, I sat down, my cell phone rang. It was my boss from the bank "I just wanted to let you know that the guy didn't make it."

'I know" I said, "I knew that before I left, thanks for letting me know"

I called @The_CINC and told her everything. I then said "I don't want to die in a cube farm. Let's retire"

The Bank, and my employer tried to do some kind of ceremony for me. I told them not to, it was a dumb idea. If he would have lived it would have been a celebration of his life. He died, there was nothing to be proud of.

That was why they gave me the retainer...

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