Hi General, et. al
A short essay to share - why not?
Swell – an epithet for my father
Swell, my YourDictionary.com word of the day popped up in my email bin a couple of months ago. I felt a rush of memories of my father pass through my mind theater. Swell was his word.
Swell: a popular slang word in the 1940’s, meaning, roughly, “great, fine.” The 1940’s was the decade when Dad left Rochester, Minnesota, to follow his sweetheart out west to Washington State; the decade when Dad made good money, $1.01 per hour, as a civilian meat cutter at an Army Base at Excursion Inlet in Alaska; the decade when Dad then married Mom; the decade when he then joined the Merchant Marines after marrying Mom in order to serve his country during WWII; the decade when he opened his first grocery and butcher shop on Bainbridge Island after the war was over; the decade when he became a father of two more daughters: Judy in 1947, and me, Suzan, in 1949.
And, though swell went out of favor as cool and hip stepped in to take their turns in the 50s, swell remained a part of Dad’s lexicon.
On Father’s Day, 2001, Dad told this story: “During the years I sailed aboard the David W. Branch I ran a swell little side business crafting identification bracelets from dimes. I cut the heads out with a pair of side cutters and then I’d take a file and smooth the edges. I punched two holes, one on the head, one on the neck, for the jump rings. I linked the dimes together with those jump rings, and finished off the bracelet by cutting a piece of aluminum that I shinned up swell for a nametag. I put about ten dime heads on an ID bracelet. Anyway, they sold for $20-$25 bucks. It was a lot of money in those days. I had a lot of fun making those bracelets. It was a swell little business.”
Dad was a storyteller. His words tumbled out fast and easy, like he was galloping along in a race, eager to get to the punch line so he could catch his breathe. With his dark brown eyes wide-open, cheeks rising in smile, he‘d flutter his hand, turned his palms up as if to offer a gift, and then finally, close to the end, he’d tent his hand over his nose, and then skim his forefinger down its sloop.
Another time he talked about the opening day of Judd’s Market, December 20, 1945. “Products to sell were scarce due to the country still recovering from the War. Our shelves were stocked with a little produce, lots of potatoes, bread, milk, a few canned goods, and corn flakes. Our first day sales were thirty-eight dollars. The customers were friendly and welcoming and said they’d be happy to trade at our store. That was a real swell day.”
It wasn’t that Dad sprinkled swell throughout all he said, not like the way like splashes like you know like the way like so many use, like, you know, today. Dad’s swells weren’t obnoxious, but caught my ear with a freshness, a breeze of salt water, a simple word that stood out, reserved for special people such as Schultz, his childhood friend from Rochester, Minnesota, or perhaps when he learned that Mom was pregnant with Judy. And, much later at their 60th wedding anniversary when Dad said, “Now your Mom is a darn swell kisser; and when she was younger, I couldn’t keep up with her.”
I hear my father’s deep, big voice. The lingering L hangs in my ear, a swelling of emotion builds as I read my word of the day from YourDictionary.com, a simple slang word: swell.
(I hope we have a swell time with this blog)
Labels: Swell
