A Farewell to my Father
by David Pedigo

Whether it is in eulogies or obituaries, one thing I cannot stand is when people deify the people they lost. You aren’t honoring someone’s memory by treating them like they were perfect angels who brightened the whole world by simply gracing it with their presence. You are forgetting what made them the people you loved in the first place.
My father wasn’t perfect. He was cranky, downright cantankerous, frustrating, and difficult. He was a know-it-all, a sore loser, and a sore winner. He always had to have the last word and he always had a speech or lecture set aside, ready at a moment’s notice.
These things I’m writing don’t come from a bitter or angry place; I just want to provide context so you can appreciate the next few lines you are about to read.
My father was easily one of the greatest men I have ever known.
Flaws and all.
He was nothing if not a giant contradiction.
I think he probably would have gotten a kick out of me saying that.
You see, my father was the kind of man who would always help. You only had to ask, and he would move mountains for you. Of course, he’d also complain the entire time, and if you were one of his children, you could expect a lecture, ad nauseam, about what you did wrong and what you needed to do in the future to prevent it from being a problem again.
And he’d always finish it the same way. “This is it; I’m never doing this again.”
But he always did.
I asked him about it once, as a teenager, after he had finished just such a lecture on the phone to one of my brothers.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why do you say that this is the last time you’re going to help? You always say that, and it never is. I know it. You know it. He knows it. So why? Why isn’t it the last time?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Because you never give up on family.”
It didn’t make any sense to me, at the time.
Of course, it wasn’t just us kids who had to face his ire for not being self-sufficient. One of the things he hated most was people asking for money on the street. “An adult should work hard and find a way to make it work.” Once, while on his way downtown to have lunch with my sister, he was stopped by a man who asked for money to buy a train ticket home to see his kids. I imagine he must have caught my father at the perfect time, hurrying to meet his own child, because my father gave him the exact amount, and my father stressed that it was the ‘exact’ amount, of money needed to buy the ticket.
On the way back from lunch, my father found the same man telling the same story to a different man. My father yelled and berated him for twenty minutes, till the police came.
My father was very proud of that story, of how he had caught a scam artist.
Imagine my surprise and confusion when he took it upon himself to go above and beyond to help a man asking for money one day.
We were going to Tasty Dog, a local restaurant that we visited a lot. An older man was holding the door, and as each person walked by, he said the same thing.
“Please. Please, do you have any spare change? I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I would just like to buy a hamburger.”
Now, sixteen-year-old me thought he knew everything. I was certain that whatever the man had done to run out of money, it was most likely his fault and he didn’t deserve any help from me.
I don’t know if I had any change in my pocket, but I know I walked right past him without even sparing him a glance. I got in line and suddenly found myself alone.
My father, who had been only a few steps behind me, was still at the door, holding it for the man and motioning him inside. He had the man join us in line and when it was time to order, he motioned for the man to join him at the register.
“You only want a hamburger?” my father asked him. “No cheese?”
The man shook his head. “Cheese is extra.”
“Two cheeseburgers,” my father told the clerk. “Any fries?”
“No, sir, that’s more than enough.”
“And a large fry. Is Coke okay?”
“Thank you,” the man said, a catch in his throat.
Then my father had me order, continuing on as if everything was normal.
Our food came and my father double checked to make sure everything was in the bag before handing it to the man. The man tried to give my father what money he had, but my father simply grumbled and waved it away.
The man went to sit outside with his food, and we sat inside at our regular booth. I stared at the man, who was in tears while eating, then looked back to my father.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why did you help that man? You hate panhandlers. So why help him?”
And without hesitating, my father said, “Because no one deserves to go hungry.”
Again, to my teenage mind, it didn’t make sense.
So, I decided to start listening. You see, my father, like many fathers, myself included, told the same stories over and over again. As his son, I had long since learned to tune them out.
Now I decided to tune in.
It took me years to finally figure out what made my father so contradictory, even within his own logic. My father had one simple goal.
Be better.
Be better than his father.
I don’t know much about my grandfather, but what I do know tells me that I wouldn’t have liked him. I know he married my grandmother, his second cousin, when she was fourteen. He was twenty. That was acceptable in Tennessee in the thirties.
I know that my father was born when my grandmother was only fifteen. My father always told me that he was the reason they were married, though I’ve heard contradicting reports that she claimed otherwise. Either way, as first impressions go, my grandfather hadn’t made a good one on me.
I know that my grandfather had a problem drinking, something that caused a great deal of friction in his marriage. He was the kind of drunk who would pass out and just pee in the bed. I know he wasn’t very intelligent and very quick to anger.
And I also know that he tried to kill my grandmother and father.
The way my father told it to me, his mother had put him to bed, closed up all the windows and doors tight, and had gone to sleep herself. He said that his father showed up after a late night at the bar and clumsily made his way to the kitchen to the large gas stove. In the forties, appliances didn’t have things like pilot lights. After turning on the gas, you had to light the burners.
My grandfather didn’t. He turned on all the burners on the top and the oven beneath and then he left, returning to the bar.
Drunk men are terrible at being sneaky and he had made enough noise to wake up my grandmother. After he left, she went into the hall and could smell the gas. My grandmother was not a well educated woman, but she was very clever. She quickly threw a towel under the door to my father’s room, before she made her way to the kitchen, opening every door and window along the way.
After having moved to Akron, Ohio and having divorced her husband, my grandmother worked tirelessly, both in factories and as a waitress, to provide for my father. She did everything she possibly could to support him. But I know they were constantly struggling, barely making ends meet, with no help from my grandfather.
My father used to talk about things like potato pancakes for breakfast, made from leftover mashed potatoes. One of his favorite desserts was something he called ‘Soakie,’ which is a large slice of cornbread crumbled into a half glass of milk. I’ve never met another soul who has ever even heard of it, but he would eat it like it was the most delicious ice cream ever made. He never outright said it, but in the tone he used for these stories, I know he spent many nights going to bed still hungry.
After he had grown, after he had served in the Navy on the U.S.S. Roanoke, after he had married a girl and enrolled in college, he ran into his father in a bar after class.
And they fought.
“You’re too stupid to be in college!” my grandfather yelled. “It’s a complete waste of time. You need to come and move furniture with me. That’s all you’re good for.”
My father broke his father’s nose and left him lying in the dirt.
That was the last time he ever saw his father. He didn’t even go to his funeral.
My father made no secret of how little he thought of his father. That he never bothered to be there for his wife or child. That he never cared how hard his wife worked to support their child. That he never valued anything about them.
Through two marriages and five children, my father made sure to be there. He might have complained and lectured, but he moved Heaven and Hell when we asked. He wanted to make sure that no matter what, we would not go hungry.
My father wasn’t perfect. He was always the first to admit it.
But he was better. Better than his father. Better everyday than the day before.
And that was the lesson I finally learned. One I’m trying to apply in my own life. It’s not easy. I fail at it a lot. But still, I try.
Like my father.
Don’t be perfect.
Just be better.


Joel B Pedigo, 85, long time resident of Oak Park, died July 9, 2021, surrounded by his family. Joel was born in Smithville, TN to Clarence and Willie Mae, who were sharecroppers. His family moved to Akron, Ohio, at the start of WW II to work in the Goodyear rubber factory. Joel enlisted in the Navy at 17 and served on the U.S.S. Roanoke during the Korean conflict. He attended Kent State University, the University of Cincinnati, and Ohio State University, earning a master’s degree in chemistry and was awarded three U.S. patents in chemistry. He lived most of his adult life in the Chicago area, owning Water Maintenance Services in Willowbrook for thirty years, and at the end of his career, managing Meredith Culligan Water in Forest Park. He is survived by his five children: Brian (Cristina), Tekla (Patrick Barrick), Steve, Tony, David (Brandi Medina), and his former wife, Helen Kossler. He is also survived by 11 grandchildren , whom he adored. He was an avid handball player, a small aircraft pilot and motorcycle enthusiast. He will be sorely missed by friends and family.