By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer

My father did not die with a metaphorical sword in his hand.

There was no yellow-green steno pad in his suitcoat pocket; indeed, I don’t think his pajamas had pockets. He wasn’t wearing a crisp white shirt, suspenders and a maroon tie. His hat wasn’t pushed back on his forehead, or pitched on a convenient desk or hook nearby.

Papa wanted to die at work, but emphysema and a broken bone and other old man problems kept that wish from coming true. He was rather philosophical about it; I know because a day or so before he went to his eternal home, we talked about how Papa didn’t want to die in a hospital. But that was what God decided would happen, Papa said, so that was that.

My father was not a journalist, he was a newspaperman. A newspaperman, he said, knew how to do more than just write, and had to be honest. In his opinion (and my own), many of those who bear the title journalist sometimes can’t make either of those requirements.

Although he never served in any kind of foreign office, the Old Man was a statesman in the true, old world sense of the word. He had a way of bringing even the most disparate people together and making them talk. They might not always agree, but he could get people to talk.

That was Papa’s way; he was polite, funny, but honest, straightforward and unwavering. He didn’t compromise on what was right. People respected that.

My father was a hardware man before he went into newspapers. His great-great-grandfather, Fredrick Weaver, was a blacksmith who created a widget for the railroads and became a hardware baron. His sons and grandsons and great-grandsons became hardware merchants. Papa followed the family lead until he started contributing to a little newspaper that shared his store building in Northern Virginia.

Papa was out of hardware long before I was born, but he still knew a pod-auger from a plumb bob. He knew why painters once weighed paint. He could grab a handful of nails from a bin, and that handful would be pretty close to an even pound on the scales.

He knew about water pumps and window panes and mule harness and hog rings. He knew more than most locksmiths about the different kinds of doorknobs, nightlatches, deadbolts and rimlocks, and half-joked that the tulip knob (now the most common of all) was like modern American society – lazy, cheap and easy.

When he could be, the Old Man was a fisherman. In those rare times when he would take off an afternoon or even a whole day to wet a line, he was patient and content to wait, often as not dozing on a creek bank or the side of a pond. Truth be told, he was a better fisherman than his youngest son, since Papa used the slow and steady approach, knowing the joy was in the fishing, not necessarily in the fish.

My father was proud to be an American, a Southerner, and an adopted North Carolinian. He was a quiet Christian, a staunch conservative, and became a Republican only when the Democrats abandoned him. He couldn’t abide abortion, since killing unborn babies disgusted and angered him.

My father was not a slave to fashion. All he ever needed were dark suits in the winter, light colored suits in the summer, Panama hats before Labor Day and gray fedoras until Easter. All his shirts were white, and all his ties were maroon.

The Old Man was a man of simple tastes. He liked his hamburgers plain, occasionally with just a hint of mustard. He liked vanilla milkshakes. He drank his coffee black with two sugars. He found no use for all the fancy new flavors of “nab-crackers,” since one only needed peanut butter and cheese.

The Old Man was a gentleman; even when he had to haul an oxygen tank around, he opened doors for ladies. He never wore his hat inside a house, restaurant, church, school or office. He was an incorrigible flirt, but he also had a way of finding something pretty about even the most unattractive woman, especially if he felt it would brighten her day. He was devoted to my mother with a single-mindedness often unknown in modern husbands.

The Old Man was a baseball fanatic. He played, coached and managed a semi-pro team before he had children. As his hearing deteriorated, the whole neighborhood could tell when the Braves were playing, and how well (or poorly).

I always worried that I disappointed him that I wasn’t a better ball player – it wasn’t, I can assure you, for lack of his trying. On one of those long, last afternoons in the hospital, he promised me that he understood, and said he was proud that I’d found my own way.

He quietly died May 4, 2001, while taking a nap. He didn’t have a sword or even an inkpen in his hand. My mother was sitting a few feet away, taking a badly needed nap of her own. When she awoke he was gone, without a fuss. To do otherwise might have been rude, and the Old Man was never rude.

The Old Man was a newspaperman, a gentleman, a fisherman, a husband, and so much more.

But above all that, the Old Man was a father – the best father a boy or a man could ever have.

And I miss him every day.

To my readers: the other week, I wrote a column about a newspaper, to fulfill a promise I made to my father. This column is a promise I made to myself the same day, and I thank you for helping me keep it.

Weaver is a staff writer at The News Reporter. He may be reached at 642-4104, ext. 227, or via email at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz.