Dad in His Overalls, Me in Mine

By Anthony Buccino

It’s obvious that money talks – and he’s been silenced by decisions made light years above the clouds in penthouses by men unlike himself who he’s never met and most probably never will.

Dad wears overalls constantly. He hasn’t worked the planks in months, but he’s ready to return next week or tomorrow or later today, if they’d only call him.

His hearing isn’t so good since he stopped smoking. It wasn’t the quitting that robbed him of his sense but the thirty years of coughing so hard he shook the plaster from the walls.

Now we’re never sure if he hears us or if he’s in a silent, reflective gaze building god-knows-what in the canyons of his mind. But we’re getting used to it – like the sudden disappearance of slack in his belt.

Lately, he’s been spending most nights in the poorly lit garage tinkering with a confounded invention of modern man – a saw sharpener! – that hasn’t worked right since the day I moved it a little bit. His chances of success in fixing it are much the same as a little boy emptying the ocean into a moat surrounding his sand castle.

But to look at him you’d see right away he’s harmless. And you’d want to smother him under your wing to protect him from the ghouls of this world who would so readily take advantage of his good nature.

He is well-trained in the hammer and nail. When you look at our house you immediately think of the shoemaker’s children running barefoot.

It’s obvious that money talks – and he’s been silenced by decisions made light years above the clouds in penthouses by men unlike himself who he’s never met and most probably never will.

It never wears him down. He’s seen the great hunger of this century. He’s seen the bullets and the flesh. And his soul has absorbed every flash of lightning in his life.

Mellowed, surely, seeing life as an endurance test for the fit. Losing the battle, yet winning the war. So, education wasn’t his forte, he can read and tell you a hundred stories if you’ve got the coffee and time.

I wonder, would my feelings be any different had there been more time between us? Had I given him the time I longed for in angry, misdirected poetic nights? I cry inside at the pettiness that trifles with our emotions. And I long for the days I never had.

With a chance tomorrow to share my life with his, I can see I won’t take it upon myself. Nor will he. We are set in our ways like the weeds and flowers.

There’s not much time left for us. I’ll be married soon and into some other life. He’ll be scrambling in the yard with the lawn mower and a few other machines that perplex and challenge him.

Adapted from A Father's Place, An Eclectic Collection

© 1976 by Anthony Buccino

Sixteen Inches on Center

A Father's Place, An Eclectic Collection

WW2 Letters Home from the South Pacific

OVERALLS

People laugh at the Li’l Abner look where the tops of my shitkickers

have a large gap to the bottom of my pin-striped bib overalls.

Don’t the stripes make me look taller?

It’s not the effect you see in these overalls.

I wear them because they are functional,

made of tough material, and have lots of pockets

and a twisted loop for my 16-oz. Stanley hammer.

Your pockets can get full of Sheetrock bits

and you won’t get into any kind of laundry trouble.

I’ve worn through a lot of solid blue bib overalls, myself.

Dad used to get me them at a great price at a little store

called Walensky’s on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair.

Maybe that’s where he got this pair?

This pair of white overalls has blue vertical stripes.

I had two pairs like this once, but one plumb wore out.

These bibs fit Dad to a T you can bet.

His legs were shorter than mine,

and his belly, well, that’s another story.

I don’t want another pair for Christmas or my birthday.

This pair I save for special working occasions

like heavy yard work, or painting something.

I’m trying to make these engineer overalls last forever

- By Anthony Buccino, from Sixteen Inches On Center

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