P.S. Eventually, doctors decided that Dad needed brain surgery which resulted in a diagnosis of brain cancer. However, they waited until he was off blood thinners associated with his earlier hip surgery. By that time, it was too late -- Dad's cognitive brain function was essentially gone. He stayed alive in a nursing home, able to look at TV and eat, but could no longer talk or even seem aware of his surroundings. At one point, he developed pneumonia and Kathy and I debated whether to let it kill him, but decided that this type of death would be too painful. After about a year, a relatively fast-acting infection got into him and he died. By that time, I knew it to be the best outcome for him -- I had said my goodbye just before starting to write this document. Seven years later now, I still miss him...
Dad was a Boy Scout -- I think attaining Life (just one level less than Eagle). He learned knots, Morse code, and how to start a fire with just one match -- skills which he later passed on to me.
Dad always had a great memory. A family story is that he would sit in a car seemingly studying a map continuously on long road trips. When teased by his 5-year younger sister Carol that he had missed all the scenery, he could relate everything that they had passed and then name the towns where they were located. (The family joke about Carol is that she slept through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.) (Dad always felt that such stories were mean-spirited and he held a grudge against the people who told them, but I believe that this uniqueness is highly rated as an Oncley family value.)
Dad grew to be 6'3" -- by far the tallest of the Oncleys. While not unusual by today's standards, he always had trouble finding shoes in his size -- 13B. He told the story that the only time he ever felt short was when he got into an elevator in Madison Square Garden in which several Boston Celtics were riding!
Like his father, Dad was drawn both to music and science. Dad went to Harvard University where he got a Bachelor's degree (in Engineering?) However, he went on to study music in Manus College in New York City.
Mom's parents visited us during that first year -- one of the few trips I ever heard of them taking -- mostly to see me! It is true that this also was the year of Seattle's World Fair, which they probably also wanted to see.
After two years, Paul and Alma decided to invest in real estate by buying a small house in Tacoma Washington which Mom, Dad, and I moved in to. It was in this house that I had my earliest memory -- an mild earthquake when I asked my parents: "Who's shaking my crib?" During this period, Dad worked for Boeing as an engineer's aide (Paul was an accoustics engineer also for Boeing) and Mom went back to graduate school at the University of Puget Sound, where Alma was a music professor teaching organ performance.
During this period, Mom earned money as a Teaching Assistant and Dad did some performance work. I remember always having a baby sitter on New Year's Eve, as Dad played bass in some club and Mom tagged along. Dad continued to use the same upright bass.
I believe it was while we were in Bloomington that Dad received a letter from his grandfather complaining that he didn't have any friends left to go fishing with in the Thousand Islands. It must have been an effective letter, because Dad soon bundled us up for a road trip to Goose Bay. We stayed in the spare bedroom in Granddad's cottage, and went out fishing all day in an open aluminum boat (one of the original boats that went with Granddad's cabin while it was still being rented by Lew West) with an ancient outboard motor (with a rope starter that had to be manually wrapped around the flywheel). Fishing this way was somewhat boring, but Dad really liked it and being with his Granddad, and I had lots of time to splash my hands in the water. We began a tradition of going up every summer, which Dad hasn't broken.
In Indiana, we also purchased a canvas cabin tent which we used for a few camping trips. We continued to use it until we purchased Wotan.
It was in Terra Haute that we got our first two cats: Irving and Myipper. I have a vague recollection of going to the "pound" for them. Our next-door neighbor Bernie had 7 cats. We first met him when we saw his cat Jewels, who as an orange tabby looked a lot like Irving outside. (Irving and Myipper were indoor cats.) When Bernie left suddenly (perhaps involving the distribution of illegal drugs), we inherited Jewels whom we renamed "J.P." (Jewels Pussycat).
About this time, we also purchased our first boat -- a 12' aluminum rowboat with a 6 Hp outboard. We used it to fish in various bodies of water and reservoirs in Indiana. This is when my Mom started accusing Dad of driving for "miles and miles along dirt roads" just to find a boat launch.
I got my "O"?-scale Lionel train set from a nearby toy store, which I pull out most Christmas's.
Soon after getting settled in Chambersburg, I followed in two of Dad's footsteps. I started taking 'cello lessons through the public school since I wanted to be just like Mom and Dad. I also joined the Cub Scouts (and later progressed into Boy Scouts). Like Dad, I fell short of Eagle, only making Star, because of two factors: a change in the award system which would have made it difficult to become Eagle without having to redo a lot of work and a gradually intensifying distance between other scouts who felt that I should have been more religious (the troop was affiliated with a Lutheran church). Nevertheless, I learned a number of skills and gained more of an affection for wilderness outings. Dad also enjoyed joining the annual Father-and-Son overnight backpacking trips.
At one point, Dad decided to increase his boating knowlege by taking a beginning seamanship class with the local United States Power Squadron. I tagged along to watch and started doing the homework problems for fun as well. At the end of the class, the instructor asked if I wanted to take the test, and I passed -- the youngest person they knew of who had.
Around the time of the Fisher/Spasky chess championships, Dad also joined a local chess club. Again, I tagged along, this time a bit more serious about actually joining as well. Dad and I both became rated chess players, though he was significantly better than I was. Dad and I stopped playing tournements at about the same time, but he joined a postal chess club (Knights of the Square Table, or KNOST) and continued playing for many years.
Dad and I also built several Heathkit electronic kits -- a stereo turntable, a fish spotter, a kids' educational electronics set (for me), an electric bass amplifier (for him), etc. We spent long hours in the dirt-floor basement with a soldering iron and shared in almost all aspects of the assembly. I still work with electronics (and soldering) as part of my job.
Dad became an environmental advocate in the late 1960s. He helped organize a group "Eco", which wrote environmental tips which were broadcast on commercial radio. Eco also started an annual "Clean the Con" day in which volunteers from all over town helped remove trash which piled up in the local Conocacheague River. I worked hard on these days as well, and we were rewarded with free hamburgers -- as many as you could eat -- from the local McDonalds. Years later, I asked Dad if he was still an activist and he replied that he had written to his Congressman a few months earlier.
In 1970?, Mom tired of being a stay-at-home mom, and got a job working for the Budget Office for the Pennsylvania State Government in Harrisburg. This meant that she had an hour commute each way every day, but also gave us some more spending money. About this time, we purchased a cottage in the Thousand Islands -- a property that Dad's grandfather had rented before purchasing a cottage across the road. We also bought another boat -- this one a 16' fiberglass runabout with a 60?Hp outboard. A few years later, we replaced it by a smoother-riding runabout with a deep-V hull with a 100 Hp outboard that Dad still uses. We named it the "John L" after his grandfather.
Our family spent several weeks each summer at the cottage. (Dad had summers off as a college professor, though Mom's vacation was limited.) Dad and I did a variety of construction tasks -- building the bathroom, replacing the dock, etc. -- and thus passed on some of the skills that he had learned working on the Princeton house with his father.
In the summer of 1972?, we came back from a vacation at the cottage to learn that the owners of our house we getting a divorce and we had to move. We moved into a newer two-story 6-unit row house in a small community a few miles north. Welcome to Greenvillage! Our back yard faced a corn field!
If you are getting the idea that I emulated my Dad, you are probably right. Throughout the Chambersburg years, I felt that the three of us were a team, each contributing to the working and playing of the family. I wasn't concious of actually mimicking him, it just seemed that he was always doing things which were interesting to me.
Dad was promoted to assistant professor at Wilson, but after 5 years failed to get tenure, requiring him to look for another position. This time, he again got an assistant professorship at a private college in Lancaster, but there would be some changes in our lives.
We decided that it was Dad's turn to commute, and for the first time, Mom and Dad purchased a house. Since it was in an inter-racial neighborhood in Harrisburg, we got a 3-story, 10-room, house with hardwood floors and a detached 2-car garage for $11,000. Paul and Alma leant Mom and Dad much of the money for this purchase. We had some problems with theft -- even before we moved in, burglars stole the copper pipe in the house. (Copper prices had just started to become high.)
Mom and Dad spent several months in discussions that I was locked out of, so my only hint of what had happened was the trip that Dad took back to Chambersburg to say goodbye to "her". Dad took me along and again had me stay out of his old office while he packed and made a few phone calls. His office was in the top floor of an old building with wide halls, so I didn't mind the chance to run around. For lunch, we went to the student commons where there was a ping-pong table. Dad was letting me have an even game, but when a woman in a pink dress walked by without speaking, he started playing visciously to win.
I still didn't know the significance of this event until, on the way back from a trip to the cottage, Mom and Dad jointly announced that they weren't going to be living together and I would have to chose which of them I was going to live with. I was speechless for 60 miles wondering if this really was a divorce? Eventually, I decided that Mom needed more support, and lived with her for the next two years. Dad never did have the "commute" and started his job at F&M living in a one-bedroom apartment in Lancaster. When they did legally get divorced several months later, Mom kept the house and the cats, Dad kept the cottage, and they split responsibility for the loan to Paul and Alma. I still wonder if I made the right choice -- as time went on, it became clear that Mom was actually stronger.
Within a year(?), Dad picked up two kittens of his own -- Peanut and Popcorn.
Our first Thanksgiving together in this house, we tried to make Alma's cranberry relish, which starts with a bunch of fruit (including the cranberries) ground up in a blender. We attempted to use a blender that we had picked up second-hand (I think from Goodwill) that was made of plastic. During the grinding, the blender shattered, sending bits of berries thoughout the kitchen. When I moved out a few years later, the drop ceiling still had red dots stained on it! During this period, Dad was trying to "find himself" and went in and out of several relationships. He also experimented with pot, with me sometimes wondering who would be suspected if cops found his stash in our house!
Since I had been taking summer courses for lack of anything better to do, we realized that I could graduate after only one more year. However, a room opened up in the fraternity, so I moved out (albeit, only a block away), leaving Dad to sort out his new life alone again.
Dad got various odd jobs -- delivery truck driver, security guard, etc. and started to build up private voice and 'cello students. Eventually, he got enough music-related jobs, including teaching courses at community colleges, to allow him to drop the non-professional incomes. This required quite a bit of time on the road. He would have to sell a car every 5 years because he had put 200,000 miles on it. He also became a frequent patron of fast-food outlets, often having only 10 minutes to eat between jobs. His weight went from 200 to 250 lbs, but he kept up that lifestyle for many years.
I graduated in 1979 and moved to Seattle to live with Paul and Alma (starting up the pattern again?) while I first worked for a private consulting company Paul was now working with after retiring from Boeing, and entered graduate school at the University of Washington.
Kathy is a very intelligent perfectionist with a bizarre sense of humor. She also felt underappreciated and has worked for years at a publishing company thinking that it is the best job she could get with only a Bachelors Degree. Although Dad loves Kathy and appreciates her, I always found myself at the losing end of an argument during my approximately annual visits to see them (usually coupled with a business trip East). Dad tried valiently to be a peacemaker, especially after a blow-up during a family get-together for Thanksgiving at his aunt Ruth's in Florida. I learned that avoidance was the easiest solution and, unfortunately, started seeing Dad even less. When I first moved to Seattle, I was pretty consistent in calling one parent one weekend and the other the next. Later, this dropped to only monthly calls to Dad and sometimes even less frequent.
Dad didn't take many trips by plane, mostly due to cost. From Chambersburg, we flew to a job interview for him in Michigan? via Pittsburgh. (I remember the flight since I had an ear blockage which caused a lot of pain, even though I loved flying.) From Lancaster, he once flew to a music workshop in Taos, New Mexico. He went to England once and Germany another time with a touring choral group. He visited me once each in Seattle, Irvine California, and Boulder Colorado. He also flew to Ruth's in Florida twice and at least once to go snorkling with Kathy in the Carribean (St. Martain?). Thus, I always felt that I did most of the "work" in maintaining contact with Dad.
After years of seeing our relationship slip, I invited Dad to join me (I gave him the ticket using frequent flyer miles) for a 4-day canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. My wife Nancy had introduced me to this a few years earlier and we had taken 2 trips together. For this trip, Nancy took our son Douglas to stay with friends in Minnesota while Dad and I went on alone. Kathy was concerned with Dad's physical abilities at this point and even insisted that Dad complete his will before going. With this urging, Dad spent some time in a gym in the months before.
After all that build-up, the trip was fine. We had to slog through some muddy trails, eat a dinner in the tent to escape mosquitos, and paddle the last day through pouring rain, all of which is normal for a BWCAW trip. We also had two great nights by ourselves and caught a few fish. Dad actually was a stronger paddler than me and I had to work hard. We alternated positions in the canoe, though I navigated (not a trivial task there).
In 2001, I had a conference in Nice, France which became a family trip. Nancy and Douglas (then 2) joined me, and Dad and Kathy also both came. The rental car was pretty crowded, but we had a great time touring the SE of France and even slipping into Monaco. We got a good sampling of French cuisine, though the long meals tried Douglas's patience and even ours at times.
However, during his internship, Dad had learned that work at nursing homes paid pretty well and, even better, came with a benefits package which included paid vacation -- something he hadn't had for almost 20 years! Dad still kept some of his performance jobs, but began working most of the time for such facilities. Finally, the rate of accumulation of miles on his car began to go down. Ironically, some of his former coworkers are now involved with his care.