My Dad's Pad 1940s Read it all cause there's a surprise ending! 4-11-2022
One of my decades old mysteries was finally explored with a minor result. These mysteries have frustrated me my entire life... When I was young I saw a picture of my father that was taken when he was about 12 years old. (I'm guessing based on the picture) It's the only tiny bit of my father's childhood that I ever knew, and all I knew was what I could see in the image. Nothing more. I could never get anyone to take it seriously when I asked for details. All I ever got was misdirection in the form of a subject change or a non answer to my questions... that was in the 60s and 70s.About 1990 I got a very early handheld scanner for my computer. In DOS it was difficult to use and usually took at least ten minutes to get a poor scan of a picture. It was amazing technology... I borrowed the childhood picture of my father and scanned it to a grayscale tif file. That's all the scanner could do. In 2022 that scan is all I know of his life, beyond my own first hand knowledge.I think Dad is the kid with no shoes.I may have exaggerated a teeny bit, concerning the limits to info about my father. In fifth grade my best friend and I built a fort in the planter on the front of our garage. Our fort attached to a brick trellis which ran up to the eve of the house. We could see up and down the street from there, and used it as a place to make plans... It was exciting.The window above my father's garage work bench opened into our fort. Lon and I were sitting up there planning ways to take over the world, or similar, when the window opened and surprised us. A short talk and the window closed, but not before hearing the only clue from my father... that he had a childhood. He told one very small, just the teeniest bit of a memory from his life... that he and his sister and other kids would hang out in the attic, and throw things out the window at cars driving by. This bit of precious knowledge came with a warning. We'd better not do anything like that from our perch overlooking the street.
Today I stumbled across an address in a Google search of my Dad's Dad's name. An address popped up and Google maps street view immediately showed me the house where dad grew up. No doubt about it Bullwinkle! That's Dad's attic window! I was thrilled for a moment at the possibility, and yet concerned that I'd never be certain. The address could be wrong, or they only lived there a very short time.I have looked at my Dad's childhood picture many times in more than 50 years, in fact, so many times that it's burned into my memory. A giant smile erupted as I stared at the front porch in the Google image. No doubt about it Bullwinkle... that's Dad's house alright... about 80 years later and nothing has changed, even the trim on the post is the same. A close study of the two pics will remove any doubt.
Thought I was done with this journal entry, but nooooo.... I saved it, but that aint all there is to the story. Hang on to your panties caus it got interesting. I went back to the search results and clicked on a few more links...
This is fun, can you guess which one is dad?
Faribault High School - 1946 yearbook "Voyager"Marilyn Rinsem in the yearbook
Holey Crap! Dad's Dad was 20 years old when he had an illegitimate son!
DAD GREW UP WITH HIM!
It's starting to make sense, maybe... I'll bet the porch picture of my father, which nobody would tell me about, is a picture of Dad and his TWO brothers! David Rinsem and Richard Brooks.
