April 27th, another anniversary

Bridge on I77 near Princeton WV




My dad, Jim Harvey in 1954
The little chubby fellow is me.




April 27th is also an anniversary of sorts for me.
We lost my dad on that Tuesday in 1976.
The head of the family, the only son of Arthur and Ollie Harvey,
brother, father, husband, WWII veteran and still today the most
decent, honest and unselfish man I've ever known.

He was far too young when he left us just two weeks short of his 55th birthday.
That, unfortunately was common for men of his "Greatest" generation.

Born in 1921, he survived the Great Depression, putting in a man's days work from the age of 10. Then WWII called him away from the farm he loved. He and millions of other men and women answered the call to save the entire world from unspeakable evil and tyranny.

He was seriously injured and discharged from the Army in extremely poor health before his unit deployed to North Africa.
He bore the pains of those injuries all of his life, and never experienced full health again.

You would never have known that in trying to keep up with him!
When I got up to go to High School at 6:30am, he was normally already gone. We never saw him before six pm for supper.
Back in those days, most folks worked half a day on Saturday too.

He never complained, and never did much of anything for himself.
That wasn't his way, or their way in those days.
We could learn much of self sacrifice and common sense from them.

My parents were living in Princeton, WV when I was born.
The picture above is of a bridge that still spans I77 near Princeton.
At the time it was built it was one of the longest bridges of it's type in the world.
Those were pre-OHSA days.
Dad told me once that part of his job entailed inspecting the steel as construction progressed.
How? Two four by eight plywood planks were placed side by side across the spans.
Dad then walked them and inspected the rivets and joints, over the open gorge beneath.
Talk about working without a net!

I visited the bridge with him once (if you are heading southbound on I77, there is an overlook, that's where I shot this picture)
I asked "Dad, how in the world did you make yourself go out there?"
He grinned and said "I had a little blue eyed boy to feed!"

Now I see that wry grin emanating from our son.

He is a lot like you, Dad. You'd be pretty proud of him.

We still miss you.