Technical Sergeant United States Air Force
Interred at
Delivered
by Dennis L. Merritt, Dec 12, 2003
Good
morning. Thank you for coming here
this morning to celebrate the life of my father, Wilson “Carl” Merritt.
I have been asked to eulogize my father by my brother and sisters.
Randy, Robin, and Connie,
with encouragement from Georgeann, Mickey, Arty, and Lora.
Dad
was not an easy man to live with. It
would be disingenuous to tell you all the wonderful things about him without you
understanding that there was a darker side to him.
Dad was a career military man and suffered many of the effects of that
life style in the post World War II and Cold War eras….which was an abundance
of adrenal hormones with no real release for it.
Suffice to say, we were not a Donna Reed or Ossie and Harriet family.
I
look back on his life and see that I can dissect his life into 4 what I call
“lives”.
Briefly
they are his first life, born in
His
second life, highlighted by a career in the US Army Air Corp and US Air Force,
marriage and children, and a second career with the California Department of
Transportation (briefly), in the Federal Civil Service at Mare Island Shipyard
for the US Navy, in
His
third life, that started with his retirement from the Federal Civil Service,
marriage to and, sadly, the death of
His
fourth life, highlighted by these last years since 1998.
Let
me start then with Life #1.
Life
#1
Birth
Family
Dad
was born in Samson, Alabama, November 11, 1927, you know, for 55 years I though
he was born in 1928. But pouring
over his records I find his 1927 birthday.
Did you know that his name was not Carl, however that is on his military
records. The military is at a loss
when a service man does not have a middle name.
We suspect he was named Wilson C. Merritt, with no real name associated
with the “C”, so Dad adopted the name, either
Dad
was born in a 3 room shack known as a “Shotgun house”.
Dad called it that every since I can remember, called that because if you
shot a shotgun through the front door it would go out the rear door without
hitting anything.
Included
in our ancestry are Irish mariners, Spanish peasants, Policemen, Redmen,
Confederate Civil War soldiers, and a shotgun toting “woods rider” who rode
the perimeter of lumber country for a company. The name of the company I believe
was the Horse Shoe Lumber Company and may still be in business.
He
was #2 of nine children, born of an Irish-American man, and an American-Indian
woman. More than a little
intemperance maybe accounted for by this combination of ancestry. (None of our
ancestry is evidenced by any formal pedigree, merely family lore).
Dad
lived in Samson through the depression era and World War II.
With as many children in the house as there were, the older children were
expected more or less to fend for themselves.
Dad worked at a local oyster bar shucking oysters and in the fields
picking cotton; in the peanut warehouses stacking sacks of peanuts.
He also trained as a welder and worked in a saw mill.
Meager work for a skinny teenager. (He
was built somewhat like a very young Frank Sinatra). Dad found it increasingly hard to survive competition with
his siblings… so much so that in
1946 he took a pair of his Dad’s shoes and pants and walked down the railroad
tracks to catch a train to the US Army Air Force boot camp in Camp Shelby
Mississippi. Dad told us on
many occasions that the Army was his escape to a world where he was warm, well
fed, and had clothes to wear.
Life
# 2
USAAF/USAF
to retirement
Dad
enlisted in the Army Air Corp and completed his basic training in
After
his stint at Fairchild in
At
the rank of Staff Sergeant he was stationed at Lake Charles AFB in
Dad
never finished high school, but while stationed at Lake Charles AFB he completed
his High School GED, in March 1955. Dad
was amazingly self-educated. He was
curious about everything. He had a
love of gadgets that infected me personally and caused he and I to feed on one
another’s curiosity. Dad bought
one of the first very expensive VCRs that allowed him to keep
He
was first stationed in Helena, Montana as a supervisor of
Distance Early Warning volunteers to protect us from the Russians and
then to Malmenstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana continuing that assignment, then
to a mess sergeant billet in Dickinson, North Dakota.
While
in
We
remember too that on the cold days in
We
lived on the Air Force base part of the time and in the local communities other
times.
Dad
was a practical joker...
Friday
night was our family celebration night. We
worked hard all week and then would party on Friday night… hamburgers, French
fries, soda pop and potato chips. We did eat well.
We
would watch “Shock Theater” and all manner of TV… then go to bed…
Unknown to us, he would have rigged a booby trap to scare us during the
night… several times he had tied a broom or a boot to a long string that would
cause the broom or boot to move around, or to fall down stairs where my brother
and I were sleeping, or to move the broom around my sisters room… only after
he had terrorized us by hanging garlic in the windows to keep away the
vampires… we did have fun.
Dad’s
love affair with dogs is legendary.
He
had a dog when he was growing up called Jeff, don’t know what kind of dog Jeff
was, but I think he was a bull terrier.
A
string of dogs, with names like Sunday, Toffy, Duke,
Dad
rotated from
Randy
inherited the love of hunting from Dad and I inherited the love of fishing from
Dad. Both of us inherited his love
of shooting… Dad was a great black powder enthusiast, belonging to a local
Black Powder Shooting Club in
During
March of 1964,
We
moved from
Dad
retired from the Air Force on
We
did neither... we moved to Suisun
City, outside of Fairfield, California..., which ended up being pretty ok… We
3 kids ended up graduating from
Dad
worked for a number of years until the bridge was automated and his health
started to fail.
After
his retirement from the bridge Dad lived in
Life
#3
My
mother and Dad divorced almost on the day I was relieved from Active Duty Navy.
Dad then moved to
Dad
was a frequent customer of a drug store in
They
made their home at
These
years saw stress and strains as we all struggled to raise our families and do
well at our work, never getting to know Lorraine well, nor GeorgeAnn, Mickey,
Lora, or Arty. We were never close
at all and I will always be sad about that.
Dad and I grew apart during this time, as our lives just diverged.
Dad
was father, husband, and grandfather to a whole new family that my brother and
sisters didn’t know and couldn’t know, which did add to the strain felt
between my Dad and us kids.
This
new family loved Dad as much as his “first” family does and he loved them as
much as they loved him. I believe
Dad had learned how to show and appreciate love, and it shows.
Apparently
Sadly,
Life
#4
Life
without
My
own relationship with Dad begin to strengthen after he became sicker, I was
spending much more time with him, but never enough, never enough.
Dad’s
illness begin to really take its toll on him.
He begin to look at alternatives that would allow him some freedom yet
remove him from the drudgery and energy zapping activities of keeping a house
and eventually he ended up in the Berkshire Assisted Living facility on Brown
Street in Napa.
He
made friends quickly, some who swear that Dad is their best friend... I
recognize Dick Winchell, Lea, and Shirley from
Dad’s
spiritual needs were met there as well… we know that Dad chose the Catholic
faith where my family chose the protestant faith, but in the end we feel that
Dad is Saved, and is in the Body of Christ.
I
want to thank all of you again for this opportunity to share the life of Wilson
C. Merritt... we all love him and will miss him terribly.
I
outranked my father militarily. We
had a custom of saluting each other when we parted, usually he would salute
first. Today Dad, I salute
you.
Dennis
Lee Merritt