Saturday Genealogy Challenge: Three Father's Day Stories

This week's topic is to choose three Father's Day stories to tell which can be either about our father or another man that was significant in our life.  The original post with the links to those that participated can be found HERE.  And the exact assignment is as follows:

1)  Sunday, 18 June, is Father's Day.  Let's celebrate by writing a blog post about our father, or another significant male ancestor (e.g., a grandfather).

2)  What are three things about your father (or significant male ancestor) that you vividly remember about him?

3)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status or Google+ Stream post.

Since my father is still living I felt that I might compromise his privacy by posting pictures and stories on my blog because the privacy setting is set to public.   So I picked my grandfather as he is no longer living.  Actually the man I chose was my step-grandfather.   He married my mother's mother in 1943.  His name was Waldo Augustas Reed.  

Waldo Augustas Reed 

1914-1994

My "Grandpa Reed" worked in factories all his life and, although he retired from Bryon Steam Corporation at which he worked with metal,  early in his working life he worked in furniture factories.  This experience caused an interest in wood working.  By my earliest recollection he had an second garage at the back of his property filled with table saws and other wood working equipment and tools.   I have many fond memories of spending time with him in his workshop.  I held the light.  I held the other end of boards.  I found his hammer when he laid it down and forgot where he put it.  He made me a doll bed,  a doll high chair and a child size Hoosier Cupboard.   He was missing some fingers on one hand.  I asked him how that happened and he told me he was asleep and got his hand caught in the machine.  For many years I imagined him asleep with his hand hanging over the side of the bed into a clothes washing machine until I grew up enough to realize he meant he wasn't paying attention and he got it caught in the skill saw.   Grandpa Reed called me Skeezicks.  

Grandpa always told funny stories about the old days.  He used to drink too much in his younger years although I never saw him drink anything but Pepsi in small bottles.  One story I remember very vividly is he told of when he was dating my grandmother and one evening they had been at a bar.  After the left the bar they went for a night time drive in the country.  Pretty soon he needed to get rid of some beer so he pulled over to the side of the road and relieved himself.  Then he got back behind he wheel and drove off.  Presently he was talking to my grandmother and noticed she wasn't answering.  He reached his hand down and slide it across the seat only to realize she was not in the car.  He went back to where he had stopped to urinate and there she was waiting on him.  She had gotten out to go too and he had drove off and left her.  

My grandparents home had an access to their attic from the ceiling of the attached garage.  One day I went up there with my grandmother while my grandfather was at work.  I can't remember why we went up there.  Maybe she was handing up Christmas decoration boxes to me to put away.  Anyway,  I have what some call a fear of heights and others call a fear of falling and I could not bring myself to step out onto the ladder to get back down out of the attic.  I was stuck.  My grandmother tried to talk me out.  She scolded,  she threatened,  and begged but still I could not find the courage to get out of the attic.  Finally grandpa got home and walked over to the ladder.  He climbed up it and stood on the ladder.  He told me to turn around and stick my foot out of the door way.  He took my foot and put it on the rung and told me he was there and to stick out my other foot.  I did so and he placed it on the rung.  Then he backed down the ladder with his arms on each side of the ladder at my sides and I scooted down the ladder like it was the easiest thing.  My grandmother wouldn't speak to either one of us all through supper.  

My first born son's middle name is Reed.  My cousins and siblings all say I was Grandpa Reed's pick (favorite) and were jealous.  He had no children of his own so all of my grandmother's children were the benefactors of his skills and attention.  These are just a few of the many cherished memories I have of him.  He is sorely missed.