Monday, October 1, 2018

Old Paco

Here are a couple of final mementos from the old homestead.

This is my father at age 18, in 1946 (you know I'm diggin' that tie!):




And here he is in the early 50s as a deputy sheriff at a traffic stop, handing out...I have no idea what those are. Invitations to the Sheriff Department's annual ball, perhaps.



11 comments:

RebeccaH said...

Handsome runs in the family, apparently.

Paco said...

Well, unless one is unfortunate enough, as is the case with yours truly, to take after Ma Paco's side of the family. There's a strange paradox there. My mother and her sisters were beautiful women, but the men all looked liked something that didn't quite make it to the top of the primate evolutionary chain.

bruce said...

Same age as my dad was, too young to go to war. Except my dad was a leather-jacketed biker until my mum civilised him.

From 1 or 2 old pics you've posted I still think I see you in your dad Paco, glass more than half full.

Paco said...

Kind of you to say so, Bruce.

My father turned 17 in 1945, and begged his father to give his permission to join the army (parental permission was required under 18); but old Grandpa Paco reportedly told him "You ain't joinin' nuthin', now get your ass back out in that cotton field!" He did join the army a couple of years later, but wasn't involved in a shooting war.

rinardman said...

And, if the US hadn't ended the war in 1945, your father may very well have been involved in a bloody invasion of Japan.

You'll never convince me that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was a bad thing.

Steve at the Pub said...

He's got everything.
Handsome, dashing, and a southpaw. (unless the photo is mirror imaged)
What's not to like?

Paco said...

Steve - That's correct: he was a southpaw.

Nashville Beat said...

A handsome lad. Unfortunately, I am about your age, but had your father and I been contemporaries, I am sure we would have had a good time in the police department in Nashville. Thanks for sharing the photos.

By the way, my father was the same age. He told my grandmother that his best friend Al had gotten permission to enlist at the same time Al simultaneously got his mother to sign by telling her that Grandmom had signed my dad's papers. You recall Dad ended up serving as a corpsman for the Marines on Okinawa. (Or as that feckless predecessor to President Trump called them: corpsemen) Glad that Old Paco was spared that experience. Wish that I had known him.

Paco said...

NB: I'm sure you two would have gotten along famously!

Mike_W said...

The western side of New Zealand is where my father was born.
That area was famous for being home to various pirates and brigands.
I'm pretty sure pirates and cannibal Maoris featured prominently in my father's ancestry.
He was terribly swarthy.
I even have a photo of my father with a knife between his teeth.

Paco said...

Mike: I would gladly have hired him to head up Paco Enterprises' security unit.