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to my dad: “Why the heck would you want to have so many kids?” But usually it was said off to the side somewhere. “Did you hear? Ruettiger’s got another one comin’.” “There goes our insurance!” they’d say at work. My mom even got it at the grocery store: “Oh look, poor Betty’s got another bun in the oven.” It’s amazing how hurtful people can be with their words, and especially their tone. Do you think we can’t hear you? Did you ever stop to think how insulting it might be to make fun of someone else’s choices in life? Just because they might not be the same choices you’d make doesn’t make it right to look down on someone else because of it . And what’s so awful about bringing another child into the world, anyway? I always hated that half-joking voice people used when talking about the size of our family. Why do you care? Of course, I never spoke up. I’d just keep those feelings inside—the same way my dad did. I never heard him say anything back to any of those jokers. Not once.
    The thing I saw early on was that none of those guys he worked with had any idea just how dedicated my father was to his family. He didn’t just work hard at one job in order to support us. He held down a second job, and most of the time a third job in order to provide for us the best way he knew how.
    Job number one was at the oil refinery: Union Oil. My dad started working there after the war. He served in the air force as a turret gunner and flew twenty-two missions during World War II, including one in which he froze his foot because the hull of the plane was so cold, which tells you a little about what the conditions were like. It wasn’t something he ever really talked about with us kids. I wish I knew more about what he went through. What he saw. What he felt. But when he came home, he found good union wages awaited him at the refinery, and he dug in. Over time, he moved up, eventually leaving the ranks of the union (and losing those guaranteed union benefits) in order to become a superintendent, where he would find himself having to fight the very union that had welcomed him into a job when he came home from the war. He would stay at Union Oil until he retired.
    Most nights after he got home from work and ate, he’d go work at his brother’s gas station. My uncle Roge, whom dad always called “Whitey,” was the youngest of my dad’s brothers. He needed the help, and dad needed the money. It was a match made in heaven. And when the time came that my dad had to work nights at the refinery, he’d switch things up and go work at the gas station all day instead. He rarely even took a break on weekends: Saturday morning, he’d rise before the rest of us and head out to work construction with his friend Dan, building houses. Dan was a real creative guy—the type who would design a whole house project on the spot, on a shingle, right at the site, and my dad learned a lot from him. They became very close friends as the years went by. But to swing a hammer after working two other jobs all week must’ve been brutal on him.
    Fatigue and frustration were written on my dad’s face for most of those early years. I don’t remember seeing him smile very much, and he certainly didn’t show much of a sense of humor. In fact, he never really showed his emotions at all. I don’t remember him ever hugging me as a kid. He never said the words “I love you.” I knew he loved me. I did. But it’s almost as if there wasn’t enough time in the day for that kind of mush. “Work now, play later,” he used to say in that deep voice of his. “If you play now, you’ll have to work later, and you won’t get to enjoy your life.” I didn’t understand that. I thought you were supposed to play! That’s what I did as a kid. I played. But he used to repeat that “work now,