Papa

                      Sometime in my late preteen years, I felt that we weren’t close enough for me to call him “dad” and I was too old to call him “daddy,” so I began calling him “Papa.” “Papa” seemed endearing enough that it would be acceptable, yet old fashioned enough that it would/could be somewhat formal as well. As this shows, we were not really close.

            Yet, for many years, I worked with Papa on a regular basis. I began working on Saturdays and throughout the summers at Cartwright Lumber & Hardware, 8603 South State Street in Sandy, as early as age 9 or 10.  I remember while working in the store listening on Saturdays in the autumn to Big Ten football games on “The Game of the Week” on NBC radio. We listened to major league baseball games during the summers. Once I began at Jordan High School on the hill south of Sandy, I walked down the hill after school. We locked the front door to the store at 6:00 pm if nobody was still in the store. Then we would finish loading the truck with any deliveries we had to make on our way home to Draper and leave. About the time I graduated from Jordan, he sold the store and began working for Economy Builders; as he could no longer do the heavy lifting required in the yard and storage sheds, he managed their books: billing the customers; alerting the owners of overdue accounts and possibly issuing checks to creditors. After I went to BYU for autumn quarter, 1959, I didn’t work with him anymore.

            One important character trait I noticed in Papa during these years was his complete respectability towards women. Several men working in businesses along State Street frequently stopped in at the store. Stan Crapo owned a gas station directly across State St. from the store. Mr. Brady owned a bakery just a little south of the gas station. Another station operator ran a station about four small blocks south of our store on State Street. Just north of the store on the east side of State Street was a business owned and operated by Mr. Anderson; he and his family lived in the same building as the business. North of the Anderson store was a café. These businessmen and some residents in the neighborhood would come to the store when they had a lull in their business. Whenever mother was not working and no women customers were present, conversation among the men frequently turned to off-color stories or jokes. Papa never talked that way, never told off-color stories, never laughed at their jokes. He never reprimanded them, but I knew that he considered this unacceptable behavior.

            Papa had been an athlete at the University of Utah. He had two certificates awarding him letterman status for his track running at the “U.” One day when I was in grade school–I don’t remember how old I was–I was walking home up our road in Draper, when I heard the car, driven by Papa, turn onto our road at the west end. When I looked, I realized it was Papa and I began running to try to beat him home. I kept looking over my shoulder to see how close he was getting. When we got home, he told me an experience he had in a track meet. He was third or fourth man on a relay team. He was concerned that the man in the next lane was gaining on him, so he looked over his shoulder—to watch the other man pass him. His advice: “Don’t look back; you cannot run as fast that way.”

            Another experience occurred at a conference track meet at one of the colleges in Colorado. He was running the relay race, and the team from the “U” was hoping to set a new record in this race. He had received the baton and was taking off, when the man in the next lane dropped his baton. Papa slowed slightly, perhaps to let the man pick it up. He said his coach shouted, “Damn it, Cartwright, don’t stop! Run!” Of course, he sped right back up; they did not set a new record.

            I also remember mother and father having disagreements. Papa was stubborn; often he would not argue with her, so he would listen without arguing back even if he knew he would not do what she wanted. And he did not conform to her wants enough times for her to say repeatedly, “he doesn’t argue with me; he just does what he wants.” Though I was closer in my feelings to mother than to Papa, at least once as they argued, I thought, He should leave her; I’d go with him. She is so unreasonable.

            Papa loved sports. He often took me, and sometimes my sisters, to college track meets; college football games, especially between BYU and the University of Utah; and professional baseball games of the Salt Lake Bees. He was a spectator, not a participant. He didn’t play softball with the adult team from the Draper Second Ward. He did occasionally take me fishing on a holiday, though on holidays, our activities were the entire family. After my mission, I occasionally took him fishing.

            The most significant experience with me and Papa occurred once, yet over many years. The experience occurred once, in the spring of 1961. The effect really began in my life slightly more than thirty years later, when I began the coming out process in 1991-1993. In spring quarter of 1961 while a student at BYU, I entered therapy at the Counseling Center at the “Y,” from my point of view, to cure me of my homosexuality. Mother and Papa wanted me to go on a mission at the end of that quarter. I wanted to delay a mission indefinitely, until in my view, my therapist, Mr. S__, had cured me. Since I had already told both parents I was in therapy and why, I arranged to have them meet with Mr. S__ so he could express to them whether or not I should pursue a mission call that spring or should wait another year or so. I thought mother and Papa had agreed we would heed Mr. S_’s recommendation.

            When mother and father had returned to Draper, they telephoned me.  Papa talked first.

            “You don’t have to accept everything that man says,” Papa began.

            I was immediately up in arms. “You’re going back on our agreement,” I argued. We repeated our statements. I was so angry, I was not listening any longer. After arguing back and forth a few times, mother came on the telephone.

            “That’s not what your father means,” repeatedly asserted mother between my angry responses.

            I finally gave up trying to convince either parent that I was not ready for a mission. I didn’t really listen to mother; I assumed they were both referring to whether Mr. S__ had recommended delaying a mission call. Later that spring, I decided I was going to San Francisco for the summer and get a job. Papa offered a family prayer the afternoon we left Draper to drive to the D&RGW train station in Salt Lake City where I was going to catch the train to San Francisco. In the prayer, he said, “Bless Jim to realize that regardless of what happens, we love him, this is his home, and he is always welcome here.”

            As I began the coming out process, I realized that mother never lied; she was telling the truth, the timing of a mission call was not what Papa was discussing. I came to realize that Mr. S__ was likely informing them that homosexuality was not really curable; that this was my nature. Papa wanted me to know that if I had homosexual experience(s) in San Francisco, I was still loved and welcome to come home. This realization made me extremely grateful to my father for his love for me.

This essay is one of two originally written as part of the gift from my niece to collect writings of my life story for StoryWorth. The other is Mom’s Legacy of Civil Rights.