James Francis Gunnell, Jr.
1927 - 2009
My father died from melanoma skin cancer; a treatable cancer if caught early. He knew of a black spot on his right shoulder, but in his usual way, “I’m healthy as a horse – I don’t need a doctor” – he refused to go see a doctor until months later. This type of skin cancer may be flat and small on the skin; it’s the underneath part that is the big concern with this cancer.He had a chuck of his shoulder moved. The surgery discovered that it might be too late. Much like a plant’s roots, it had spread toward his right lung. Lung cancer has a very lower rate of survival. With other therapies, like chemo and radiation, he tried to beat this struggle. He lost weight. Two months later, the cancer spread to his throat, and an incision was made to place a feeding tube since he could not swallow. Three days after insertion of the tube, he died.
My father stood tall at six feet and one inch. He was above average height for a man of his time. People not only noticed his stature, but also his soft blue eyes. He stood out more so than any other person that I have met, and “stood out” means in countless ways. “I’m from another planet,” he many times said .“I just don’t fit in with this planet.I must be from Jupiter.” In his own right, my father was a distinctive person.
Unlike my brothers and mother, who all had blonde hair, my father had jet black hair. My father’s uncommon hair color was exceptional. Since as a child, I had light auburn hair, I thought I was exceptional like my father’s extraordinary hair – standing outside the norm of my family.
Pictured: James F. Gunnell, Jr. [second from right] with his family. He is holding his grand-daughter, Guin; with his youngest son, Richard, peeking over his father's shoulder; his daughter-in-law, Gymme, standing next to him; and behide her is his oldest son, Terry; who is holding up his great-grandson, Timmy.
My father stood tall at six feet and one inch. He was above average height for a man of his time. People not only noticed his stature, but also his soft blue eyes. He stood out more so than any other person that I have met, and “stood out” means in countless ways. “I’m from another planet,” he many times said .“I just don’t fit in with this planet.I must be from Jupiter.” In his own right, my father was a distinctive person.
Unlike my brothers and mother, who all had blonde hair, my father had jet black hair. My father’s uncommon hair color was exceptional. Since as a child, I had light auburn hair, I thought I was exceptional like my father’s extraordinary hair – standing outside the norm of my family.
Pictured: James F. Gunnell, Jr. [second from right] with his family. He is holding his grand-daughter, Guin; with his youngest son, Richard, peeking over his father's shoulder; his daughter-in-law, Gymme, standing next to him; and behide her is his oldest son, Terry; who is holding up his great-grandson, Timmy.
My father stood outside by always questioning, in every way, the rules and ways of society. The most common was when a person would greet him. “Good morning,” a by passer would say, and my father would answer, “Good morning.” Now, the next step of this American English Greeting would be the by passer saying, “How are you?” This greetings’ question gave way for my father to tell the by passer how he was doing in every way imaginable. He would answer their question in every detail.
“I woke up with a headache on the left side of my head. So, I took some aspirin and it’s almost gone. Other than that, I am tired. I just don’t seem to get enough sleep these days.There just doesn’t seem to be an adequate amount of hours in the day to do everything I like. You may not know, but there is only 23 hours and 59 minutes in a day. You add four years of the one minute lost each day and it adds up to one full day. That’s why we have leap year’s extra day – the 29 of February.Isn’t that interesting? Now if I could get an extra day of sleep, I would …” And on and on he would go.
It would end usually with the by passer passing him by. “Why would they ask me, ‘How am I,’ and not want to know the answer,” my father would defend his reasoning.
He was a talkative man. He loved to talk and talk and talk and talk. He talked so much that few people have fallen asleep in front of him. It wasn’t that he just chit-chat gossip, he had vivacity in what he was saying.It is just that having a discussion with him was, in actuality, him lecturing.
One time my younger brother, Richard, was caught setting fire to a neighbor’s rug on their front porch. Ginger, my father’s younger sister and my aunt, stood by and watched as my father was going to punish Richard. Fifteen minutes went by as my father talked to Richard about how he could have set the neighbor’s house on fire. Thirty minutes and still talking, this time about his spanking Richard was “going to hurt me more than you.”Forty-five minutes and still talking to Richard about his misdeed. Finally, Ginger said, “If I was you Richard, I would tell your father to ‘spank me already!’ Your father’s lecturing is a lot worse than a spanking.”
A person who likes to talk either becomes a preacher or a college teacher. My father selected the latter. He taught linguistics specializing in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Spanish speaking folks knew from his accent that he was not from their homeland. Although, they all did think that Spanish was his first language. The only thing that had a hint of Latin in him was the color of his hair. He was a white catholic boy who grew in the low-income area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. How he got this talent mastering the language was by teaching. He would go to Spanish speaking people’s homes and teach them English, if they taught him Spanish. Every weekend, he was at someone’s home on the West- or Southside of Chicago teaching and being taught.
Sometimes these weekend trips would be to an all Spanish movie house. Those outings he would take along Richard and me. We would sit in the last row of the theater eating popcorn and hot dogs from the movie house’s concessions stand. My father would whisper the English translation in our ears. Sometimes the movies had English subtitles. The one time I did not go with my father and Richard to see a James Bondmovie at the Spanish movie theater, the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles. Needless to say, my father was disappointed. However, Richard was very happy.
“I woke up with a headache on the left side of my head. So, I took some aspirin and it’s almost gone. Other than that, I am tired. I just don’t seem to get enough sleep these days.There just doesn’t seem to be an adequate amount of hours in the day to do everything I like. You may not know, but there is only 23 hours and 59 minutes in a day. You add four years of the one minute lost each day and it adds up to one full day. That’s why we have leap year’s extra day – the 29 of February.Isn’t that interesting? Now if I could get an extra day of sleep, I would …” And on and on he would go.
It would end usually with the by passer passing him by. “Why would they ask me, ‘How am I,’ and not want to know the answer,” my father would defend his reasoning.
He was a talkative man. He loved to talk and talk and talk and talk. He talked so much that few people have fallen asleep in front of him. It wasn’t that he just chit-chat gossip, he had vivacity in what he was saying.It is just that having a discussion with him was, in actuality, him lecturing.
One time my younger brother, Richard, was caught setting fire to a neighbor’s rug on their front porch. Ginger, my father’s younger sister and my aunt, stood by and watched as my father was going to punish Richard. Fifteen minutes went by as my father talked to Richard about how he could have set the neighbor’s house on fire. Thirty minutes and still talking, this time about his spanking Richard was “going to hurt me more than you.”Forty-five minutes and still talking to Richard about his misdeed. Finally, Ginger said, “If I was you Richard, I would tell your father to ‘spank me already!’ Your father’s lecturing is a lot worse than a spanking.”
A person who likes to talk either becomes a preacher or a college teacher. My father selected the latter. He taught linguistics specializing in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Spanish speaking folks knew from his accent that he was not from their homeland. Although, they all did think that Spanish was his first language. The only thing that had a hint of Latin in him was the color of his hair. He was a white catholic boy who grew in the low-income area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. How he got this talent mastering the language was by teaching. He would go to Spanish speaking people’s homes and teach them English, if they taught him Spanish. Every weekend, he was at someone’s home on the West- or Southside of Chicago teaching and being taught.
Sometimes these weekend trips would be to an all Spanish movie house. Those outings he would take along Richard and me. We would sit in the last row of the theater eating popcorn and hot dogs from the movie house’s concessions stand. My father would whisper the English translation in our ears. Sometimes the movies had English subtitles. The one time I did not go with my father and Richard to see a James Bondmovie at the Spanish movie theater, the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles. Needless to say, my father was disappointed. However, Richard was very happy.
I am proud of my father’s accomplishments. He dropped out of high school, and lied about his age to enlist into the Navy. He met my mother while she was attending Kendall College, a then two year associate college. There, he twice asked for her hand in marriage. The first time she responded, “Turn left, walk down two blocks, and jump in.” This was the directions to Lake Michigan. In other words, “Go jump in the lake.” After his Navy tour was fulfilled, he worked nights while going to college. When he got his Masters in Linguistics, he taught part-time at nearby universities. A combination of a layoff at a college he was teaching and mid-life issues, he did not finish his Doctoral. He was so close to finishing his dissertation. Regardless, I saw in my father, a man who came from nothing, a high school dropout, to become a university professor, an intellectual man.
Above: It is ironic where David's father, as a high school drop-out, proposed to
David's mother at Kendall College [a two-year associate college] many years later taught
at Kendall College as a Lecturer in Spanish. This is his business card - a small trophy
David's mother at Kendall College [a two-year associate college] many years later taught
at Kendall College as a Lecturer in Spanish. This is his business card - a small trophy
His photograph memory got him to his place among the educated scholars. I viewed my father as a walking encyclopedia. Not only was he wise, he knew the answers to everything, and if he didn’t know the answer, he would look it up at the library he visited each week. His astuteness was overwhelming. However, when it came to people, that was his Achilles’ heel. He viewed that “the masses are uneducated.” However, he could not comprehend people’s actions or, foremost, their logic. Tradition was no excuse to follow blindly. His stance was to always scrutinize and analysis why societies act only a certain way. He knew that the new Rock and Roll music of the 1960s and long hair of the hippies annoyed his generation. But not my father: “Didn’t my generation rebel in their own way with Swing music and hanging their sweaters’ arms over their shoulders?” How in his youth, the older generations looked down at this behavior. He questioned why the prisons seemed filled with Blacks. While the nation was dealing with the question on Black people having the same civil rights as Whites, he wanted to know why society viewed Blacks as inherently unscrupulous people. When from his world, he saw all races living under double standards. This many times did not make him a popular man standing outside the norm.
My father was the King of Romance. He deeply loved my mother by bestowing her with his poetry and music. She was his queen and he would do anything for her. He would read to her the novel Don Quixoe de la Mancha in the original old Spanish, thou no one understood a word of what he was saying. He could have made anything up and everyone would believe him. As the only female in the household, she was treated as the Blonde Beauty. He gave her whatever she wanted.It may not have been the brightest sparkling diamond she wanted, but she did get a ring, maybe a ring from a Cracker Jack box. My mother did marry down.He would work two, sometimes three jobs, just to keep her and her children happy. To him, the love of souls outweighs the material gifts of love. For she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met.
Marriage is not two people coming together, according to the Catholic Church, marriage are two families joining together. My father never agreed with his childhood faith. Raised in Catholic schools with knuckle beating nuns who carried thick yard sticks, he never said much about his spiritual convictions. My brothers and I asked many times why we had to go to church since he did not.“ As a child, you need religious education,” he would answer, “Beside, it makes your mother happy.”
My father was the King of Romance. He deeply loved my mother by bestowing her with his poetry and music. She was his queen and he would do anything for her. He would read to her the novel Don Quixoe de la Mancha in the original old Spanish, thou no one understood a word of what he was saying. He could have made anything up and everyone would believe him. As the only female in the household, she was treated as the Blonde Beauty. He gave her whatever she wanted.It may not have been the brightest sparkling diamond she wanted, but she did get a ring, maybe a ring from a Cracker Jack box. My mother did marry down.He would work two, sometimes three jobs, just to keep her and her children happy. To him, the love of souls outweighs the material gifts of love. For she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met.
Marriage is not two people coming together, according to the Catholic Church, marriage are two families joining together. My father never agreed with his childhood faith. Raised in Catholic schools with knuckle beating nuns who carried thick yard sticks, he never said much about his spiritual convictions. My brothers and I asked many times why we had to go to church since he did not.“ As a child, you need religious education,” he would answer, “Beside, it makes your mother happy.”
Not being keen on his in-laws, mostly his father-in-law, was due to competition for my mother’s attention. She was Daddy’s Little Girl. And she always liked being his Little Girl.This struggle even went as far as my name. I was going to be named after my mother’s father, as Karl David Gunnell. Those first days into March 1957, their rivalry came to a head. “No son of mine is going to be named Karl!” my father demanded. So, Karl was thrown out, David moved up, and Lee added. My father took delight that he named his son David Lee Gunnell, and not his father-in-law, Karl.
They were worlds apart.
Then there were times that my father would bring a book with him to the in-law’s dinners. Many Easter and Thanksgiving dinners, my father would sit at the dinner table and read, while the rest of the family was occupied in domestic conversation. Again, his actions were because “they have nothing worth discussing other than gossip. Besides, they ask, ‘How am I?’ And they don’t want to hear how I am.”
As much as he cause stress at his in-law’s home, my father was a man who did not like discord within his own household. “In this house, it is like a castle with thick high walls to keep the bad out,” he would so many times say to my mother and brothers, “Outside these walls there could be a nuclear bomb going off. But inside this home, inside my castle, there is only peace and love.”
My father painted his Pittsburgh childhood as unloving and full of anger and hate. He was not going to have that type of childhood within his castle, even if it was just pretending. Like any family’s few and far bad days, my brothers would be quarrelling at the dinner table and my mother would be spouting out her dreadful day at work. My father would yell, “Enough! Stop this fighting!I want everyone to leave the dinner table and go outside. And don’t come back in until you have a smile on your face and pretend none of this happened. I don’t want any bickering or fighting at the table. I want a happy peaceful dinner! I want you to go outside and come back in as if this was the first time we come to supper. And if I don’t see smiles on your face, then back outside the house. Now go!”
My brother and I would head to the front door while my mother would clash with his father. “I’m not going outside, and I’m not going to smile!This is so ridiculous.”
Outside, the three of us, my brother and me, would have a short quarrel about who was at fault and who got their father mad. Two or three minutes later, we walked quietly back inside the house with smiles. At the table, they found our father smiling, checking his son’s faces, and our mother sitting in silence with an annoyed look on her face. And everyone acted as nothing had happen. It was always odd pretending nothing had happen when the food on your plate was already half eaten.
“It good to see my family all here with smiles on their faces,” my father would start the pretend stage conversation. “How was your day, today?” he would ask.
Like a fish in water was my father. As a submarine radar and communications officer in the Navy, he has to pass their swimming tests. To qualify for submarine service, one must slowly surface from under fifty feet of water. He was an exceptional swimmer who loved being in water. At the beach, Richard and I had great amusement by sitting on his back while he swam through the waves that splash over all three of us. Sometime, he would make a warning sound, “Aoouuug!” And then called out, “Dive! Dive! Dive!” as he started to submerge into the water like a submarine. Richard and I would scream in laughter for we trusted our father. He knew that Richard and I did not know how to swim [my mother was deathly afraid of water. At the beach, her limit in the water was only her mid-calves.].
My father loved water so much that he would sit in the bathtub for hours reading or napping. Many times he would summons one or all of his sons into the bathroom just to have someone to talk to. I would hear my father beckoning me, “David, step into my office.” What a great office: clothes were optional. There, I would sit on the toilet seat and talk to my father in the tub. Mostly he just wanted someone to talk to. If he would say, “Talk to me while I rest my eyes,” it meant that you could escape soon because he was going to fall asleep in the tub. When you tried to leave too soon, thinking he was asleep, he would say with his eyes closed, “Go on. I’m listening. I’m just resting my eyes.”
They were worlds apart.
Then there were times that my father would bring a book with him to the in-law’s dinners. Many Easter and Thanksgiving dinners, my father would sit at the dinner table and read, while the rest of the family was occupied in domestic conversation. Again, his actions were because “they have nothing worth discussing other than gossip. Besides, they ask, ‘How am I?’ And they don’t want to hear how I am.”
As much as he cause stress at his in-law’s home, my father was a man who did not like discord within his own household. “In this house, it is like a castle with thick high walls to keep the bad out,” he would so many times say to my mother and brothers, “Outside these walls there could be a nuclear bomb going off. But inside this home, inside my castle, there is only peace and love.”
My father painted his Pittsburgh childhood as unloving and full of anger and hate. He was not going to have that type of childhood within his castle, even if it was just pretending. Like any family’s few and far bad days, my brothers would be quarrelling at the dinner table and my mother would be spouting out her dreadful day at work. My father would yell, “Enough! Stop this fighting!I want everyone to leave the dinner table and go outside. And don’t come back in until you have a smile on your face and pretend none of this happened. I don’t want any bickering or fighting at the table. I want a happy peaceful dinner! I want you to go outside and come back in as if this was the first time we come to supper. And if I don’t see smiles on your face, then back outside the house. Now go!”
My brother and I would head to the front door while my mother would clash with his father. “I’m not going outside, and I’m not going to smile!This is so ridiculous.”
Outside, the three of us, my brother and me, would have a short quarrel about who was at fault and who got their father mad. Two or three minutes later, we walked quietly back inside the house with smiles. At the table, they found our father smiling, checking his son’s faces, and our mother sitting in silence with an annoyed look on her face. And everyone acted as nothing had happen. It was always odd pretending nothing had happen when the food on your plate was already half eaten.
“It good to see my family all here with smiles on their faces,” my father would start the pretend stage conversation. “How was your day, today?” he would ask.
Like a fish in water was my father. As a submarine radar and communications officer in the Navy, he has to pass their swimming tests. To qualify for submarine service, one must slowly surface from under fifty feet of water. He was an exceptional swimmer who loved being in water. At the beach, Richard and I had great amusement by sitting on his back while he swam through the waves that splash over all three of us. Sometime, he would make a warning sound, “Aoouuug!” And then called out, “Dive! Dive! Dive!” as he started to submerge into the water like a submarine. Richard and I would scream in laughter for we trusted our father. He knew that Richard and I did not know how to swim [my mother was deathly afraid of water. At the beach, her limit in the water was only her mid-calves.].
My father loved water so much that he would sit in the bathtub for hours reading or napping. Many times he would summons one or all of his sons into the bathroom just to have someone to talk to. I would hear my father beckoning me, “David, step into my office.” What a great office: clothes were optional. There, I would sit on the toilet seat and talk to my father in the tub. Mostly he just wanted someone to talk to. If he would say, “Talk to me while I rest my eyes,” it meant that you could escape soon because he was going to fall asleep in the tub. When you tried to leave too soon, thinking he was asleep, he would say with his eyes closed, “Go on. I’m listening. I’m just resting my eyes.”
The perception was that my mother was the bread-winner of the family. It seemed that she went off to her nine to five job, and my father was the homemaker. In my eyes, my parent’s roles were different from the world around me.Even on television, Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver had the parent’s roles opposite from my own. My father was there with lunch when we came home from school. Plus, in the afternoons, he was there when we came home from the end of our school day. When in fact, my father worked nights and went to college during the day. His class schedule worked perfectly into being home when his sons came home. Still, all this unbeknownst to me, my father was outside the model.
Left: Outside Northwestern University's Evanston Lake Campus. All that is missing is Lady Lorenzo and the countryside windmills.
Today, I enjoyed being near or in water. It brings me contentment and enjoyment. Even walking in a rainstorm under an umbrella delights me. To the little things like focusing not on the road, but only on the raindrops that hit the windshield, watching the windshield wipers making the raindrops disappear entertained me. My brothers tease me that I am a lot like our father; My love of water to how I cleared my throat just like my father. And of course, there is the talking and talking and talking. At least I keep my eyes open while people talk to me.
My father was a man who did not like discord within his own household. “In this house, it is like a castle with thick high walls to keep the bad out,” he would so many times say to my mother and my brothers, “Outside these walls there could be a nuclear bomb going off. But inside this home, inside my castle, there is only peace and love.” In some ways, he was like Don Quixoe in his castle, and any of his three sons were his sidekick, Sancho. The love of his life, my mother, was Lady Lorenzo – the Duchess of Toboso. If you haven’t read this novel, read it and you will see my father. He fought giants. He dreamed the impossible. He danced to a different beat. Oh, how he love that dance!
Left: Outside Northwestern University's Evanston Lake Campus. All that is missing is Lady Lorenzo and the countryside windmills.
Today, I enjoyed being near or in water. It brings me contentment and enjoyment. Even walking in a rainstorm under an umbrella delights me. To the little things like focusing not on the road, but only on the raindrops that hit the windshield, watching the windshield wipers making the raindrops disappear entertained me. My brothers tease me that I am a lot like our father; My love of water to how I cleared my throat just like my father. And of course, there is the talking and talking and talking. At least I keep my eyes open while people talk to me.
My father was a man who did not like discord within his own household. “In this house, it is like a castle with thick high walls to keep the bad out,” he would so many times say to my mother and my brothers, “Outside these walls there could be a nuclear bomb going off. But inside this home, inside my castle, there is only peace and love.” In some ways, he was like Don Quixoe in his castle, and any of his three sons were his sidekick, Sancho. The love of his life, my mother, was Lady Lorenzo – the Duchess of Toboso. If you haven’t read this novel, read it and you will see my father. He fought giants. He dreamed the impossible. He danced to a different beat. Oh, how he love that dance!
My father molded me into the optimistic I am today by his inspirations, ethics, and views on life. These values of my father still dwell within me. The words that he spoke to me and my brothers in the privacy of our home were not heard by the world, but, as in whispering-galleries, they are clearly heard at the end and by posterity.
As a grown son of my father, I appreciate his self-control to stop the chain of his own childhood abuse from reaching his sons. Professionals know that a child who is physically abused by their parent most likely will become a parent that will abuse their own children; My father broken his chains by giving his sons his support and integrity, his chivalry, his enthusiasm for knowledge, his anticipation of dreams, his desire to seek justice, and foremost, his love. For he stretched his ability to love beyond what he knew was possible – even for a jet black hair, six foot, one inch tall being from Jupiter.
As a grown son of my father, I appreciate his self-control to stop the chain of his own childhood abuse from reaching his sons. Professionals know that a child who is physically abused by their parent most likely will become a parent that will abuse their own children; My father broken his chains by giving his sons his support and integrity, his chivalry, his enthusiasm for knowledge, his anticipation of dreams, his desire to seek justice, and foremost, his love. For he stretched his ability to love beyond what he knew was possible – even for a jet black hair, six foot, one inch tall being from Jupiter.