Phill Bettis

By Phill Bettis

The doctor’s diagnosis was chilling. Melanoma. Cancer. One of the worst. He talked about it nonchalantly, but there was a concern, maybe a bit of fear in his voice. The health problems of late seemed to pile on. Arthritis, partial loss of vision in one eye, and daily pain in just walking. Getting older is not for wimps.
We sat together, just the two of us in his house, on a damp Saturday afternoon. The surgery would be next week. It was outpatient surgery and would likely take a long time. The conversation moved on.

Our church was having a chicken barbecue to benefit church camp. There were long, late hours of cooking, cleaning and serving, but fun too. Baptists seem to have the best fellowship when work and food are involved.

Last year, in the midst of an almost forgotten drought, the heavens opened up on the event. Soggy cooks and chickens were not acceptable and plans for a covered barbecue pit were made. The building was almost completed as tarp covered what would soon be a vast improvement. Again the rains came, but this year there was an answer.

He told me of the work on the building, how everyone pulled together, how the cement was poured and how it all took shape. It has been a long time since he had nailed and sawed, but his pride in overseeing was there. He was always meticulous with his work, he was a craftsman in an era when that ethic was no longer rewarded. No element of design and detail escaped his explanation as I noted an excitement in his voice. It was the product of one of the best medicines known to man; being needed again.

Years of carpentry had taken a toll, hearing loss from saws, an ailing back from lifting heavy loads. The latest illness was the product of too much sun.
My mind wandered in the infinite details of the construction. I worked summers with him driving nails and sawing, never really enjoying the work. I was almost always given the really nasty jobs of cleaning, shoveling, and hauling gravel, and while that may have built character, it did not build a desire to follow in his footsteps. I did enjoy the conversation and mid-morning trips to the store for Cokes and snacks. Those breaks were punctuated with talk of baseball and politics. In the late 1960’s there was no shortage of conversation about either.

I remembered his strong bronzed arms pushing rafters up to a co-worker, his truck always loaded with scaffolding or a table saw and the smell of sawdust that permeated him and all that we were around. It was a smell of strength that drenched my young soul with many impressions of him and those around us. It was a special moment when a boy becomes acutely aware of what being a man is about.

Running one’s own business has a price. There were times when we were late to ball games. There were late nights of “figuring” jobs, paying bills and collecting from those that seemingly avoided paying as they should. At one time it seemed that all that hard work was paying off. There was money in the bank and many houses to build, enough for a year’s work. The economy soon soured and prices went up as profits evaporated as quickly as his bank account. A year later, the jobs were done, but many were completed at his loss. It was a lean year that followed, but he honored his contracts and I learned a valuable lesson. It seemed that character and completing what you promised were more important than profit. While we may have suffered a set-back, I look upon that time as one of our best times. We were all close to each other and we made do as best we could. We did not drive a new car for a while and vacations were short or non-existent, but we survived.

There was another curious memory that came to mind as we sat in his living room. In springtime, a long, long time ago, Midway Elementary School sponsored a kite flying contest. There was one rule. The kites had to be home made. I was probably in the second grade and I wanted so much to enter the contest. The problem was that the contest was the next day. It would be an impossibility to build a kite that late at night. I went to bed saddened that I would watch the contest from the sidelines.

The next morning at breakfast, he told me that he had something to show me. He smiled as he handed me one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen. He had stayed up much of the night fashioning a kite. I was not just any kite. In his truck was a roll of clear plastic film that he used before pouring cement slabs. He had carefully fitted the film to a kite and tied a tail on his creation. He had written, “Bettis Special” on the clear kite and carefully tied string to the frame. It looked as though NASA had designed the kite and all the kids on the bus were envious as I smiled and proudly showed them the kite that I was sure would win the contest. The kite was a little heavy, but it was the talk of the school. There were no ribbons or trophies, but I had mine in my heart. Perhaps for the first time, I realized that I was loved. Who else but a Dad would stay up most of the night fashioning a kite for a kid?

He did not want us at the doctor’s office. He would be fine. After a few hours of surgery, he was given a good prognosis. I told him he was like a cat. He had nine lives. The problem was he had used about a dozen of them. He smiled as he knew there was truth in what I said. There will be a time when he will not be there, when I cannot seek his counsel, when I will miss sitting in his living room talking. There will be a time when I will not hear about the “good old days.” When that time comes, I will remember a clear kite handed to a wide-eyed little boy, the smell of sawdust and a whole lot of love.