In Itta Bena in a back bedroom 93 years ago, my father, John Willard Stowers Jr. was born.
He’d be 93 today but he finished fishing and farming and riding the turnrows back in February of 2020. We weren’t as close as I would have wanted to be – men of his generation didn’t talk much relationally – but I can see that with his actions he genuinely loved me.
He did what he knew: taught me how to hunt and fish; bought me guns and fishing rods; provided lunch money; paid for private school and college; and even bought me a Chevette. I wanted a truck but his reasoning was I didn’t work on the farm and didn’t need a truck. I begged to differ, well not much, a free, brand-new vehicle was a free, brand-new vehicle. The first one was a maroon automatic that got run over one summer night when I was helping some folks on the side of the road. It was replaced by a blue, four-speed manual that lasted quite a while.
I don’t remember celebrating many of my dad’s birthdays because March was usually close to or the start of planting season and he had plenty of things to be doing other than eating cake. And for some reason, for a bit I thought his birthday was on March 31 and not 28. I think my mother finally got me straight on that one. I can’t say that any of my gifts were memorable but I did buy him a camouflage Mississippi State hat that my sister said he always looked for and didn’t take off his head much. That still makes me smile.
I look around my life and see how his hard work enticing cotton and soybeans – and for a short stint catfish – has blessed the future generations of his family. The truck I drive today has the DNA of my grandfather and father’s hard work ingrained in it as does all the blessings of my life that were primed by the fruits of their labor. Though not as close as I wished we were, perhaps most of that is my fault, as I left town to live life and pursue a career that just wasn’t getting started in the Delta and I didn’t focus on that relationship other than to ask for monetary help. I do miss just riding around in the truck checking on the back 440 and then heading to the NAPA store or Co-Op for parts and to hear some tall tales. I miss blowing up stumps and being mesmerized by my dad’s finesse and acumen with dynamite. I reckon some of that adrenaline rubbed off on me as I keep a bag of fireworks close by at all times. You just never know when the need might arise. And there’s a somewhat-sharp Case knife close by as well. I never got the hang of just how he found that angle on his whetstone that made his razor sharp, though I continue to try still today.
I miss my dad and wish we had one more deer hunt or bream fishing or blowing up stumps adventure in front of us but I have the memories. I know now that’s how he expressed his love, though I didn’t know it at the time and didn’t have a full appreciation of it. I do these days and try to show my daughters more of that. Happy Birthday, Bill. I hope the crappie in heaven are biting good.
