Found my dad online

[chef]

Wierd stuff. My mom was yahoo'ing names and found mention of him and sent me a link, which got me to searching some more. I haven't seen/spoken with him in a good 10 years, maybe a few more. I knew where he lived, he knew where I lived. He's racing air cooled VW's now, 11.90 bracket class. Has a nice little stable of vw's and at one point a mid 30's Dodge truck and a sedan. His race car, he had Ron Lummus' shop build his cage. That shop is a walk away from my house. I even saw a truck in the general area over the summer with "Bendig's Garage" on the back window (my last name). Couldn't catch a glimpse of the driver, and we went different directions so that was that. He's got the same logo on his race car haha. Before this car, he hadn't raced since before I was born, so it looks as though I get my ALL OUT! genes from him. What a chump though, last time I saw him I could barely bother him to check out my Ghia...which was my first car, that I was trying to fix up to drag race, hahaha.

Might have a trade lined up for my buggy...for a Harley, haha. That ought to be easier to sell, so I think I'm going to take the trade. Will free up room for the Model T in the garage too. Would like to ride my other bike out to JV and camp out for a night soon. It's torn apart for a valve adjustment at the moment and in typical chef fashion, I've been too lazy to get it back together.

[Joe Dillard]

Adam,

I can relate to being out-of-touch with your Father, as I was too for many years. My situation of us being out-of-touch was mainly due to my Mother moving so often in the 60's & 70's (at least that's the way I see it) and my Fathers commitment to the military and his assignments.

She never informed him of our (his kids) whereabouts and his efforts to find us over & over & over again seemed almost impossible for him at the time due mainly to privacy act regulations & other nonsense. Plus, during a period where we were doing our moving with my Mother, he was doing 5, back-to-back Vietnam tours while attached to a river boat on a SEAL Team. After his 5th Vietnam tour, he was stationed in Hong Kong which continued to keep him far from reach and out of touch with mainstream civilian life. I think at that point in his life - he was mainly happy to have survived Charlie, being wounded 5 times and returned to action each time. Perhaps I'm making excuses, but the reality of this is that we were out of touch with one another and we both were going in two different directions in our lives and didn't seek hard enough to correct it.

I went for a period of ~21 years without seeing him from the age of 3 to 24. He always supported us monetarily speaking (my brother, sister & myself) by way of allotment to my Mom's bank accounts. However, no phone, no letters, zip.

Anyway, that changed shortly after I was sent to Great Lakes, Illinois to attend a military related electronics school back in 1984. While I was in Illinois, I was tricked into speaking to him on the phone. At the time, he lived in Madison, WI which was ~2.5 hour drive from where I was at.

My exwife found out his phone number from my older sister - she called him at home & told him somebody wanted to speak with him - so he held on not knowing even who she was. Then she handed me the phone & said somebody wants to speak to me. So she tricked us both. Amazingly, even though I hadn't heard his voice since I was 3 years old, I immediately recognized it as soon as we started talking. He asked me who was on the other end - I said Joe - he answered "Joe Patrick?" & I said "yes". He immediately wanted to know where I was at, when could we meet & so-on. It was all downhill from there.

For us, it was a happy ending to a time where we both felt emptyness knowing each were out there - but we both didn't make as much effort as we could have to reunite.

It wasn't till my birthday, last October, where my Dad, sister, brother, and I, were all together in one location at one time. It had been 46 years since we had all been together. Sadly enough, my Mother passed away early last year or else she could have been there as well.

Anyway, I say all of this because there is hope and it seems to me that you hope this situation changes for you. Maybe more hope on your end than his - but there is hope, and I can relate to your feelings. There were many, many years where I wished I could have at least heard my Fathers voice.

Those days are now behind us. We talk on the phone regularly, and we see each other ~2x's a year. He lives in a small town in MO which makes things kind of difficult.

I know our situations are different - but there are similarities. Mainly the gap in communications. I certainly hope that changes for you.