When World War II ended, the U.S. Navy released Jack Chinn to return to Kansas and rejoin his own life. Like many veterans, Dad brought the war home. Inevitably, his fatherhood borrowed a military model.
I think that's why he was a stranger to me; it was impossible for a child to connect with a battle-scorched warrior. I needed but couldn’t find him; I later learned he looked for me too. But the circumstances of our lives simply booked us on trains bound for different places.
But in the late 50s, our trains happened to meet at a depot called Johnny Cash.
The rough-cut Arkansas baritone became our common ground. Dad was a Democrat, a child of the Depression, a patriot, a union man; he heard all that in Johnny’s boom-chicka-boom, rhythm-of-the-rails anthems. They had the same initials, and were both guitarists. Dad was a railroad brakeman; Johnny’s train songs ennobled his job (we took his release of Rock Island Line personally).
But Cash did something different for me. Maybe it was his might-be-dangerous eyes, that "get outta my way" growl, or the way he handled that big Martin guitar like it was a piece of farm machinery. He imparted a raw sense of manhood to me. Like an uncle or coach, Johnny provided a timeless function of fatherhood—helping a boy become a man—for a father locked away somewhere.
Dad and I could listen to Johnny and touch our bond, even though we were each hearing different sounds. The music was confirming him and waking me. Of course, we never just sat and listened to music. By the code of our prairie Calvinism, you had to be hauling stuff in a pickup, cleaning up the shop, or painting a barn in order to enjoy the radio.
Losing the Light
In time, Mom, my brothers, and I began to see something was wrong when Dad, the family historian, started forgetting names and faces and events and dates. Then, he began to worry the big cottonwood might fall into the house.
Dad continued to walk to his beloved shop, but gradually stopped making things. This man who always built picture frames, toolboxes, bookshelves, even houses with his bare hands, would just stand at his table saw and stare at the wall. Sometimes, he would cry and not know why.
After several months of tests, his doctor dropped a bag of bricks on us. “Alzheimer’s.”
At first, we couldn’t tell him. But we soon realized this man who rode an aircraft carrier into the sea, raised three sons, and wrestled trains for a living could handle Alzheimer’s.
So, a few days later, Joanne and I spent a weekend with Dad and Mom. Throughout that long, lazy Saturday afternoon, as Dad and I talked about the war, the Bible, and railroading, I noticed how his face was becoming so empty. His eyes were losing light, and the remaining embers seemed to say, “Help.” Finally, I asked if he’d like to go for a ride.
We drove all over town—oh, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass. We were driving north on Main, just past Skaggs hardware, when I told him. We both stared straight ahead. The old sailor/brakeman/Sunday School teacher was silent for a while. Then, as we blump-blumped across the railroad tracks up by the Co-op, he asked, "Will I get violent?" Of course, his first concern was for Mom.
What Does “Walk the Line” Mean?
I remember the song that first galvanized Dad and me to Cash: "I Walk the Line." Although it’s a simple song about faithfulness, the lyrics reflect the assumptions that formed Dad’s generation.
Those guys really believed in "the line," a simple and certain standard, a plumb line, hanging from heaven. Since they didn’t hang it, they couldn’t take it down; they just had to deal with it. Dad and many other "greatest generation" guys chose to walk it. They fully accepted the "heavy lifting required" jobs the 20th century handed them.
To walk the line is to live the life that you’re handed. You don’t cut corners, and you don’t swap your relationships or responsibilities for others. You just walk them out. And, in the walking, you might connect with soaring graces you would have missed had you not lived your own life.
If I’ve learned that at all, it’s because I was shaped by one line walker and haunted by the hum of another. The life was Dad’s; the voice was Johnny’s.
The line is mine.
