That's my dad, in case you're wondering. He'd say that title described him all right, but there was a little more to it than that. Actually there was a lot more to his story. Rev. John Dowd. Bro. Dowd. John Dowd. John. Preacher Daddy. Daddy. Granddaddy. PaPa. He would have turned 88 this coming July 9th, three days from now, so I'm gathering up stories and reminiscing.
He was an interesting man, to say the least. I shared him with many people - not always particularly liking that fact - but that's just how it was. He wasn't a material man. What he left me were all of his old sermons ... maybe 50 years worth. Maybe more. Maybe less. Sermons he was going to throw away fours ago because he had been diagnosed with leukemia and only had two months to live. Said he didn't need those sermons anymore, where he was going, that'd he'd already told everything he knew. Actually I had to rescue those sermons out of some trash bags, but that's a story for another time.
He'd been a 5+ year colon cancer survivor, so to find out he had leukemia was rather shocking. He chose not to have a bone marrow transplant. However, he did choose me. Sometime around Thanksgiving 1960, after I'd been in the Volunteer Home of America for just over a month in Ft. Worth, Texas. He didn't actually choose me, but he liked to say so, "picked me up from the baby supermarket." That also is a story for another time.
I like to think we chose each other.
Wonderful, Tracy.
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