As promised, below is the Eulogy in its entirety and not the abbreviated edited version as presented (due to the tremendous flooding) during Harold's funeral.
Thank you all for your outpouring of love, generosity, support, love, and fond memories of my dad. It has truly helped lift me up during this dark and lonely time.
And now without further adieu, I present the eulogy for Harold E. Pelham:
Eulogy for Harold Eugene Pelham
May 19, 1930 - November 9, 2019
89 years of age
We gather today to honor Harold E. Pelham or HEP as they first started referring to him back in the late 1950s working for Mountain Bell
But let's take a look back even further to the 1930's.
Harold was born Harold Eugene Pelham on May 19th 1930 to Bruce Laverne and Dagmar Nissen Pelham, a farming family in Clinton Iowa.
Harold was born into a family of all females. There was his eldest sister Esther who went on to be a school teacher, much to my father's chagrin. Then there was Dorothy, Margaret and finally the baby of the family born after Harold, Darline. All three remaining sisters went on to become very successful nurses with Darline becoming a high ranking officer with the US Air Force during the Vietnam War.
Grandpa Bruce taught my Dad about farm life in Iowa but life was not easy. There were harsh relentless winters, summers that would bake the land bringing drought, and unforgiving storms sparking tornados destroying everything in their path.
It was those harsh winters that really got to them. Harold would repeatedly get pneumonia over and over again each winter. One day Grandpa Bruce came across a magazine article that showed pictures of farmers in their fields in the winter with oranges, big fat oranges, The farmers were in short sleeve shirts... in the middle of winter that was that. They sold everything and loaded up the truck and were off to California. It was 1940, WWII gas rationing was the law of the land at that time, and no family was able to carry more than 5 gallons (or a barrel) of gasoline at one time. Along their travels a family stopped them and sold them an extra barrel of gasoline. Well, this worked out well until they approached the California state line. Up ahead Grandpa Bruce could see that the authorities were inspecting each vehicle for gas. Knowing it was illegal to have the extra barrel of gasoline, they took a quick detour out into the desert and dumped all the extra fuel into the dirt and drove on... passing through inspection, they drove as far as they could... reaching Beaumont CA, just outside of Hemet where they settled and called home.
Harold would attend 7th grade at Palm Avenue School in Beaumont where his eldest sister, Esther, would wind up being his teacher. Harold did not enjoy school. Not only did he feel he was picked on and constantly scrutinized by his sister, he felt he could never get any escape or rest from her.
Eventually the family moved north to Cotati, where he went to Petaluma Junior High and graduated from Petaluma High School. There, Harold was really able to pursue his dream and joined Future Farmers of America at Petaluma High. During his high school years he was able to show livestock at several fairs and events eventually taking home grand champion hog, best of show, at the California State Fair. The family's next move was to Atwater, California.
The Korean conflict (or the forgotten war) had started to take shape and escalate shortly after Harold graduated High School. Having always dreamed of being part of The Marine Corps, and fearful he'd be drafted soon, Harold took time off from the farm and went in to San Francisco to enlist and offer his services to the country. First stop US Marine Corps. After being told he was too scrawny, Harold went door to door to of each branch of the military, The answer was always the same, you are too scrawny. Next to last stop Air Force. He went in, registered, got on the scale.... under weight. A recruiting officer came up to him and offered some advice: Pelham he said, go across the street and grab yourself a bag of bananas, drink a few glasses of water and check back with us. So, Dad went across the street grabbed a bunch of bananas and water, stood on the corner of Van Ness & Market and downed a dozen bananas and a gallon of water. He sloshed back to the Air Force recruitment officer and weighed in. He was just over the allotted weight and was sworn in to the US Air Force. He drove back to Atwater, met his father out in the fields and reported what had transpired.. now the hard part, how to tell his mother.
While in boot camp in Cheyenne Wyoming, a buddy had a girlfriend that had a friend that wanted a pen pal. So Dad and she started writing. After some time Harold and this girl decided they must meet before he was shipped off to Korea. So, he makes arrangements with his buddy to cover patrol and KP duty that weekend and he travels to American Fork Utah to meet Donna Griffin.
The bus drops him off in the middle of a deserted small town during a whiteout blizzard, no people or signs of life anywhere... suddenly a pair of headlights comes barreling towards him, the car jumps the curb as Harold lunges out of harm's way into a snow drift... the passenger door flings open and from inside a voice yells, "you Harold"? "Get in, it's snowing like crazy just don't lie there..Yep, it's Donna, his soon to be wife and mother of his children. It was a storybook romance.
A short time later in 1953 they were married in Donna's parents' living room. They went on a brief honeymoon before returning back to California where they set up home on base awaiting Harold's number to be called into action.
While waiting Donna set up a home for the two of them and adapted to military life quickly making friends wherever she went.
One evening while sleeping, Harold woke up to what sounded like rain hitting the gutters. He turned on the light and found Donna leaning over in bed, her head in a pan and blood dripping out of her nose.. Alarmed, he gathered her up in his arms and rushed her to emergency. After some time the doctor emerges and asks, is that your wife? If I were you, I'd spend as much time as possible with her as she is in bad shape and does not a lot of time left. Refusing to give up, Dad seeks advice and medical help from various doctors.
During this time Donna shares a dream with Harold / a vision of sorts that they will have two healthy children, two sons and everything will be just fine.
Soon Harold's number is called and it's time for battle. And he's shipped out to serve his country. Now that he's deployed, Donna can no longer live on base, so she first travels to Atwater to spend time with her new in-laws getting to know them and life on the farm. Then she heads back to Utah with her parents. She gets a job at the phone company as an operator to supplement the GI check she receives to make ends meet. She writes Harold every day.
In Korea, Harold sees all kinds of horrible things he's never seen before and is not prepared for that would one day come back to haunt him when he's much older, causing PTSD in his senior years. Flash backs of unthinkable carnage suffering and human toll not fit for a young man from a farm from Petaluma, California or anyone.
One fateful night as he's keeping watch, a Korean MIG is coming in hot and fast.... and ends up crashing in a field just yards in front of him. Quickly Harold and team respond. A Korean defector has crossed enemy lines crashing his plane in an attempt to escape. They need to act fast. Within moments the enemy will be after this MIG and defector. So Harold, adept at using a crane lift , attaches the badly damaged aircraft to his crane and lifts it out of the sinking rice fields in pitch black darkness as the remaining crew disassemble the MIG gathering sensitive and vital information about the enemy. Soon gunfire erupts around them but Harold steadily holds the MIG up as his crew quickly works to disassemble the MIG bit by bit before they are captured themselves.
Upon the concussion of Harold's tour of duty came the time of his honorable discharge. Just prior to embarking on his long journey home, Harold fell ill with high fever, chills, nausea , yellow eyes and vomiting. He had fallen victim to hepatitis, forcing him to extend his stay in Korea a while longer. While on the other side of the Pacific Ocean on the California coast in San Francisco, Donna awaited the return of her husband whom she had not seen in two years.
Finally , that day arrives and Harold is barely well enough to travel. This time he's nauseous and Ill and green not from hepatitis but from the rolling seas and crashing waves washing over the deck. Eight days he travels back to the USA and back to Donna, back to home, back to his parents once again, back to Southern California where the oranges grow in Orange, California.
Shortly after, it's off to Utah for Harold and Donna to make a life of their own. Harold would be working a job at a gas station to pay the rent in Orem Utah, and eventually would end up with Mountain Bell as a lineman. Donna would give birth to a boy in American Fork Utah, by the name of Bruce named after Harold's father.
The winters proved to be brutal as a lineman in central Utah, Harold and Donna make plans to move west and when an opportunity presents itself, Harold takes it and off they go ,the family of three, Harold, Donna & Bruce to Panorama City, California.
Life went along very well for the Pelham family of 3. They soon were able to afford to move out of their one bedroom apartment and into a two bedroom bungalow house with detached garage on Clearfield Avenue in a middle class neighborhood. With Ranchito Elementary school just a few blocks away, a Kaiser hospital, LDS church, Dan's Grocery Store, Tasty Freeze and Budweiser brewing Company with tram ride tours high above the plant every day to enthrall out of town visitors all nearby. The perfect suburban neighborhood. What more could you possibly ask for?
Welcome to the 1960's! Donna always felt like something was missing and she knew what it was. She wanted another son for Harold and a brother for Bruce. Upon meeting with doctors at UCLA medical center Donna was strongly advised against it based on her weakened heart from rheumatic fever when she was a girl. But determined, she insisted and eventually the doctor said I can get you through one more but that's it. And Donna agreed. She wanted nothing more than to give Harold two sons.
Dad always LOVED to call on June 12th to wish me Happy Birthday and remind me: It was a cold, dark & foggy morning... your mother went into labor early in the morning. We couldn't see a thing. The fog was so thick. Mulholland Drive was barley passable. We had to drive with the windows rolled down to listen for slow or stopped traffic and your mother was sure you were going to come out any moment! We finally get to the hospital and what happens, you decide to not come out! Harold exclaims! Nope! Thomas Eugene Pelham.
(my brother's kindergarten class named me by way by taking a vote and sending a letter home with Bruce with the winning names. Rebecca if I were a girl and Tommy if a boy. )
Nope! He says one more time just to annoy me... You decide to take a nap and don't come out until 3:15 in the afternoon!.
Harold loved telling that story every year. And every year the story got more dramatic and the phone call earlier and earlier.
So, Donna made good on her promise to Harold. She gave him two sons, Bruce & Thom (Tommy as he was known during the formative years.)
Many happy family vacations were planned and spent together. A lifetime of trips is such a short period of time. Traveling to Mount Rushmore where Tommy was deathly afraid of "the rock men". We went to Carthage Illinois where Joseph Smith, prophet of the Mormon church was shot and killed, traveled to Yosemite and camped in the Redwoods, visited the ice caves of South Dakota, hiked to the top of Mount Timpanogas in Utah, went snowmobiling, and took our first and last train trip in December 1970 to Utah to visit Donna's family.
January 11, 1971 was truly one of the darkest days of our lives. Donna passed away in her sleep forever changing the lives of 3 men. She was only 37.
Harold had to wake Tommy on that morning and gathering both his sons together he had to tell them that Heavenly Father needed mommy and called her home to be with him. Although she loves you very much, he needs her in heaven now but she will always, always be with you.
Those words still sting but I understand the word now, Always... for it was their song by Patsy Cline... "Always". It took decades for me to understand this but I eventually did and it's a powerful offering of love, devotion, optimism, commitment and eternal love. For it became my wedding vow to my husband as well.
Harold found himself plunged into another war. A personal war. A battle of self-reliance and preservation. He had to survive.. if only for his boys Bruce 14 & Tommy 8. But in surviving for his sons Harold lost his sense of self. His identity. Everyone was telling him what to do, how to live, where to go, what to do with his sons but not how to do it or offer any real support. So he took his boys.. left his past behind.. to start over.
Things didn't always go so smoothly. Donna had been in-charge of running the house, the schedule, groceries, checkbook, paying the bills, music lessons, doctors' appointments, inoculations, medication for diabetes. The list went on and on. Harold eventually, through the church hired a housekeeper/ nanny Dovy Story. She was no Alice from the Brady Bunch or Mrs. Livingston from Courtship of Eddy's Father but she was reliable, trustworthy, and when our beloved family dog, Susie spent the weekend at Grandma Pelham's house and got herself in the family way, Dovy jumped into action and delivered all of Susie's puppies. including 2 that we kept and eventually gave to Grandma Pelham named Lucky and to Cousin Pat and Ken, named Jason. Both ended up in extremely awesome homes. And as for Susie, that was her first and last litter. Dovy and I bonded and she became another Grandma to me.
In 1974 Bruce graduated high school and moved out on his own. So Dovy's job became sole caretaker of this rambunctious young man on the precipice of his teen years.
On one fateful day Harold was doing a job up in the Antelope Valley with Pacific Bell. He walks into Bank of America on Lancaster boulevard to cash a check..(ATM's had not yet been invented just yet) He cashes a check for a certain undisclosed amount and proceeds to walk out when he spies a well-dressed professional woman sitting at her desk Harold feeling rather confident swaggers over to this cuties desk looks down at her name plate and proceeds:
"Ms. Smallie is it? "
She stares at him, "how may I help you sir"? She asks?
"Can you tell me where I may find a good place to eat around here"?
As she proceeds to write down a list of restaurants
Harold quickly tries to think of his next move
Ms. Smallie hands Harold the list and says "you should find something to your liking on this list.."
Harold then asks "Are you free for lunch? "
Ms. Smallie looks at Harold and says
" I've already had lunch thank you. "
And with a thank you then, Harold started towards the door. But before he could reach the door he heard a voice say, my lunch is from noon to one and the bank number is on the list. Oh, by the way, my name is Charlotte....
The next day Harold called Charlotte and asked her out to lunch. She accepted.
Then they met the following evening In Aqua Dolce for dinner. Several more dinners ensued and they really began getting along famously. For the first time in years Harold felt alive .
But Houston, we have a problem.... what does he do or say about the 12 year old he has back at home?
Charlotte has already raised her children, 2 daughters Kathy and Linda and they are married and have kids of their own.... So why on earth would Charlotte want to get involved with a man who has a 12 year old son? I can't answer that question... you would have to ask her.. I'm not privy to that tidbit of information.
What I do know is Charlotte May Benner Pelham became my mom on April 18, 1975. They were married in Reno NV and honeymooned directly after for which I was not invited to either the wedding nor the honeymoon. I instead, stayed one last time with nanny and surrogate grandma, Dovy Story. I'm so grateful I did as Dovy passed away that fall.
Transitioning into our new lives as the new Pelham family was not an easy for anyone. For me, I had to leave a life and friends behind. For my new mother, she had just finished raising her family and was ready to start her new life. Was she prepared for a developing pubescent boy to now raise? And Harold? I didn't know nor appreciate then as I do now, but of all of us, he had the largest, most difficult job of all. Harold had to balance life at home, a new role as instant grandfather, life on the job, the needs of a 12 year old, the needs of a career woman more educated than he and a grueling 90 minute commute (completed in 45 minutes by my Dad) each and every day for four years. Getting up each and every morning at 4:00am sometimes 3:30am as traffic patterns changed or he needed to get home early to attend a school play, concert I performed in or special event. I never really thought much about it to be honest, I just took it for granted he'd be there. I expected. That's a lot if pressure to place on one person constantly.
As I think back on those years, I now look back with a newer, clearer vision or perspective. I am now older than he was then and it just wears me out to think of the energy expelled each and every day by that man.
In the few short years between 1975 to 1980 for every theatrical event (high school, community college or competition), every concert my garage band performed or competed in, every sport I participated baseball to wrestling to tennis, every scouting event that pushed me forward to that elusive eagle, my Dad was there on the side lines... Cheering me on in his own way. He was my scoutmaster and my driving instructor. He was my Dad. And I miss him. But I was just too self-centered, egocentric or insecure to notice at the time.
Beyond the social activities, Harold was there in my darkest times of need. Starting with the time when i was just a wee young toddler learning how to walk. Harold was doing projects around the house. This one particular incident took place as a very inquisitive toddler entered the room, eyed the Dixie cup, reached for it and proceeded to guzzle said contents (that happened to be turpentine). affecting bodily functions, heart patterns, breathing just to name a few vital things. Well as the story goes, Dad scoops me up in his arms rushing my lifeless body to the front yard sets me down and proceeds to perform CPR on me until the paramedics arrive. Fortunately, I survived.
Another less dramatic but equally compelling event was in February, 1980. My brother Bruce was, engaged and set to marry Marlene Frances in Los Angeles. Now living in Sacramento I decided to drive to Lancaster, having not been back in a while, and stay a couple nights with my parents before the wedding. Well, as I approach the famed Grapevine late night in February, it starts to rain. Doesn't take long for the rain to change to snow. As I start to climb I hear this horrible racket. Like a chain smacking the underbelly of the car. I keep pushing on. I start to lose momentum and the wind is pushing me back. The snow is blowing all around me and i can't see a thing. So I feel it's best not to get too far up the mountain.
Upon pulling over and a few feeble attempts at restarting my Mercury Lynx, I realized I'm going nowhere fast anytime soon.
Sitting on the side of a mountain, with snow swirling around me, I'm thinking Donner Party or something similar. Now the brain is really in hyper overdrive. Too bad my car isn't . Happily the CHP pulls up and asks if everything is OK. With a series of Q & A the officer & I made the decision to have my car towed back to a small town just outside of Bakersfield. By this time the snow is really coming down and I'm starving, tired, cold and want to be home.
After being towed and once again left cold and alone outside an old broken down, locked, and what seemed to be , from peering through the window, an abandoned, auto shop west of Bakersfield, between the 5 & Hwy. 99. I placed, what I thought would be, my last ever, phone call to my Dad. Crawled into the back seat, covered up the best I could with a jacket and suit coat I was to wear to my brother's wedding in two days, making sure the doors were securely locked and drifted off to sleep....
I was abruptly awakened by the sound of a car door slamming shut. Headlights flooding my car, both in and out of my car. Footsteps on gravel moving towards me. My only defense, a crowbar. Car door rattles. It's, locked. He tests the other side..locked! This is it... They want a fight. It is on!
Suddenly, a rap on the window..Thom, open...you're going to freeze out here.
That voice, it's Harold, it's my Dad...But how?!?
I slip out of the back seat , legs feeling numb, dizzy, exhausted and starving.
My Dad pours me hot coca, wraps me in heavy blankets. Bound so tight that I look like the little kid , Randy, in a Christmas Story. The one that was bundled up so much by his mom that couldn't put his arms down. Well, neither could I, but at this point I did not care.
We abandon my car and drive to Lancaster in Dads truck Eventually arriving back home in Lancaster, crawling into my bed. I drift off only to be woken by shaking once again. It's my Dad waking me up. It's the next day. He said come on let's get you something to eat, showered and cleaned up and we'll go check on your car
After a nice hot breakfast. Even hotter shower, got dressed and ready to trek back to the mechanic and learn the fate of my vehicle. To my shock, and amazement, but somehow not really, I discover that while I had been sleeping, my Dad went back to that worn-out auto shop west of Bakersfield, hooked up my car to the back of his using a tow bar and towed my car back to Lancaster to his own mechanic, Smitty for estimates and repair.
It was determined that a timing belt had been snapped and sucked up into the valves causing serious damage. Had I just not attempted to try to re-start the vehicle over and over again, I could of saved myself from serious damage. But no such luck.
I made it to the wedding and reception and got to visit family because my Dad saved me from the perils of the Grapevine.
I had to take one of my parents cars home so mine could be worked on. Parts had to be ordered and flown in and valves rebuilt. It was a long slow process. Eventually though, my car was good as new and ready for the open road. Dad drove my car back to me , in exchange for his Ford double cab pickup truck, that really was my 4ft. 9in. mom's vehicle, and she wanted it back NOW.
This is just one of countless selfless acts of love, human kindness and compassion that was and is Harold Eugene Pelham.
If you ever have a few hours to spare, grab a few cold beverages, preferably Diet Coke like his eldest son Bruce liked or perhaps an R.C. grill some salmon and bake some potato's . This definitely was Harold's favorite type of meal all time for sure. Turn on an Angels ballgame and I'll be happy to tell you more about the man that was my Father.
Finally, I would like to share one last story with you today about my Dad.
At the beginning I shared with you a harrowing story about Harold and his team or men during the Korean war risking their lives coming to the aid of a defector, and disassembling a Russian fighter MIG to, learn more about their capabilities, tactics and secrets and enemy intelligence.
Now flash forward to one of the countless trailer expeditions across country my parents took seeing this great land of ours. One such stop was the aeronautics museum where they have different aircraft on display from different eras and wars and the history of flight. Is it possible they just might have something similar to what he worked on in Korea he thought to himself as they approached the Korean war room. My Dad was shaking as he rounded the corner he could feel her calling to him... Some 40 years later. She was calling to him. His knees began to buckle. Sweat was beading up and trickling down his back. A sudden wave of nausea washes over him and Harold is no longer in the museum but in the rice fields of 1950's Korea.
Charlotte sensing he's overwhelmed, leads him to a bench where he can sit and ponder that night and other events as witnessed by A1C Harold Eugene Pelham. For the rest of his life he would tell this story about finding that MIG after 40 years in the museum.
Harold was a survivor a fighter and a winner. But more than anything, he was my Dad. He supported me through many things in my life and I will miss him terribly. He definitely was one of the good guys and I'd like to think of him as one of my guardian angels now looking down upon me and protecting me.
Fly... Fight... WIN..!!!!
I love you Dad. 'till we meet again
Thank you all for your outpouring of love, generosity, support, love, and fond memories of my dad. It has truly helped lift me up during this dark and lonely time.
And now without further adieu, I present the eulogy for Harold E. Pelham:
Eulogy for Harold Eugene Pelham
May 19, 1930 - November 9, 2019
89 years of age
We gather today to honor Harold E. Pelham or HEP as they first started referring to him back in the late 1950s working for Mountain Bell
But let's take a look back even further to the 1930's.
Harold was born Harold Eugene Pelham on May 19th 1930 to Bruce Laverne and Dagmar Nissen Pelham, a farming family in Clinton Iowa.
Harold was born into a family of all females. There was his eldest sister Esther who went on to be a school teacher, much to my father's chagrin. Then there was Dorothy, Margaret and finally the baby of the family born after Harold, Darline. All three remaining sisters went on to become very successful nurses with Darline becoming a high ranking officer with the US Air Force during the Vietnam War.
Grandpa Bruce taught my Dad about farm life in Iowa but life was not easy. There were harsh relentless winters, summers that would bake the land bringing drought, and unforgiving storms sparking tornados destroying everything in their path.
It was those harsh winters that really got to them. Harold would repeatedly get pneumonia over and over again each winter. One day Grandpa Bruce came across a magazine article that showed pictures of farmers in their fields in the winter with oranges, big fat oranges, The farmers were in short sleeve shirts... in the middle of winter that was that. They sold everything and loaded up the truck and were off to California. It was 1940, WWII gas rationing was the law of the land at that time, and no family was able to carry more than 5 gallons (or a barrel) of gasoline at one time. Along their travels a family stopped them and sold them an extra barrel of gasoline. Well, this worked out well until they approached the California state line. Up ahead Grandpa Bruce could see that the authorities were inspecting each vehicle for gas. Knowing it was illegal to have the extra barrel of gasoline, they took a quick detour out into the desert and dumped all the extra fuel into the dirt and drove on... passing through inspection, they drove as far as they could... reaching Beaumont CA, just outside of Hemet where they settled and called home.
Harold would attend 7th grade at Palm Avenue School in Beaumont where his eldest sister, Esther, would wind up being his teacher. Harold did not enjoy school. Not only did he feel he was picked on and constantly scrutinized by his sister, he felt he could never get any escape or rest from her.
Eventually the family moved north to Cotati, where he went to Petaluma Junior High and graduated from Petaluma High School. There, Harold was really able to pursue his dream and joined Future Farmers of America at Petaluma High. During his high school years he was able to show livestock at several fairs and events eventually taking home grand champion hog, best of show, at the California State Fair. The family's next move was to Atwater, California.
The Korean conflict (or the forgotten war) had started to take shape and escalate shortly after Harold graduated High School. Having always dreamed of being part of The Marine Corps, and fearful he'd be drafted soon, Harold took time off from the farm and went in to San Francisco to enlist and offer his services to the country. First stop US Marine Corps. After being told he was too scrawny, Harold went door to door to of each branch of the military, The answer was always the same, you are too scrawny. Next to last stop Air Force. He went in, registered, got on the scale.... under weight. A recruiting officer came up to him and offered some advice: Pelham he said, go across the street and grab yourself a bag of bananas, drink a few glasses of water and check back with us. So, Dad went across the street grabbed a bunch of bananas and water, stood on the corner of Van Ness & Market and downed a dozen bananas and a gallon of water. He sloshed back to the Air Force recruitment officer and weighed in. He was just over the allotted weight and was sworn in to the US Air Force. He drove back to Atwater, met his father out in the fields and reported what had transpired.. now the hard part, how to tell his mother.
While in boot camp in Cheyenne Wyoming, a buddy had a girlfriend that had a friend that wanted a pen pal. So Dad and she started writing. After some time Harold and this girl decided they must meet before he was shipped off to Korea. So, he makes arrangements with his buddy to cover patrol and KP duty that weekend and he travels to American Fork Utah to meet Donna Griffin.
The bus drops him off in the middle of a deserted small town during a whiteout blizzard, no people or signs of life anywhere... suddenly a pair of headlights comes barreling towards him, the car jumps the curb as Harold lunges out of harm's way into a snow drift... the passenger door flings open and from inside a voice yells, "you Harold"? "Get in, it's snowing like crazy just don't lie there..Yep, it's Donna, his soon to be wife and mother of his children. It was a storybook romance.
A short time later in 1953 they were married in Donna's parents' living room. They went on a brief honeymoon before returning back to California where they set up home on base awaiting Harold's number to be called into action.
While waiting Donna set up a home for the two of them and adapted to military life quickly making friends wherever she went.
One evening while sleeping, Harold woke up to what sounded like rain hitting the gutters. He turned on the light and found Donna leaning over in bed, her head in a pan and blood dripping out of her nose.. Alarmed, he gathered her up in his arms and rushed her to emergency. After some time the doctor emerges and asks, is that your wife? If I were you, I'd spend as much time as possible with her as she is in bad shape and does not a lot of time left. Refusing to give up, Dad seeks advice and medical help from various doctors.
During this time Donna shares a dream with Harold / a vision of sorts that they will have two healthy children, two sons and everything will be just fine.
Soon Harold's number is called and it's time for battle. And he's shipped out to serve his country. Now that he's deployed, Donna can no longer live on base, so she first travels to Atwater to spend time with her new in-laws getting to know them and life on the farm. Then she heads back to Utah with her parents. She gets a job at the phone company as an operator to supplement the GI check she receives to make ends meet. She writes Harold every day.
In Korea, Harold sees all kinds of horrible things he's never seen before and is not prepared for that would one day come back to haunt him when he's much older, causing PTSD in his senior years. Flash backs of unthinkable carnage suffering and human toll not fit for a young man from a farm from Petaluma, California or anyone.
One fateful night as he's keeping watch, a Korean MIG is coming in hot and fast.... and ends up crashing in a field just yards in front of him. Quickly Harold and team respond. A Korean defector has crossed enemy lines crashing his plane in an attempt to escape. They need to act fast. Within moments the enemy will be after this MIG and defector. So Harold, adept at using a crane lift , attaches the badly damaged aircraft to his crane and lifts it out of the sinking rice fields in pitch black darkness as the remaining crew disassemble the MIG gathering sensitive and vital information about the enemy. Soon gunfire erupts around them but Harold steadily holds the MIG up as his crew quickly works to disassemble the MIG bit by bit before they are captured themselves.
Upon the concussion of Harold's tour of duty came the time of his honorable discharge. Just prior to embarking on his long journey home, Harold fell ill with high fever, chills, nausea , yellow eyes and vomiting. He had fallen victim to hepatitis, forcing him to extend his stay in Korea a while longer. While on the other side of the Pacific Ocean on the California coast in San Francisco, Donna awaited the return of her husband whom she had not seen in two years.
Finally , that day arrives and Harold is barely well enough to travel. This time he's nauseous and Ill and green not from hepatitis but from the rolling seas and crashing waves washing over the deck. Eight days he travels back to the USA and back to Donna, back to home, back to his parents once again, back to Southern California where the oranges grow in Orange, California.
Shortly after, it's off to Utah for Harold and Donna to make a life of their own. Harold would be working a job at a gas station to pay the rent in Orem Utah, and eventually would end up with Mountain Bell as a lineman. Donna would give birth to a boy in American Fork Utah, by the name of Bruce named after Harold's father.
The winters proved to be brutal as a lineman in central Utah, Harold and Donna make plans to move west and when an opportunity presents itself, Harold takes it and off they go ,the family of three, Harold, Donna & Bruce to Panorama City, California.
Life went along very well for the Pelham family of 3. They soon were able to afford to move out of their one bedroom apartment and into a two bedroom bungalow house with detached garage on Clearfield Avenue in a middle class neighborhood. With Ranchito Elementary school just a few blocks away, a Kaiser hospital, LDS church, Dan's Grocery Store, Tasty Freeze and Budweiser brewing Company with tram ride tours high above the plant every day to enthrall out of town visitors all nearby. The perfect suburban neighborhood. What more could you possibly ask for?
Welcome to the 1960's! Donna always felt like something was missing and she knew what it was. She wanted another son for Harold and a brother for Bruce. Upon meeting with doctors at UCLA medical center Donna was strongly advised against it based on her weakened heart from rheumatic fever when she was a girl. But determined, she insisted and eventually the doctor said I can get you through one more but that's it. And Donna agreed. She wanted nothing more than to give Harold two sons.
Dad always LOVED to call on June 12th to wish me Happy Birthday and remind me: It was a cold, dark & foggy morning... your mother went into labor early in the morning. We couldn't see a thing. The fog was so thick. Mulholland Drive was barley passable. We had to drive with the windows rolled down to listen for slow or stopped traffic and your mother was sure you were going to come out any moment! We finally get to the hospital and what happens, you decide to not come out! Harold exclaims! Nope! Thomas Eugene Pelham.
(my brother's kindergarten class named me by way by taking a vote and sending a letter home with Bruce with the winning names. Rebecca if I were a girl and Tommy if a boy. )
Nope! He says one more time just to annoy me... You decide to take a nap and don't come out until 3:15 in the afternoon!.
Harold loved telling that story every year. And every year the story got more dramatic and the phone call earlier and earlier.
So, Donna made good on her promise to Harold. She gave him two sons, Bruce & Thom (Tommy as he was known during the formative years.)
Many happy family vacations were planned and spent together. A lifetime of trips is such a short period of time. Traveling to Mount Rushmore where Tommy was deathly afraid of "the rock men". We went to Carthage Illinois where Joseph Smith, prophet of the Mormon church was shot and killed, traveled to Yosemite and camped in the Redwoods, visited the ice caves of South Dakota, hiked to the top of Mount Timpanogas in Utah, went snowmobiling, and took our first and last train trip in December 1970 to Utah to visit Donna's family.
January 11, 1971 was truly one of the darkest days of our lives. Donna passed away in her sleep forever changing the lives of 3 men. She was only 37.
Harold had to wake Tommy on that morning and gathering both his sons together he had to tell them that Heavenly Father needed mommy and called her home to be with him. Although she loves you very much, he needs her in heaven now but she will always, always be with you.
Those words still sting but I understand the word now, Always... for it was their song by Patsy Cline... "Always". It took decades for me to understand this but I eventually did and it's a powerful offering of love, devotion, optimism, commitment and eternal love. For it became my wedding vow to my husband as well.
Harold found himself plunged into another war. A personal war. A battle of self-reliance and preservation. He had to survive.. if only for his boys Bruce 14 & Tommy 8. But in surviving for his sons Harold lost his sense of self. His identity. Everyone was telling him what to do, how to live, where to go, what to do with his sons but not how to do it or offer any real support. So he took his boys.. left his past behind.. to start over.
Things didn't always go so smoothly. Donna had been in-charge of running the house, the schedule, groceries, checkbook, paying the bills, music lessons, doctors' appointments, inoculations, medication for diabetes. The list went on and on. Harold eventually, through the church hired a housekeeper/ nanny Dovy Story. She was no Alice from the Brady Bunch or Mrs. Livingston from Courtship of Eddy's Father but she was reliable, trustworthy, and when our beloved family dog, Susie spent the weekend at Grandma Pelham's house and got herself in the family way, Dovy jumped into action and delivered all of Susie's puppies. including 2 that we kept and eventually gave to Grandma Pelham named Lucky and to Cousin Pat and Ken, named Jason. Both ended up in extremely awesome homes. And as for Susie, that was her first and last litter. Dovy and I bonded and she became another Grandma to me.
In 1974 Bruce graduated high school and moved out on his own. So Dovy's job became sole caretaker of this rambunctious young man on the precipice of his teen years.
On one fateful day Harold was doing a job up in the Antelope Valley with Pacific Bell. He walks into Bank of America on Lancaster boulevard to cash a check..(ATM's had not yet been invented just yet) He cashes a check for a certain undisclosed amount and proceeds to walk out when he spies a well-dressed professional woman sitting at her desk Harold feeling rather confident swaggers over to this cuties desk looks down at her name plate and proceeds:
"Ms. Smallie is it? "
She stares at him, "how may I help you sir"? She asks?
"Can you tell me where I may find a good place to eat around here"?
As she proceeds to write down a list of restaurants
Harold quickly tries to think of his next move
Ms. Smallie hands Harold the list and says "you should find something to your liking on this list.."
Harold then asks "Are you free for lunch? "
Ms. Smallie looks at Harold and says
" I've already had lunch thank you. "
And with a thank you then, Harold started towards the door. But before he could reach the door he heard a voice say, my lunch is from noon to one and the bank number is on the list. Oh, by the way, my name is Charlotte....
The next day Harold called Charlotte and asked her out to lunch. She accepted.
Then they met the following evening In Aqua Dolce for dinner. Several more dinners ensued and they really began getting along famously. For the first time in years Harold felt alive .
But Houston, we have a problem.... what does he do or say about the 12 year old he has back at home?
Charlotte has already raised her children, 2 daughters Kathy and Linda and they are married and have kids of their own.... So why on earth would Charlotte want to get involved with a man who has a 12 year old son? I can't answer that question... you would have to ask her.. I'm not privy to that tidbit of information.
What I do know is Charlotte May Benner Pelham became my mom on April 18, 1975. They were married in Reno NV and honeymooned directly after for which I was not invited to either the wedding nor the honeymoon. I instead, stayed one last time with nanny and surrogate grandma, Dovy Story. I'm so grateful I did as Dovy passed away that fall.
Transitioning into our new lives as the new Pelham family was not an easy for anyone. For me, I had to leave a life and friends behind. For my new mother, she had just finished raising her family and was ready to start her new life. Was she prepared for a developing pubescent boy to now raise? And Harold? I didn't know nor appreciate then as I do now, but of all of us, he had the largest, most difficult job of all. Harold had to balance life at home, a new role as instant grandfather, life on the job, the needs of a 12 year old, the needs of a career woman more educated than he and a grueling 90 minute commute (completed in 45 minutes by my Dad) each and every day for four years. Getting up each and every morning at 4:00am sometimes 3:30am as traffic patterns changed or he needed to get home early to attend a school play, concert I performed in or special event. I never really thought much about it to be honest, I just took it for granted he'd be there. I expected. That's a lot if pressure to place on one person constantly.
As I think back on those years, I now look back with a newer, clearer vision or perspective. I am now older than he was then and it just wears me out to think of the energy expelled each and every day by that man.
In the few short years between 1975 to 1980 for every theatrical event (high school, community college or competition), every concert my garage band performed or competed in, every sport I participated baseball to wrestling to tennis, every scouting event that pushed me forward to that elusive eagle, my Dad was there on the side lines... Cheering me on in his own way. He was my scoutmaster and my driving instructor. He was my Dad. And I miss him. But I was just too self-centered, egocentric or insecure to notice at the time.
Beyond the social activities, Harold was there in my darkest times of need. Starting with the time when i was just a wee young toddler learning how to walk. Harold was doing projects around the house. This one particular incident took place as a very inquisitive toddler entered the room, eyed the Dixie cup, reached for it and proceeded to guzzle said contents (that happened to be turpentine). affecting bodily functions, heart patterns, breathing just to name a few vital things. Well as the story goes, Dad scoops me up in his arms rushing my lifeless body to the front yard sets me down and proceeds to perform CPR on me until the paramedics arrive. Fortunately, I survived.
Another less dramatic but equally compelling event was in February, 1980. My brother Bruce was, engaged and set to marry Marlene Frances in Los Angeles. Now living in Sacramento I decided to drive to Lancaster, having not been back in a while, and stay a couple nights with my parents before the wedding. Well, as I approach the famed Grapevine late night in February, it starts to rain. Doesn't take long for the rain to change to snow. As I start to climb I hear this horrible racket. Like a chain smacking the underbelly of the car. I keep pushing on. I start to lose momentum and the wind is pushing me back. The snow is blowing all around me and i can't see a thing. So I feel it's best not to get too far up the mountain.
Upon pulling over and a few feeble attempts at restarting my Mercury Lynx, I realized I'm going nowhere fast anytime soon.
Sitting on the side of a mountain, with snow swirling around me, I'm thinking Donner Party or something similar. Now the brain is really in hyper overdrive. Too bad my car isn't . Happily the CHP pulls up and asks if everything is OK. With a series of Q & A the officer & I made the decision to have my car towed back to a small town just outside of Bakersfield. By this time the snow is really coming down and I'm starving, tired, cold and want to be home.
After being towed and once again left cold and alone outside an old broken down, locked, and what seemed to be , from peering through the window, an abandoned, auto shop west of Bakersfield, between the 5 & Hwy. 99. I placed, what I thought would be, my last ever, phone call to my Dad. Crawled into the back seat, covered up the best I could with a jacket and suit coat I was to wear to my brother's wedding in two days, making sure the doors were securely locked and drifted off to sleep....
I was abruptly awakened by the sound of a car door slamming shut. Headlights flooding my car, both in and out of my car. Footsteps on gravel moving towards me. My only defense, a crowbar. Car door rattles. It's, locked. He tests the other side..locked! This is it... They want a fight. It is on!
Suddenly, a rap on the window..Thom, open...you're going to freeze out here.
That voice, it's Harold, it's my Dad...But how?!?
I slip out of the back seat , legs feeling numb, dizzy, exhausted and starving.
My Dad pours me hot coca, wraps me in heavy blankets. Bound so tight that I look like the little kid , Randy, in a Christmas Story. The one that was bundled up so much by his mom that couldn't put his arms down. Well, neither could I, but at this point I did not care.
We abandon my car and drive to Lancaster in Dads truck Eventually arriving back home in Lancaster, crawling into my bed. I drift off only to be woken by shaking once again. It's my Dad waking me up. It's the next day. He said come on let's get you something to eat, showered and cleaned up and we'll go check on your car
After a nice hot breakfast. Even hotter shower, got dressed and ready to trek back to the mechanic and learn the fate of my vehicle. To my shock, and amazement, but somehow not really, I discover that while I had been sleeping, my Dad went back to that worn-out auto shop west of Bakersfield, hooked up my car to the back of his using a tow bar and towed my car back to Lancaster to his own mechanic, Smitty for estimates and repair.
It was determined that a timing belt had been snapped and sucked up into the valves causing serious damage. Had I just not attempted to try to re-start the vehicle over and over again, I could of saved myself from serious damage. But no such luck.
I made it to the wedding and reception and got to visit family because my Dad saved me from the perils of the Grapevine.
I had to take one of my parents cars home so mine could be worked on. Parts had to be ordered and flown in and valves rebuilt. It was a long slow process. Eventually though, my car was good as new and ready for the open road. Dad drove my car back to me , in exchange for his Ford double cab pickup truck, that really was my 4ft. 9in. mom's vehicle, and she wanted it back NOW.
This is just one of countless selfless acts of love, human kindness and compassion that was and is Harold Eugene Pelham.
If you ever have a few hours to spare, grab a few cold beverages, preferably Diet Coke like his eldest son Bruce liked or perhaps an R.C. grill some salmon and bake some potato's . This definitely was Harold's favorite type of meal all time for sure. Turn on an Angels ballgame and I'll be happy to tell you more about the man that was my Father.
Finally, I would like to share one last story with you today about my Dad.
At the beginning I shared with you a harrowing story about Harold and his team or men during the Korean war risking their lives coming to the aid of a defector, and disassembling a Russian fighter MIG to, learn more about their capabilities, tactics and secrets and enemy intelligence.
Now flash forward to one of the countless trailer expeditions across country my parents took seeing this great land of ours. One such stop was the aeronautics museum where they have different aircraft on display from different eras and wars and the history of flight. Is it possible they just might have something similar to what he worked on in Korea he thought to himself as they approached the Korean war room. My Dad was shaking as he rounded the corner he could feel her calling to him... Some 40 years later. She was calling to him. His knees began to buckle. Sweat was beading up and trickling down his back. A sudden wave of nausea washes over him and Harold is no longer in the museum but in the rice fields of 1950's Korea.
Charlotte sensing he's overwhelmed, leads him to a bench where he can sit and ponder that night and other events as witnessed by A1C Harold Eugene Pelham. For the rest of his life he would tell this story about finding that MIG after 40 years in the museum.
Harold was a survivor a fighter and a winner. But more than anything, he was my Dad. He supported me through many things in my life and I will miss him terribly. He definitely was one of the good guys and I'd like to think of him as one of my guardian angels now looking down upon me and protecting me.
Fly... Fight... WIN..!!!!
I love you Dad. 'till we meet again
As promised, below is the Eulogy in its entirety and not the abbreviated edited version as presented (due to the tremendous flooding) during Harold's funeral.
Thank you all for your outpouring of love, generosity, support, love, and fond memories of my dad. It has truly helped lift me up during this dark and lonely time.
And now without further adieu, I present the eulogy for Harold E. Pelham:
Eulogy for Harold Eugene Pelham
May 19, 1930 - November 9, 2019
89 years of age
We gather today to honor Harold E. Pelham or HEP as they first started referring to him back in the late 1950s working for Mountain Bell
But let's take a look back even further to the 1930's.
Harold was born Harold Eugene Pelham on May 19th 1930 to Bruce Laverne and Dagmar Nissen Pelham, a farming family in Clinton Iowa.
Harold was born into a family of all females. There was his eldest sister Esther who went on to be a school teacher, much to my father's chagrin. Then there was Dorothy, Margaret and finally the baby of the family born after Harold, Darline. All three remaining sisters went on to become very successful nurses with Darline becoming a high ranking officer with the US Air Force during the Vietnam War.
Grandpa Bruce taught my Dad about farm life in Iowa but life was not easy. There were harsh relentless winters, summers that would bake the land bringing drought, and unforgiving storms sparking tornados destroying everything in their path.
It was those harsh winters that really got to them. Harold would repeatedly get pneumonia over and over again each winter. One day Grandpa Bruce came across a magazine article that showed pictures of farmers in their fields in the winter with oranges, big fat oranges, The farmers were in short sleeve shirts... in the middle of winter that was that. They sold everything and loaded up the truck and were off to California. It was 1940, WWII gas rationing was the law of the land at that time, and no family was able to carry more than 5 gallons (or a barrel) of gasoline at one time. Along their travels a family stopped them and sold them an extra barrel of gasoline. Well, this worked out well until they approached the California state line. Up ahead Grandpa Bruce could see that the authorities were inspecting each vehicle for gas. Knowing it was illegal to have the extra barrel of gasoline, they took a quick detour out into the desert and dumped all the extra fuel into the dirt and drove on... passing through inspection, they drove as far as they could... reaching Beaumont CA, just outside of Hemet where they settled and called home.
Harold would attend 7th grade at Palm Avenue School in Beaumont where his eldest sister, Esther, would wind up being his teacher. Harold did not enjoy school. Not only did he feel he was picked on and constantly scrutinized by his sister, he felt he could never get any escape or rest from her.
Eventually the family moved north to Cotati, where he went to Petaluma Junior High and graduated from Petaluma High School. There, Harold was really able to pursue his dream and joined Future Farmers of America at Petaluma High. During his high school years he was able to show livestock at several fairs and events eventually taking home grand champion hog, best of show, at the California State Fair. The family's next move was to Atwater, California.
The Korean conflict (or the forgotten war) had started to take shape and escalate shortly after Harold graduated High School. Having always dreamed of being part of The Marine Corps, and fearful he'd be drafted soon, Harold took time off from the farm and went in to San Francisco to enlist and offer his services to the country. First stop US Marine Corps. After being told he was too scrawny, Harold went door to door to of each branch of the military, The answer was always the same, you are too scrawny. Next to last stop Air Force. He went in, registered, got on the scale.... under weight. A recruiting officer came up to him and offered some advice: Pelham he said, go across the street and grab yourself a bag of bananas, drink a few glasses of water and check back with us. So, Dad went across the street grabbed a bunch of bananas and water, stood on the corner of Van Ness & Market and downed a dozen bananas and a gallon of water. He sloshed back to the Air Force recruitment officer and weighed in. He was just over the allotted weight and was sworn in to the US Air Force. He drove back to Atwater, met his father out in the fields and reported what had transpired.. now the hard part, how to tell his mother.
While in boot camp in Cheyenne Wyoming, a buddy had a girlfriend that had a friend that wanted a pen pal. So Dad and she started writing. After some time Harold and this girl decided they must meet before he was shipped off to Korea. So, he makes arrangements with his buddy to cover patrol and KP duty that weekend and he travels to American Fork Utah to meet Donna Griffin.
The bus drops him off in the middle of a deserted small town during a whiteout blizzard, no people or signs of life anywhere... suddenly a pair of headlights comes barreling towards him, the car jumps the curb as Harold lunges out of harm's way into a snow drift... the passenger door flings open and from inside a voice yells, "you Harold"? "Get in, it's snowing like crazy just don't lie there..Yep, it's Donna, his soon to be wife and mother of his children. It was a storybook romance.
A short time later in 1953 they were married in Donna's parents' living room. They went on a brief honeymoon before returning back to California where they set up home on base awaiting Harold's number to be called into action.
While waiting Donna set up a home for the two of them and adapted to military life quickly making friends wherever she went.
One evening while sleeping, Harold woke up to what sounded like rain hitting the gutters. He turned on the light and found Donna leaning over in bed, her head in a pan and blood dripping out of her nose.. Alarmed, he gathered her up in his arms and rushed her to emergency. After some time the doctor emerges and asks, is that your wife? If I were you, I'd spend as much time as possible with her as she is in bad shape and does not a lot of time left. Refusing to give up, Dad seeks advice and medical help from various doctors.
During this time Donna shares a dream with Harold / a vision of sorts that they will have two healthy children, two sons and everything will be just fine.
Soon Harold's number is called and it's time for battle. And he's shipped out to serve his country. Now that he's deployed, Donna can no longer live on base, so she first travels to Atwater to spend time with her new in-laws getting to know them and life on the farm. Then she heads back to Utah with her parents. She gets a job at the phone company as an operator to supplement the GI check she receives to make ends meet. She writes Harold every day.
In Korea, Harold sees all kinds of horrible things he's never seen before and is not prepared for that would one day come back to haunt him when he's much older, causing PTSD in his senior years. Flash backs of unthinkable carnage suffering and human toll not fit for a young man from a farm from Petaluma, California or anyone.
One fateful night as he's keeping watch, a Korean MIG is coming in hot and fast.... and ends up crashing in a field just yards in front of him. Quickly Harold and team respond. A Korean defector has crossed enemy lines crashing his plane in an attempt to escape. They need to act fast. Within moments the enemy will be after this MIG and defector. So Harold, adept at using a crane lift , attaches the badly damaged aircraft to his crane and lifts it out of the sinking rice fields in pitch black darkness as the remaining crew disassemble the MIG gathering sensitive and vital information about the enemy. Soon gunfire erupts around them but Harold steadily holds the MIG up as his crew quickly works to disassemble the MIG bit by bit before they are captured themselves.
Upon the concussion of Harold's tour of duty came the time of his honorable discharge. Just prior to embarking on his long journey home, Harold fell ill with high fever, chills, nausea , yellow eyes and vomiting. He had fallen victim to hepatitis, forcing him to extend his stay in Korea a while longer. While on the other side of the Pacific Ocean on the California coast in San Francisco, Donna awaited the return of her husband whom she had not seen in two years.
Finally , that day arrives and Harold is barely well enough to travel. This time he's nauseous and Ill and green not from hepatitis but from the rolling seas and crashing waves washing over the deck. Eight days he travels back to the USA and back to Donna, back to home, back to his parents once again, back to Southern California where the oranges grow in Orange, California.
Shortly after, it's off to Utah for Harold and Donna to make a life of their own. Harold would be working a job at a gas station to pay the rent in Orem Utah, and eventually would end up with Mountain Bell as a lineman. Donna would give birth to a boy in American Fork Utah, by the name of Bruce named after Harold's father.
The winters proved to be brutal as a lineman in central Utah, Harold and Donna make plans to move west and when an opportunity presents itself, Harold takes it and off they go ,the family of three, Harold, Donna & Bruce to Panorama City, California.
Life went along very well for the Pelham family of 3. They soon were able to afford to move out of their one bedroom apartment and into a two bedroom bungalow house with detached garage on Clearfield Avenue in a middle class neighborhood. With Ranchito Elementary school just a few blocks away, a Kaiser hospital, LDS church, Dan's Grocery Store, Tasty Freeze and Budweiser brewing Company with tram ride tours high above the plant every day to enthrall out of town visitors all nearby. The perfect suburban neighborhood. What more could you possibly ask for?
Welcome to the 1960's! Donna always felt like something was missing and she knew what it was. She wanted another son for Harold and a brother for Bruce. Upon meeting with doctors at UCLA medical center Donna was strongly advised against it based on her weakened heart from rheumatic fever when she was a girl. But determined, she insisted and eventually the doctor said I can get you through one more but that's it. And Donna agreed. She wanted nothing more than to give Harold two sons.
Dad always LOVED to call on June 12th to wish me Happy Birthday and remind me: It was a cold, dark & foggy morning... your mother went into labor early in the morning. We couldn't see a thing. The fog was so thick. Mulholland Drive was barley passable. We had to drive with the windows rolled down to listen for slow or stopped traffic and your mother was sure you were going to come out any moment! We finally get to the hospital and what happens, you decide to not come out! Harold exclaims! Nope! Thomas Eugene Pelham.
(my brother's kindergarten class named me by way by taking a vote and sending a letter home with Bruce with the winning names. Rebecca if I were a girl and Tommy if a boy. )
Nope! He says one more time just to annoy me... You decide to take a nap and don't come out until 3:15 in the afternoon!.
Harold loved telling that story every year. And every year the story got more dramatic and the phone call earlier and earlier.
So, Donna made good on her promise to Harold. She gave him two sons, Bruce & Thom (Tommy as he was known during the formative years.)
Many happy family vacations were planned and spent together. A lifetime of trips is such a short period of time. Traveling to Mount Rushmore where Tommy was deathly afraid of "the rock men". We went to Carthage Illinois where Joseph Smith, prophet of the Mormon church was shot and killed, traveled to Yosemite and camped in the Redwoods, visited the ice caves of South Dakota, hiked to the top of Mount Timpanogas in Utah, went snowmobiling, and took our first and last train trip in December 1970 to Utah to visit Donna's family.
January 11, 1971 was truly one of the darkest days of our lives. Donna passed away in her sleep forever changing the lives of 3 men. She was only 37.
Harold had to wake Tommy on that morning and gathering both his sons together he had to tell them that Heavenly Father needed mommy and called her home to be with him. Although she loves you very much, he needs her in heaven now but she will always, always be with you.
Those words still sting but I understand the word now, Always... for it was their song by Patsy Cline... "Always". It took decades for me to understand this but I eventually did and it's a powerful offering of love, devotion, optimism, commitment and eternal love. For it became my wedding vow to my husband as well.
Harold found himself plunged into another war. A personal war. A battle of self-reliance and preservation. He had to survive.. if only for his boys Bruce 14 & Tommy 8. But in surviving for his sons Harold lost his sense of self. His identity. Everyone was telling him what to do, how to live, where to go, what to do with his sons but not how to do it or offer any real support. So he took his boys.. left his past behind.. to start over.
Things didn't always go so smoothly. Donna had been in-charge of running the house, the schedule, groceries, checkbook, paying the bills, music lessons, doctors' appointments, inoculations, medication for diabetes. The list went on and on. Harold eventually, through the church hired a housekeeper/ nanny Dovy Story. She was no Alice from the Brady Bunch or Mrs. Livingston from Courtship of Eddy's Father but she was reliable, trustworthy, and when our beloved family dog, Susie spent the weekend at Grandma Pelham's house and got herself in the family way, Dovy jumped into action and delivered all of Susie's puppies. including 2 that we kept and eventually gave to Grandma Pelham named Lucky and to Cousin Pat and Ken, named Jason. Both ended up in extremely awesome homes. And as for Susie, that was her first and last litter. Dovy and I bonded and she became another Grandma to me.
In 1974 Bruce graduated high school and moved out on his own. So Dovy's job became sole caretaker of this rambunctious young man on the precipice of his teen years.
On one fateful day Harold was doing a job up in the Antelope Valley with Pacific Bell. He walks into Bank of America on Lancaster boulevard to cash a check..(ATM's had not yet been invented just yet) He cashes a check for a certain undisclosed amount and proceeds to walk out when he spies a well-dressed professional woman sitting at her desk Harold feeling rather confident swaggers over to this cuties desk looks down at her name plate and proceeds:
"Ms. Smallie is it? "
She stares at him, "how may I help you sir"? She asks?
"Can you tell me where I may find a good place to eat around here"?
As she proceeds to write down a list of restaurants
Harold quickly tries to think of his next move
Ms. Smallie hands Harold the list and says "you should find something to your liking on this list.."
Harold then asks "Are you free for lunch? "
Ms. Smallie looks at Harold and says
" I've already had lunch thank you. "
And with a thank you then, Harold started towards the door. But before he could reach the door he heard a voice say, my lunch is from noon to one and the bank number is on the list. Oh, by the way, my name is Charlotte....
The next day Harold called Charlotte and asked her out to lunch. She accepted.
Then they met the following evening In Aqua Dolce for dinner. Several more dinners ensued and they really began getting along famously. For the first time in years Harold felt alive .
But Houston, we have a problem.... what does he do or say about the 12 year old he has back at home?
Charlotte has already raised her children, 2 daughters Kathy and Linda and they are married and have kids of their own.... So why on earth would Charlotte want to get involved with a man who has a 12 year old son? I can't answer that question... you would have to ask her.. I'm not privy to that tidbit of information.
What I do know is Charlotte May Benner Pelham became my mom on April 18, 1975. They were married in Reno NV and honeymooned directly after for which I was not invited to either the wedding nor the honeymoon. I instead, stayed one last time with nanny and surrogate grandma, Dovy Story. I'm so grateful I did as Dovy passed away that fall.
Transitioning into our new lives as the new Pelham family was not an easy for anyone. For me, I had to leave a life and friends behind. For my new mother, she had just finished raising her family and was ready to start her new life. Was she prepared for a developing pubescent boy to now raise? And Harold? I didn't know nor appreciate then as I do now, but of all of us, he had the largest, most difficult job of all. Harold had to balance life at home, a new role as instant grandfather, life on the job, the needs of a 12 year old, the needs of a career woman more educated than he and a grueling 90 minute commute (completed in 45 minutes by my Dad) each and every day for four years. Getting up each and every morning at 4:00am sometimes 3:30am as traffic patterns changed or he needed to get home early to attend a school play, concert I performed in or special event. I never really thought much about it to be honest, I just took it for granted he'd be there. I expected. That's a lot if pressure to place on one person constantly.
As I think back on those years, I now look back with a newer, clearer vision or perspective. I am now older than he was then and it just wears me out to think of the energy expelled each and every day by that man.
In the few short years between 1975 to 1980 for every theatrical event (high school, community college or competition), every concert my garage band performed or competed in, every sport I participated baseball to wrestling to tennis, every scouting event that pushed me forward to that elusive eagle, my Dad was there on the side lines... Cheering me on in his own way. He was my scoutmaster and my driving instructor. He was my Dad. And I miss him. But I was just too self-centered, egocentric or insecure to notice at the time.
Beyond the social activities, Harold was there in my darkest times of need. Starting with the time when i was just a wee young toddler learning how to walk. Harold was doing projects around the house. This one particular incident took place as a very inquisitive toddler entered the room, eyed the Dixie cup, reached for it and proceeded to guzzle said contents (that happened to be turpentine). affecting bodily functions, heart patterns, breathing just to name a few vital things. Well as the story goes, Dad scoops me up in his arms rushing my lifeless body to the front yard sets me down and proceeds to perform CPR on me until the paramedics arrive. Fortunately, I survived.
Another less dramatic but equally compelling event was in February, 1980. My brother Bruce was, engaged and set to marry Marlene Frances in Los Angeles. Now living in Sacramento I decided to drive to Lancaster, having not been back in a while, and stay a couple nights with my parents before the wedding. Well, as I approach the famed Grapevine late night in February, it starts to rain. Doesn't take long for the rain to change to snow. As I start to climb I hear this horrible racket. Like a chain smacking the underbelly of the car. I keep pushing on. I start to lose momentum and the wind is pushing me back. The snow is blowing all around me and i can't see a thing. So I feel it's best not to get too far up the mountain.
Upon pulling over and a few feeble attempts at restarting my Mercury Lynx, I realized I'm going nowhere fast anytime soon.
Sitting on the side of a mountain, with snow swirling around me, I'm thinking Donner Party or something similar. Now the brain is really in hyper overdrive. Too bad my car isn't . Happily the CHP pulls up and asks if everything is OK. With a series of Q & A the officer & I made the decision to have my car towed back to a small town just outside of Bakersfield. By this time the snow is really coming down and I'm starving, tired, cold and want to be home.
After being towed and once again left cold and alone outside an old broken down, locked, and what seemed to be , from peering through the window, an abandoned, auto shop west of Bakersfield, between the 5 & Hwy. 99. I placed, what I thought would be, my last ever, phone call to my Dad. Crawled into the back seat, covered up the best I could with a jacket and suit coat I was to wear to my brother's wedding in two days, making sure the doors were securely locked and drifted off to sleep....
I was abruptly awakened by the sound of a car door slamming shut. Headlights flooding my car, both in and out of my car. Footsteps on gravel moving towards me. My only defense, a crowbar. Car door rattles. It's, locked. He tests the other side..locked! This is it... They want a fight. It is on!
Suddenly, a rap on the window..Thom, open...you're going to freeze out here.
That voice, it's Harold, it's my Dad...But how?!?
I slip out of the back seat , legs feeling numb, dizzy, exhausted and starving.
My Dad pours me hot coca, wraps me in heavy blankets. Bound so tight that I look like the little kid , Randy, in a Christmas Story. The one that was bundled up so much by his mom that couldn't put his arms down. Well, neither could I, but at this point I did not care.
We abandon my car and drive to Lancaster in Dads truck Eventually arriving back home in Lancaster, crawling into my bed. I drift off only to be woken by shaking once again. It's my Dad waking me up. It's the next day. He said come on let's get you something to eat, showered and cleaned up and we'll go check on your car
After a nice hot breakfast. Even hotter shower, got dressed and ready to trek back to the mechanic and learn the fate of my vehicle. To my shock, and amazement, but somehow not really, I discover that while I had been sleeping, my Dad went back to that worn-out auto shop west of Bakersfield, hooked up my car to the back of his using a tow bar and towed my car back to Lancaster to his own mechanic, Smitty for estimates and repair.
It was determined that a timing belt had been snapped and sucked up into the valves causing serious damage. Had I just not attempted to try to re-start the vehicle over and over again, I could of saved myself from serious damage. But no such luck.
I made it to the wedding and reception and got to visit family because my Dad saved me from the perils of the Grapevine.
I had to take one of my parents cars home so mine could be worked on. Parts had to be ordered and flown in and valves rebuilt. It was a long slow process. Eventually though, my car was good as new and ready for the open road. Dad drove my car back to me , in exchange for his Ford double cab pickup truck, that really was my 4ft. 9in. mom's vehicle, and she wanted it back NOW.
This is just one of countless selfless acts of love, human kindness and compassion that was and is Harold Eugene Pelham.
If you ever have a few hours to spare, grab a few cold beverages, preferably Diet Coke like his eldest son Bruce liked or perhaps an R.C. grill some salmon and bake some potato's . This definitely was Harold's favorite type of meal all time for sure. Turn on an Angels ballgame and I'll be happy to tell you more about the man that was my Father.
Finally, I would like to share one last story with you today about my Dad.
At the beginning I shared with you a harrowing story about Harold and his team or men during the Korean war risking their lives coming to the aid of a defector, and disassembling a Russian fighter MIG to, learn more about their capabilities, tactics and secrets and enemy intelligence.
Now flash forward to one of the countless trailer expeditions across country my parents took seeing this great land of ours. One such stop was the aeronautics museum where they have different aircraft on display from different eras and wars and the history of flight. Is it possible they just might have something similar to what he worked on in Korea he thought to himself as they approached the Korean war room. My Dad was shaking as he rounded the corner he could feel her calling to him... Some 40 years later. She was calling to him. His knees began to buckle. Sweat was beading up and trickling down his back. A sudden wave of nausea washes over him and Harold is no longer in the museum but in the rice fields of 1950's Korea.
Charlotte sensing he's overwhelmed, leads him to a bench where he can sit and ponder that night and other events as witnessed by A1C Harold Eugene Pelham. For the rest of his life he would tell this story about finding that MIG after 40 years in the museum.
Harold was a survivor a fighter and a winner. But more than anything, he was my Dad. He supported me through many things in my life and I will miss him terribly. He definitely was one of the good guys and I'd like to think of him as one of my guardian angels now looking down upon me and protecting me.
Fly... Fight... WIN..!!!!
I love you Dad. 'till we meet again
Thank you all for your outpouring of love, generosity, support, love, and fond memories of my dad. It has truly helped lift me up during this dark and lonely time.
And now without further adieu, I present the eulogy for Harold E. Pelham:
Eulogy for Harold Eugene Pelham
May 19, 1930 - November 9, 2019
89 years of age
We gather today to honor Harold E. Pelham or HEP as they first started referring to him back in the late 1950s working for Mountain Bell
But let's take a look back even further to the 1930's.
Harold was born Harold Eugene Pelham on May 19th 1930 to Bruce Laverne and Dagmar Nissen Pelham, a farming family in Clinton Iowa.
Harold was born into a family of all females. There was his eldest sister Esther who went on to be a school teacher, much to my father's chagrin. Then there was Dorothy, Margaret and finally the baby of the family born after Harold, Darline. All three remaining sisters went on to become very successful nurses with Darline becoming a high ranking officer with the US Air Force during the Vietnam War.
Grandpa Bruce taught my Dad about farm life in Iowa but life was not easy. There were harsh relentless winters, summers that would bake the land bringing drought, and unforgiving storms sparking tornados destroying everything in their path.
It was those harsh winters that really got to them. Harold would repeatedly get pneumonia over and over again each winter. One day Grandpa Bruce came across a magazine article that showed pictures of farmers in their fields in the winter with oranges, big fat oranges, The farmers were in short sleeve shirts... in the middle of winter that was that. They sold everything and loaded up the truck and were off to California. It was 1940, WWII gas rationing was the law of the land at that time, and no family was able to carry more than 5 gallons (or a barrel) of gasoline at one time. Along their travels a family stopped them and sold them an extra barrel of gasoline. Well, this worked out well until they approached the California state line. Up ahead Grandpa Bruce could see that the authorities were inspecting each vehicle for gas. Knowing it was illegal to have the extra barrel of gasoline, they took a quick detour out into the desert and dumped all the extra fuel into the dirt and drove on... passing through inspection, they drove as far as they could... reaching Beaumont CA, just outside of Hemet where they settled and called home.
Harold would attend 7th grade at Palm Avenue School in Beaumont where his eldest sister, Esther, would wind up being his teacher. Harold did not enjoy school. Not only did he feel he was picked on and constantly scrutinized by his sister, he felt he could never get any escape or rest from her.
Eventually the family moved north to Cotati, where he went to Petaluma Junior High and graduated from Petaluma High School. There, Harold was really able to pursue his dream and joined Future Farmers of America at Petaluma High. During his high school years he was able to show livestock at several fairs and events eventually taking home grand champion hog, best of show, at the California State Fair. The family's next move was to Atwater, California.
The Korean conflict (or the forgotten war) had started to take shape and escalate shortly after Harold graduated High School. Having always dreamed of being part of The Marine Corps, and fearful he'd be drafted soon, Harold took time off from the farm and went in to San Francisco to enlist and offer his services to the country. First stop US Marine Corps. After being told he was too scrawny, Harold went door to door to of each branch of the military, The answer was always the same, you are too scrawny. Next to last stop Air Force. He went in, registered, got on the scale.... under weight. A recruiting officer came up to him and offered some advice: Pelham he said, go across the street and grab yourself a bag of bananas, drink a few glasses of water and check back with us. So, Dad went across the street grabbed a bunch of bananas and water, stood on the corner of Van Ness & Market and downed a dozen bananas and a gallon of water. He sloshed back to the Air Force recruitment officer and weighed in. He was just over the allotted weight and was sworn in to the US Air Force. He drove back to Atwater, met his father out in the fields and reported what had transpired.. now the hard part, how to tell his mother.
While in boot camp in Cheyenne Wyoming, a buddy had a girlfriend that had a friend that wanted a pen pal. So Dad and she started writing. After some time Harold and this girl decided they must meet before he was shipped off to Korea. So, he makes arrangements with his buddy to cover patrol and KP duty that weekend and he travels to American Fork Utah to meet Donna Griffin.
The bus drops him off in the middle of a deserted small town during a whiteout blizzard, no people or signs of life anywhere... suddenly a pair of headlights comes barreling towards him, the car jumps the curb as Harold lunges out of harm's way into a snow drift... the passenger door flings open and from inside a voice yells, "you Harold"? "Get in, it's snowing like crazy just don't lie there..Yep, it's Donna, his soon to be wife and mother of his children. It was a storybook romance.
A short time later in 1953 they were married in Donna's parents' living room. They went on a brief honeymoon before returning back to California where they set up home on base awaiting Harold's number to be called into action.
While waiting Donna set up a home for the two of them and adapted to military life quickly making friends wherever she went.
One evening while sleeping, Harold woke up to what sounded like rain hitting the gutters. He turned on the light and found Donna leaning over in bed, her head in a pan and blood dripping out of her nose.. Alarmed, he gathered her up in his arms and rushed her to emergency. After some time the doctor emerges and asks, is that your wife? If I were you, I'd spend as much time as possible with her as she is in bad shape and does not a lot of time left. Refusing to give up, Dad seeks advice and medical help from various doctors.
During this time Donna shares a dream with Harold / a vision of sorts that they will have two healthy children, two sons and everything will be just fine.
Soon Harold's number is called and it's time for battle. And he's shipped out to serve his country. Now that he's deployed, Donna can no longer live on base, so she first travels to Atwater to spend time with her new in-laws getting to know them and life on the farm. Then she heads back to Utah with her parents. She gets a job at the phone company as an operator to supplement the GI check she receives to make ends meet. She writes Harold every day.
In Korea, Harold sees all kinds of horrible things he's never seen before and is not prepared for that would one day come back to haunt him when he's much older, causing PTSD in his senior years. Flash backs of unthinkable carnage suffering and human toll not fit for a young man from a farm from Petaluma, California or anyone.
One fateful night as he's keeping watch, a Korean MIG is coming in hot and fast.... and ends up crashing in a field just yards in front of him. Quickly Harold and team respond. A Korean defector has crossed enemy lines crashing his plane in an attempt to escape. They need to act fast. Within moments the enemy will be after this MIG and defector. So Harold, adept at using a crane lift , attaches the badly damaged aircraft to his crane and lifts it out of the sinking rice fields in pitch black darkness as the remaining crew disassemble the MIG gathering sensitive and vital information about the enemy. Soon gunfire erupts around them but Harold steadily holds the MIG up as his crew quickly works to disassemble the MIG bit by bit before they are captured themselves.
Upon the concussion of Harold's tour of duty came the time of his honorable discharge. Just prior to embarking on his long journey home, Harold fell ill with high fever, chills, nausea , yellow eyes and vomiting. He had fallen victim to hepatitis, forcing him to extend his stay in Korea a while longer. While on the other side of the Pacific Ocean on the California coast in San Francisco, Donna awaited the return of her husband whom she had not seen in two years.
Finally , that day arrives and Harold is barely well enough to travel. This time he's nauseous and Ill and green not from hepatitis but from the rolling seas and crashing waves washing over the deck. Eight days he travels back to the USA and back to Donna, back to home, back to his parents once again, back to Southern California where the oranges grow in Orange, California.
Shortly after, it's off to Utah for Harold and Donna to make a life of their own. Harold would be working a job at a gas station to pay the rent in Orem Utah, and eventually would end up with Mountain Bell as a lineman. Donna would give birth to a boy in American Fork Utah, by the name of Bruce named after Harold's father.
The winters proved to be brutal as a lineman in central Utah, Harold and Donna make plans to move west and when an opportunity presents itself, Harold takes it and off they go ,the family of three, Harold, Donna & Bruce to Panorama City, California.
Life went along very well for the Pelham family of 3. They soon were able to afford to move out of their one bedroom apartment and into a two bedroom bungalow house with detached garage on Clearfield Avenue in a middle class neighborhood. With Ranchito Elementary school just a few blocks away, a Kaiser hospital, LDS church, Dan's Grocery Store, Tasty Freeze and Budweiser brewing Company with tram ride tours high above the plant every day to enthrall out of town visitors all nearby. The perfect suburban neighborhood. What more could you possibly ask for?
Welcome to the 1960's! Donna always felt like something was missing and she knew what it was. She wanted another son for Harold and a brother for Bruce. Upon meeting with doctors at UCLA medical center Donna was strongly advised against it based on her weakened heart from rheumatic fever when she was a girl. But determined, she insisted and eventually the doctor said I can get you through one more but that's it. And Donna agreed. She wanted nothing more than to give Harold two sons.
Dad always LOVED to call on June 12th to wish me Happy Birthday and remind me: It was a cold, dark & foggy morning... your mother went into labor early in the morning. We couldn't see a thing. The fog was so thick. Mulholland Drive was barley passable. We had to drive with the windows rolled down to listen for slow or stopped traffic and your mother was sure you were going to come out any moment! We finally get to the hospital and what happens, you decide to not come out! Harold exclaims! Nope! Thomas Eugene Pelham.
(my brother's kindergarten class named me by way by taking a vote and sending a letter home with Bruce with the winning names. Rebecca if I were a girl and Tommy if a boy. )
Nope! He says one more time just to annoy me... You decide to take a nap and don't come out until 3:15 in the afternoon!.
Harold loved telling that story every year. And every year the story got more dramatic and the phone call earlier and earlier.
So, Donna made good on her promise to Harold. She gave him two sons, Bruce & Thom (Tommy as he was known during the formative years.)
Many happy family vacations were planned and spent together. A lifetime of trips is such a short period of time. Traveling to Mount Rushmore where Tommy was deathly afraid of "the rock men". We went to Carthage Illinois where Joseph Smith, prophet of the Mormon church was shot and killed, traveled to Yosemite and camped in the Redwoods, visited the ice caves of South Dakota, hiked to the top of Mount Timpanogas in Utah, went snowmobiling, and took our first and last train trip in December 1970 to Utah to visit Donna's family.
January 11, 1971 was truly one of the darkest days of our lives. Donna passed away in her sleep forever changing the lives of 3 men. She was only 37.
Harold had to wake Tommy on that morning and gathering both his sons together he had to tell them that Heavenly Father needed mommy and called her home to be with him. Although she loves you very much, he needs her in heaven now but she will always, always be with you.
Those words still sting but I understand the word now, Always... for it was their song by Patsy Cline... "Always". It took decades for me to understand this but I eventually did and it's a powerful offering of love, devotion, optimism, commitment and eternal love. For it became my wedding vow to my husband as well.
Harold found himself plunged into another war. A personal war. A battle of self-reliance and preservation. He had to survive.. if only for his boys Bruce 14 & Tommy 8. But in surviving for his sons Harold lost his sense of self. His identity. Everyone was telling him what to do, how to live, where to go, what to do with his sons but not how to do it or offer any real support. So he took his boys.. left his past behind.. to start over.
Things didn't always go so smoothly. Donna had been in-charge of running the house, the schedule, groceries, checkbook, paying the bills, music lessons, doctors' appointments, inoculations, medication for diabetes. The list went on and on. Harold eventually, through the church hired a housekeeper/ nanny Dovy Story. She was no Alice from the Brady Bunch or Mrs. Livingston from Courtship of Eddy's Father but she was reliable, trustworthy, and when our beloved family dog, Susie spent the weekend at Grandma Pelham's house and got herself in the family way, Dovy jumped into action and delivered all of Susie's puppies. including 2 that we kept and eventually gave to Grandma Pelham named Lucky and to Cousin Pat and Ken, named Jason. Both ended up in extremely awesome homes. And as for Susie, that was her first and last litter. Dovy and I bonded and she became another Grandma to me.
In 1974 Bruce graduated high school and moved out on his own. So Dovy's job became sole caretaker of this rambunctious young man on the precipice of his teen years.
On one fateful day Harold was doing a job up in the Antelope Valley with Pacific Bell. He walks into Bank of America on Lancaster boulevard to cash a check..(ATM's had not yet been invented just yet) He cashes a check for a certain undisclosed amount and proceeds to walk out when he spies a well-dressed professional woman sitting at her desk Harold feeling rather confident swaggers over to this cuties desk looks down at her name plate and proceeds:
"Ms. Smallie is it? "
She stares at him, "how may I help you sir"? She asks?
"Can you tell me where I may find a good place to eat around here"?
As she proceeds to write down a list of restaurants
Harold quickly tries to think of his next move
Ms. Smallie hands Harold the list and says "you should find something to your liking on this list.."
Harold then asks "Are you free for lunch? "
Ms. Smallie looks at Harold and says
" I've already had lunch thank you. "
And with a thank you then, Harold started towards the door. But before he could reach the door he heard a voice say, my lunch is from noon to one and the bank number is on the list. Oh, by the way, my name is Charlotte....
The next day Harold called Charlotte and asked her out to lunch. She accepted.
Then they met the following evening In Aqua Dolce for dinner. Several more dinners ensued and they really began getting along famously. For the first time in years Harold felt alive .
But Houston, we have a problem.... what does he do or say about the 12 year old he has back at home?
Charlotte has already raised her children, 2 daughters Kathy and Linda and they are married and have kids of their own.... So why on earth would Charlotte want to get involved with a man who has a 12 year old son? I can't answer that question... you would have to ask her.. I'm not privy to that tidbit of information.
What I do know is Charlotte May Benner Pelham became my mom on April 18, 1975. They were married in Reno NV and honeymooned directly after for which I was not invited to either the wedding nor the honeymoon. I instead, stayed one last time with nanny and surrogate grandma, Dovy Story. I'm so grateful I did as Dovy passed away that fall.
Transitioning into our new lives as the new Pelham family was not an easy for anyone. For me, I had to leave a life and friends behind. For my new mother, she had just finished raising her family and was ready to start her new life. Was she prepared for a developing pubescent boy to now raise? And Harold? I didn't know nor appreciate then as I do now, but of all of us, he had the largest, most difficult job of all. Harold had to balance life at home, a new role as instant grandfather, life on the job, the needs of a 12 year old, the needs of a career woman more educated than he and a grueling 90 minute commute (completed in 45 minutes by my Dad) each and every day for four years. Getting up each and every morning at 4:00am sometimes 3:30am as traffic patterns changed or he needed to get home early to attend a school play, concert I performed in or special event. I never really thought much about it to be honest, I just took it for granted he'd be there. I expected. That's a lot if pressure to place on one person constantly.
As I think back on those years, I now look back with a newer, clearer vision or perspective. I am now older than he was then and it just wears me out to think of the energy expelled each and every day by that man.
In the few short years between 1975 to 1980 for every theatrical event (high school, community college or competition), every concert my garage band performed or competed in, every sport I participated baseball to wrestling to tennis, every scouting event that pushed me forward to that elusive eagle, my Dad was there on the side lines... Cheering me on in his own way. He was my scoutmaster and my driving instructor. He was my Dad. And I miss him. But I was just too self-centered, egocentric or insecure to notice at the time.
Beyond the social activities, Harold was there in my darkest times of need. Starting with the time when i was just a wee young toddler learning how to walk. Harold was doing projects around the house. This one particular incident took place as a very inquisitive toddler entered the room, eyed the Dixie cup, reached for it and proceeded to guzzle said contents (that happened to be turpentine). affecting bodily functions, heart patterns, breathing just to name a few vital things. Well as the story goes, Dad scoops me up in his arms rushing my lifeless body to the front yard sets me down and proceeds to perform CPR on me until the paramedics arrive. Fortunately, I survived.
Another less dramatic but equally compelling event was in February, 1980. My brother Bruce was, engaged and set to marry Marlene Frances in Los Angeles. Now living in Sacramento I decided to drive to Lancaster, having not been back in a while, and stay a couple nights with my parents before the wedding. Well, as I approach the famed Grapevine late night in February, it starts to rain. Doesn't take long for the rain to change to snow. As I start to climb I hear this horrible racket. Like a chain smacking the underbelly of the car. I keep pushing on. I start to lose momentum and the wind is pushing me back. The snow is blowing all around me and i can't see a thing. So I feel it's best not to get too far up the mountain.
Upon pulling over and a few feeble attempts at restarting my Mercury Lynx, I realized I'm going nowhere fast anytime soon.
Sitting on the side of a mountain, with snow swirling around me, I'm thinking Donner Party or something similar. Now the brain is really in hyper overdrive. Too bad my car isn't . Happily the CHP pulls up and asks if everything is OK. With a series of Q & A the officer & I made the decision to have my car towed back to a small town just outside of Bakersfield. By this time the snow is really coming down and I'm starving, tired, cold and want to be home.
After being towed and once again left cold and alone outside an old broken down, locked, and what seemed to be , from peering through the window, an abandoned, auto shop west of Bakersfield, between the 5 & Hwy. 99. I placed, what I thought would be, my last ever, phone call to my Dad. Crawled into the back seat, covered up the best I could with a jacket and suit coat I was to wear to my brother's wedding in two days, making sure the doors were securely locked and drifted off to sleep....
I was abruptly awakened by the sound of a car door slamming shut. Headlights flooding my car, both in and out of my car. Footsteps on gravel moving towards me. My only defense, a crowbar. Car door rattles. It's, locked. He tests the other side..locked! This is it... They want a fight. It is on!
Suddenly, a rap on the window..Thom, open...you're going to freeze out here.
That voice, it's Harold, it's my Dad...But how?!?
I slip out of the back seat , legs feeling numb, dizzy, exhausted and starving.
My Dad pours me hot coca, wraps me in heavy blankets. Bound so tight that I look like the little kid , Randy, in a Christmas Story. The one that was bundled up so much by his mom that couldn't put his arms down. Well, neither could I, but at this point I did not care.
We abandon my car and drive to Lancaster in Dads truck Eventually arriving back home in Lancaster, crawling into my bed. I drift off only to be woken by shaking once again. It's my Dad waking me up. It's the next day. He said come on let's get you something to eat, showered and cleaned up and we'll go check on your car
After a nice hot breakfast. Even hotter shower, got dressed and ready to trek back to the mechanic and learn the fate of my vehicle. To my shock, and amazement, but somehow not really, I discover that while I had been sleeping, my Dad went back to that worn-out auto shop west of Bakersfield, hooked up my car to the back of his using a tow bar and towed my car back to Lancaster to his own mechanic, Smitty for estimates and repair.
It was determined that a timing belt had been snapped and sucked up into the valves causing serious damage. Had I just not attempted to try to re-start the vehicle over and over again, I could of saved myself from serious damage. But no such luck.
I made it to the wedding and reception and got to visit family because my Dad saved me from the perils of the Grapevine.
I had to take one of my parents cars home so mine could be worked on. Parts had to be ordered and flown in and valves rebuilt. It was a long slow process. Eventually though, my car was good as new and ready for the open road. Dad drove my car back to me , in exchange for his Ford double cab pickup truck, that really was my 4ft. 9in. mom's vehicle, and she wanted it back NOW.
This is just one of countless selfless acts of love, human kindness and compassion that was and is Harold Eugene Pelham.
If you ever have a few hours to spare, grab a few cold beverages, preferably Diet Coke like his eldest son Bruce liked or perhaps an R.C. grill some salmon and bake some potato's . This definitely was Harold's favorite type of meal all time for sure. Turn on an Angels ballgame and I'll be happy to tell you more about the man that was my Father.
Finally, I would like to share one last story with you today about my Dad.
At the beginning I shared with you a harrowing story about Harold and his team or men during the Korean war risking their lives coming to the aid of a defector, and disassembling a Russian fighter MIG to, learn more about their capabilities, tactics and secrets and enemy intelligence.
Now flash forward to one of the countless trailer expeditions across country my parents took seeing this great land of ours. One such stop was the aeronautics museum where they have different aircraft on display from different eras and wars and the history of flight. Is it possible they just might have something similar to what he worked on in Korea he thought to himself as they approached the Korean war room. My Dad was shaking as he rounded the corner he could feel her calling to him... Some 40 years later. She was calling to him. His knees began to buckle. Sweat was beading up and trickling down his back. A sudden wave of nausea washes over him and Harold is no longer in the museum but in the rice fields of 1950's Korea.
Charlotte sensing he's overwhelmed, leads him to a bench where he can sit and ponder that night and other events as witnessed by A1C Harold Eugene Pelham. For the rest of his life he would tell this story about finding that MIG after 40 years in the museum.
Harold was a survivor a fighter and a winner. But more than anything, he was my Dad. He supported me through many things in my life and I will miss him terribly. He definitely was one of the good guys and I'd like to think of him as one of my guardian angels now looking down upon me and protecting me.
Fly... Fight... WIN..!!!!
I love you Dad. 'till we meet again
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