NORTHFIELD, Ohio – What do you think when you look at your father’s tombstone?
It’s a dangerous and painful question for many of us whose fathers had problems. Some of us may not even know what happened to our biological fathers.
Those of us who are fathers can become frightened when we turn that question around: What will our children think when they look at our tombstone? It’s a scary question on Father’s Day, but one worth asking. That’s especially true for those of us who still have time to nurture relationships with our children, regardless of their age.
I’d settle for this answer: My father did the best he could with what he had.
That’s what I thought when I visited my parents’ grave last weekend at All Saints Cemetery in Northfield.
HUSBAND
TOM C. Jr.
FEB 11, 1920
FEB 11, 1998.
My mother died in 1984. My father picked out the gravesite and tombstone. He kept it small and brief. He was like that. Why waste the money? He wasn’t going to be around to see his own tombstone, right?
As I stared at my father’s marker, I said a prayer of thanks for having a father who remained in my life. He could be moody and sarcastic, or fall into long periods of silence. But he always was there, a man of his word. My father wasn’t always on time, he was perpetually 10 minutes early. I always knew I could count on him, perhaps the best blessing he gave me.
He hated credit cards.
He poisoned me against drinking: “I work at the warehouse with all these jakes. They get paid Friday, stop at the bar and leave half their paychecks there before they get home.”
Every Sunday he took me to church. My mother seldom went. They were from two different religious backgrounds. As we headed to church, he wore a fedora hat, a dress shirt and tie.
“You put money in the (collection) basket, you be thankful," he’d say.
It was just like he went to work every day and was grateful for it, even though he sometimes hated his job.
Tom and Terry Pluto from about 1965. Pluto Family Collection.
BORN 100 YEARS AGO
As I looked at my father’s grave, I didn’t dwell on the fact he died exactly on his 78th birthday after a nearly five-year battle after a major stroke.
Instead, I thought about him being born a century ago: Feb. 11, 1920. He was born during spring training in a year the Indians won the World Series. He wasn’t old enough to go to what would become his beloved League Park.
He became a Tribe fan in the 1930s, when the Depression not only flattened the economy but also his favorite baseball team. He took a street car to see the Indians. He was a member of the “Knot Hole Gang” of kids who watched the games through holes in the fence.
My mother and father argued a lot about money. She liked to spend. He didn’t.
“You are going to drive us into the poorhouse,” he yelled at her when I was a kid in the 1960s. At the time, I didn’t realize he had lived though 25 percent unemployment and “long soup lines,” as he called them.
He was in the Army during World War II. He never went overseas, but traveled to bases from Maryland to Washington state to California. He worked in what he called “reconditioning” with soldiers who came home and were recovering from their wounds.
He loved Santa Barbara and wanted to stay in California after the war. But his family was in Cleveland. He knew he could get a job in Cleveland. He was shaped by the Depression, World War II and growing up in a Slovak home where English was a second language. He didn’t want to take any chances in California.
Tom Pluto loved listening to Pete Franklin (above), the legendary Cleveland sports talk show host. Cleveland Plain Dealer
MY FATHER’S DREAM
Several years ago, I received an email from a friend who saw a 1940 Benedictine High School yearbook. It read: “Tom’s pass-snaring in the Parma game climaxed his football career. By the way, Tom, don’t forget to give the Bengals a blow when you become sports editor of the Press. What a slick blue buggy you’ve got, Tom.”
My father loved sports and played a summer of Class D independent minor-league baseball in West Virginia before enlisting in the Army. He also played on some teams with major leaguers when in the Army. He always told me, “You have no idea how good those guys are.”
He was so proud of my older brother, Tom, who was a terrific baseball player at Benedictine and later a coach at Cleveland Central Catholic.
My father worked at the old Fisher-Fazio warehouse. I also had summer jobs there for a few years. He wanted me to learn the world of hard work at an early age. He took me to Indians games. We’d listen to Pete Franklin doing his pregame “clubhouse confidential” show on the radio. Then we’d listen to Franklin’s post-game show on the way home. He loved Franklin.
We’d play catch in the backyard. He’d fall asleep on the couch watching baseball on TV. His snoring made the walls of our small Parma home shake.
HE WAS THE FOUNDATION
He told me about getting up early in the morning to deliver The Plain Dealer in the 1930s. But he never said a word about wanting to write or work for the Cleveland Press.
I came along in 1955, so perhaps by then his life was set. A steady job was about all he could expect. My father watched me become a sports writer in Cleveland. He wasn’t one to say, “I’m proud of you,” but I knew it was true.
As I stood over my father’s grave, I remembered when I was small and going to Tribe games. We’d walk down the West 3rd Street Bridge to the old Cleveland Stadium. He’d put me up on his shoulders so I could see the ballpark and Lake Erie in the distance.
Even 22 years after his death, I still feel like I’m on his shoulders. He gave me the life he never could have had – and I’m grateful for it.
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