Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Your Most Vivid Memory of Your Father

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

It's Saturday Night again -

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along - cue the Mission Impossible music!):

1)  It's Father's Day in the USA on Sunday, so let's talk about our fathers.

2)  What is your most vivid memory of your father?

3)  Write your own blog post, or leave a comment on this post, or write something on Facebook.

Here's mine:

My father, Frederick Walton Seaver, Jr. (1911-1983), was very competitive.  He loved all sports, whether team sports or individual sports.  In high school in Leominster, Massachusetts, he played baseball, football and basketball.  He was injured in his first year at Dartmouth College - I think it was a sprained knee playing football.  In baseball, he was a catcher.  

He played duckpin bowling as a young man in New England.  When he came to San Diego in 1940, he soon joined a tenpin bowling league and became quite proficient, averaging about 195 a game (300 is perfect) in the 1950 to 1970 time frame in San Diego leagues.  He bowled in San Diego City and California State Bowling tournaments.  The San Diego Union newspaper had weekly bowling articles in the 1950 to 1970 time frame, and he is mentioned often  in them.

My father was always a Boston Red Sox fan.  I don't know if he ever went to a game in Boston.  I am sure he listened to many games on the radio as a young man.  When he came to San Diego, he listened to the minor league Padres games until we got a major league team in 1969. Padres games were always on the radio, and occasionally on television on the Game of the Week.  I don't recall ever going to a baseball game with him.  

The San Diego Chargers started playing AFL football in 1961, and were pretty good.  We all watched the Sunday games on television, read the newspaper stories, and rooted on our home town team.  My parents had season tickets at San Diego Stadium in the 1970s.  

At home, he built a brick area in the back yard for three growing and active boys, with a basketball net, and a ping-pong table.  The brickyard wasn't very big (maybe 20 feet by 20 feet?) and was surrounded by a two story house, a wall, a garden fence, and another garden area.  We also played whiffle ball in this small area.  

I think the most fun, and aggravating, time he had was coaching baseball.  The Mike Morrow Little League started in 1957 when my brother Stan was 10 years old.  My dad was the manager for the 10-12 year-olds for three years, then moved on to Pony League when Stan was 13-14, and Colt League when he was 15-16.  When my brother Scott was 8 in 1964, the Little League, Pony League and Colt League cycle repeated.  My father spent hours at the fields in northeastern Balboa Park, dragging the field, working on the pitching mounds, cleaning up the dugouts, etc.  He loved the strategy of the game, and encouraged bunting and stealing bases.  This was a twice-a-week activity for April through June for all of us - my mother rooted for the team and worked in the snack bar, I kept score and coached, and brother Stan and brother Scott played.  

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