Chapter One

He was there, in the depth of my earliest memory.
He had always been with me, and would reside with me through my childhood and adult life. Yet I spent my entire life searching for him. My family claims they aren't memories at all, but something that was placed in my head by photos or stories that were told to me months, even years after his departure. Sometimes I even doubt myself. I was only two and a half. How could real memories exist in ones mind from that young of an age?

I should have known then, that the truth would be hard to find. I should have guessed that I may never find the entire truth. I also knew in the depth of my soul that I had to try finding him, or die from the pain of being separated. He was, after all, part of me. He was the part of me that remained only in my mind. He was a mystery—a mystery that I called 'daddy'.

Chapter Two

It was Christmas morning, 1967. I slept in the Granddaddy's room. When I awoke mother was asleep beside me under the thickness of several quilts and yellow cotton sheets.

The Grandmother and Granddaddy were in the 'blue' room with the pretty picture of a lighthouse hanging over their bed. My little snubbed, upturned nose was cold. It was the only body part that I allowed uncovered. I even slept with the tattered old feather pillow over my head.

With small fists I rubbed the blurriness of sleep out of my eyes. Adjusting my eyes to the dim early-morning light, the first thing in focus was the pink and blue label of "Johnson's" baby powder. It was perched out of reach on the polished cherry high-boy dresser.

The cold morning was reflected as twilight seeping through the half-opened, thick velvety green drapes. They hung on both windows shutting out the icy winter & steel blue morning. The grandmother hated waste. Heat through the night was not an option.

From the draft, I knew that the weather outside was freezing cold. I jumped out of bed gingerly, dreading the first touch of my little feet to the wooden floor about two feet from the bed. I tiptoed on the carpet and then hurried across the frigid, glossy pine floor to the next carpeted area. Scurrying passed the pink tiled bathroom I noticed the living room door was open. Forgetting the cold wood, I stopped dead in my tracks and looked into the living-room. Something was out of place.

The huge, white wooden door to this room was normally closed. Even at two I had learned my lesson; I was never allowed to enter--except with an adult. The eight foot long picture window allowed the winter to seep in the drab-green carpeted room causing an intense chill that reached to the doorway. Suspiciously I peeked in, not daring to cross the threshold.

Then I saw her. A golden haired beauty - sitting under a glistening silver tree adorned with twinkling blue balls. Her big blue eyes and crisp lacy-snow-white dress beckoned me to come in.

For a moment I forgot the house rules and I ran to pick her up.
Fear of the paddle (formerly a paddle-ball game, minus the ball) on my still diapered hinny, caused my little heart to beat rapidly, and slowed me down to a halt just before I reached her.

I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and I froze. I knew I was not alone. Shivering, not just from the cold winter morning, I looked around to see what trouble I had made for myself.

He was there.
He was sitting in the blue-cold morning light--without heat--covered with a quilt of left-over nylon fifty's and sixty's dress-material. In the Grandfather's nylon-army green chair, he had been quietly reading the newspaper. Still shivering, now with fear in my dark brown eyes, I looked up at him.

He put the paper down, cocked his head sideways towards the doll and smiled. "It's ok," he whispered. "That's yours". He and nodded thoughtfully, giving me the go ahead.

I looked into his twinkling big golden-brown eyes as he looked into mine. Our eyes were exactly the same. A mirror image as we caught that moment's glance, only mine were a miniature replica of his.

I was still standing there, turned to stone, and scared to touch anything in the grandmother's living room. "Go ahead pick her up, you can play with her, she's yours, it's CHRISTMAS".

As I lifted the golden-haired doll up from her perch under the silver & blue tree, she became the most important thing to me--and he just faded away.

The picture on left shows an excerpt of daddy's actual HANDWRITING and a sample of his journals 'frozen in time' before his death in 1968. Names, times, places and people...and of course car designs are mentioned in these letters, notes, journals and drawings...and I have had them left behind to place in the puzzle of history..... NOW you too can be a part of the creating and molding of history... you can be a part of the PHIL CLARK STORY. Thank you for your support! Tell all of your friends!