My father was a man of many sayings. One of Fred Montney's popular commentary prefaces was, "That's nothing but pure unadulterated bullshit." I recently wondered if the usage of these two adjectives was a redundancy. After looking the word up again, I learned that "unadulterated" is also a synonym for "complete." (from hypercorrect.com)
My Dad told me he was #2 "Born an Old Man." Some of my cousins called him "Uncle Bud." He was typically known as "quite the character." A few wrote him off by saying that they just couldn't take all the bullshit anymore. If somebody was giving us too much lip service, Dad's response was #3 "Fuck him AND his bullshit." Many of his sayings are not original, but he usually had a unique way of customizing it for his life. Some sayings are not correct as originally used, but again, Dad had a way of customizing it.
He had a lot of talent for playing the mouth organ. #4 He claimed that on the front lines of the Battle of Okinawa, he and a few of his buddies got drunk one night on some Saki they found and sang Marine Corps songs throughout the night as Fred played the mouth organ. Being ignored by the Japanese, the American officers, not sure of what to do in the situation also decided to ignore them for the evening. This and similar stories may explain why after two years in WWII, he was discharged at the rank of PFC.
Late in life he remorsefully commented that #5 he considered himself a complete fucking failure in life.
Nearly all the information on this web site is from my recollection, useless otherwise noted. The site will grow in size as I continue to add more sayings. I began building the site on October 17, 2009 and had previously made a calendar of saying, plus a few more, totaling a little over 500. I have a goal of 1000, and if by chance I live long enough, who knows what the final total will be...
Fred was born in Michigan in the year 1919 and died in Wisconsin in 1998. He was quite the drinker and would tell his listener that #6 he drank enough to "float you" down the Mississippi river. Fred was 33 when I was born. He told many more than me that #7 he gave up drinking once he took his first look at me.
I asked my dear Mom to collaborate on this project with me, but she respectfully declined. (By the way, she is going to be 90 this year). Although the nature of these sayings and storied will often be vulgar and crass, my intention is to simply tell an interesting and often funny story of the man who I originally called "Daddy."
It would take quite a few books to define Fred Montney's life. I wish I had a buck for everyone that told me, "You oughta write a book about your old man."
At his funeral, the minister began by saying that if you knew Fred Montney, he may have told you that he was in the Marine Corps. Us kids often said that Dad could strike up a casual conversation with a stranger and end up telling him his life story.
Quite early in life he mastered carpentry and supported our family mainly as an independent contractor, specializing in garage building. He owned several restaurants in his life too. He said of us kids, #7 if my family had backed me, I would have been a wealthy man.
His most successful streak at business was Montney's Cafe of Waukesha, 1975 - 1988. He graciously gave me the credit for helping him stay in business the last dozen years of his working life. He tried many businesses that failed before the first year.
I was the youngest of seven children. There were 20 grandkids, jesting that #8 the only reason he had kids was so that he could have grand kids. There were over 45 great grand kids and my Mom said she's not sure of the total of the great great grand kids. He is probably smiling in the here-after knowing that the end of the earth itself will be the only way to end his gene pool.
He quoted his father Menzo saying that his old man tagged him with the nickname "old faithful" in his final years of life. I can recall in my dad's final years, when we came to visit him for the day, a few hours’ drive one way, saying that we really made his day and wished he didn't live so far away from us. The other side of the coin on this story is that he'd like to argue about how we came up, whether by interstate or the back roads. I would ask why it mattered, we were there, and that's all that should matter. Eventually I just told him we came up the back roads, and he knew I was lying. He grew up in the pre-interstate era, and loved traveling the back roads.
He often talked about growing up in the depression, having only a 7th grade education. The first 5 of his children were born in the Muskegon, MI area. My older sister Judy was born in Pewaukee, and I was born in Milwaukee. He was a classic example of white flight when he moved from Milwaukee to Waukesha in 1959.
I don't recall any role models he may have had. He was very independent in almost everything he did. He did look up to the educated clergy, and maybe this being a rare example of him as a follower.
He was often an inspiration to people. One of his employees said that without him, her life would have collapsed. My favorite saying of his and to my peril, I wish I had lived by it more often, was his two rules of life: #9 "Don't sweat the small shit and most shit is small shit."
I obviously observed many of his short comings as others observe mine, but I was impressed with the notion that my dad was a man of fairness. Considering the era he was raised in, there were no prejudices that stood out.
He referred to his 60s and the point in life when things #10 really began to wind down. He considered it a partial success in live when he made it to the #11 three score and ten mark. He sadly considered his mid 70s as the time in life, #12 waiting to die.
In his last days he was still haunted about the fact that he had to kill the enemy soldiers in the war. He stated that his greatest fear was not knowing what lie in the here-after. I was amused in college when I studied that Socrates considered this the biggest mistake in life, fearing what we don't know. Well, Dad never considered himself a philosopher.
He considered life precious. When facing what seemed to be unmountable pressure, he kidded that #13 he'd like to commit suicide, but didn't have the guts.
His dream in life was to build a family company. The closest to that reality was his restaurant in Watertown, WI. I recall mom and all of us kids working in that joint. Pat was the exception, but she worked in a restaurant he had in Michigan. He had no sense of business, but had an amazing insight for knowing if there was a market for this or that. He was as positive as possible about future success of any business he tried, claiming that #14 soon there would be brinks trucks needed to take the profits to the bank. Unfortunately the reality was that he carried the daily take from the cash register around in his pants pocket, dishing out money here and there with no actual written records.
We lived in times when mental illness was simply called having a nervous breakdown. When any of us seemed to be stressed out, he told us that we #15 probably needed to go down and have our head examined.
Another contracting specialty of his was remodeling. When he faced a complex job, he said a few times that the #16 solution to the plan came to him in a dream the night before, and this was no joke to him. He had a great sense of humor and he busted a gut when I told him that some morning he was going to wake up telling all of us in the family that his plan was to move to Egypt.
As I complete this introduction, I'd like to follow in his example of having a positive mental attitude and hope for a web site to be enjoyed by many.
To any reader, I humbly submit that if anything on this site is not factually correct in your opinion, please do not hesitate to discuss it with me... russ.org is an unlimited alias, so just drop me an e-mail.
My oldest observation of Daddy was a chubby man in his late 30s. My mom provided a little information about his life growing up near Detroit. He was sent to a reform school for stealing a pair of shoes. He explained to me that he was #17 in the school for about a month and the schoolmasters seemed to find a way, everyday, to have cause to give him a whipping. I can't imagine life at the time of the depression with corporal punishment of boys sanctioned by the government. He further detailed that he #18 ran into the boy that got him in trouble in the first place. When this boy had a new plan to steal a bike, young Fred smashed him in the mouth. Mom says Dad's mom got him out of the school and the family moved to Western Michigan. He quit school before completing 8th grade and began working. My aunts and uncles tell of how he, while in his mid teens, used his income to help the family, although his dad was blessed with a fairly good job during the depression.
He was married in 1938. Our oldest brother died in infancy. #19 He once confessed to the fact that Fred Jr. was conceived out of wedlock, yet he could laugh about the fact that we had already done the math (they were married in March, and Fred Jr. was born in August). He didn't talk much about it, but he may have believed that Fred Jr.'s death was God's punishment for the pre wedlock conception. I'll probably devote a whole chapter (if not another book) on the influence that religion had on Fred's life.
As a boy, I always compared the 33 years of difference between me and Dad. So as he approached his 40s, I would have been about 7. I guess we all have younger impression of ourselves, but when I considered myself when in my kids preteen years, I seemed but a kid. But my impression of dad when I was preteen was a man well weathered by life. So, I agree with Dad, maybe he was born an old man.
My Mother had me swear to her never to tell this story in Dad's lifetime, but in the years before I was born, she was about to leave dad. This was after the war, so the story of how Dad came to her crying on his hands and knees begging her not to leave him was quite revealing about the tough man who attacked Okinawa. This may have been the stimulus for him to quit drinking and religion probably had a bit to do with it too. I never remember my dad taking a drink, the complete opposite of my oldest siblings. Whatever all the people seek as the secret to quit drinking, my dad found and was sober all his life while I was alive.
Dad talked of how he had two families. Of the six of us who survived, he would say, I had a boy-girl-boy before the war and a boy-girl-boy after the war. In fact the two groups of us were exactly apart in years. Each of us and the counterpart before and after the war were born 9 years apart: Chuck and Tom - 1938-1949, the girls 1941-1950, Roger and me - 1944-1953. So in both groups the genders were the same and the spans were three years apart between kids. The two groups were in fact the pre-baby boomers and the baby boomers. I'm sure my parents always had the oldest in mind. When my brother Chuck died in 2004, the first thing my mom said to me was "the fourth funeral" meaning Dad and the three oldest boys were now gone. We were all together for only a few years, I and can barely remember the time when Chuck went into the Marines. They became empty nesters when I went off to college in Madison in 1971, a very emotional time for my Mom, and probably for Dad too. I had a poster of a few of their sayings about life posted on my wall. My Dad appreciated that I told him that the lessons of life he gave me were more important than anything I'd learn in class.
Dad bore the guilt of how he thought his drinking years influenced Chuck. My sisters and I were the only non-drinkers in the family, and Chuck's problems because of drinking went well into his years beyond the time his kids were adults. Dad sacrificed much of his resources in his later years to bail Chuck out of trouble, actually and figuratively. No matter what the cost was to Dad and Mom, Dad would simply say, "I gotta help my son." We non-drinkers realized it was just a case of enabling.
Dad was always there for the underdog, and seemed to enjoy the underdog status himself. His dream was to become someone like Dave Thomas. He relished in the idea that he started with nothing, and had the potential to compete with the big boys. He recounted a story with pride about the boy scouts in which there was a contest to find wood samples of the local area. His project was well done and homemade. Another scout had a project that was obviously professionally done and his parents paying for it. In the end, Dad's project won. A similar thing happened with my son and me and Dad was tickled to learn of it and compare both his and my story.
(It will just be a gut decision whether to put a number to a story or not. I'd like the numbered stories to have either a saying attached or a moral lesson from Fred himself.) Once Dad and Uncle Buster, the next youngest brother, were going to throw a firecracker near some young ladies as a prank. The inside windows of the car they were riding were recently cleaned. Buster thought the window was down and went to toss the fire cracker. Plink, plop, the firecracker landed on the floor of the truck with Bud and Buster grimacing and waiting for the big bang, both rising as far out of the seats as possible. He said after the explosion, he couldn't hear for a week.
Although he never attended high school, he encouraged his children to go to school and we all were high school graduates and some of us graduated from colleges.
Dad was very personable. Who knows where any of us get our traits from, whether it be hereditary, the way we are wired, or developmental. He came across to others as a kind man, especially the shy. He did well to hide the angry side of himself to others, especially those outside the categories of family, neighbors, work associates, regular social contacts, etc. He hated too faced people, but was a great actor himself when it came to being around religious people.
Dad was a very forgiving man too. He could easily drop a grudge or bury the axe, but would say #20 maybe the axe will get buried in someone's heads. Although, he wasn't flippant about it. He detested the type of person who would insult you one day and the next day act as if nothing ever happened. There were plenty of examples of my life in which the forgiveness was as if the matter was forgotten. I never did act like nothing happened and he appreciated that and I was grateful for his mercy.
Dad never seemed to have his dad as a role model. But, he liked his old man's candidness. When Dad returned from the war with the double Purple Heart award, Menzo had to have this explained to him. Menzo served in the Marines during the Chinese boxer rebellion. When Dad revealed to him that the award was for getting wounded more than once, Menzo laughed, "I'll be damned, give a medal for getting shot. Any asshole can get shot! They should give you a medal for not getting shot."
Menzo died by the time I was seven. I once tried to make the association between Dad and Archie Bunker. My Dad wasn't intimidated but said that Menzo was the classic Archie. Dad was probably more like Red Fox.
Religion was a major influence in his life. I'm sure he could have refused recantation at the threat of death. However, do his dying day, he doubted his own salvation and never felt forgiven for killing the enemy. I tried at best to explain to him the difference in the Bible between murder and kill. The Old King James used the words kill and slew. So the word kill could mean both murder and justifiable defense depending on the age of translation that was used. Very early, Dad became the classic church hopper, and to his defense I'll argue today that maybe this was a normal reaction to the all the crap the church tries to pump down the throats of the uneducated. Dad was always humble when someone with some education came to his defense when confronted with someone trying to use their education as an advantage. As he would chide to the arrogant, #21 "Be careful using those big words, you may choke on them."
Dad had a good balance of how he used his time between work and play, but erred on the side of working just enough to survive. If any of us complained about the conditions, he would ask us if we'd ever been starving. Times were tough in these pre war years. Once he asked me if I'd ever been hungry. I cracked him up when I responded by saying that I wasn't sure if I was ever full. Dad felt his obligation complete if he simply fed his family. He used to say he’d work eight jobs if it meant helping his kids with school cost. Fortunately for him none of us were ever a burden in that regard.
He worked in Milwaukee and Chicago before his final move away from his home state of Michigan. For some reason there was nothing in Michigan that compelled him to return. I'm pretty sure this is a borrowed quotation, but he would say that #22 if God gave the world an enema, he'd put the point in Michigan.
The first move to Wisconsin was in 1950. It was Menzo's practice to buy a house on land contract and take advantage of how long it took for a Bank or the owner of the land contract to repossess. Dad followed in Menzo's footsteps and let the house that I was born go to repossession. He followed this up with another land contract in Muskegon on Apple Avenue. He abandoned this house too. It was this house that I have my first memories of Daddy.
I didn't want to go to kindergarten. Daddy suggested that I go the first day and check it out, hoping I'd like the social interaction. After the first day and back home, I let Daddy know that I tried it and didn't like it, and wouldn't be going back. I'm sure he was amused to have to explain to me the facts of compulsory education. I can recall looking at him and maybe screaming, "You lied!" The next day at school was all day cry. I don't recall him making a big deal of this. He probably just figured I'd get over it.
The Apple Avenue property was far East of the city. There were a lot of acres to run and play. I believe it bordered some utility company property, so we had this vast playground at our disposal. I can't recall what I did, but I remember running away from the house thinking that I could get lost forever. He yelled at me to stop and get back in the house. He had spoiled me compared to the older siblings. I returned to the house thinking that there was no threat.
One thing he didn't like was a steady job. Contracting freed him of this. Again I cracked him up with the apparent quote from Lawrence of Arabia, saying that the most relaxing thing ever done was to take orders from fools. If the pay was good enough, I'm sure he would have become a working stiff. I think his final analysis was that if he could work as a contractor a total of 6 months a year and make the same as a working stiff, he had double the deal. He considered the working stiff the easy way out, but I'm sure he hated the daily routine throughout the year of a regular job schedule and a boss. My Mom once suggested that #23 he should have been a minister, he responded "You're fucking right." If asked why some ministers take the positions they do, he'd simply say, "the pay is good." #24 "The pay is good" was his justification that everyone has their price.
His work and recreational life was the classic week and weekend schedule. Later in life, work was simply done when convenient or when the weather was good.
He was somewhat of a Methodist in those days. He wanted people to think he had rock bottom faith in the Bible. #25 He referred to Bible interpretation as "reading between the lines." If he were alive today, I'm sure I'd crack him up by telling him that he was right, all you need to know about religion is there between the lines, blank space. Had he got better training, he may have been quite good at theology. Maybe work and play took too much time for him to spend time on religion. His recreational life nearly always involved his own family. He had the occasional weekend hunting or fishing trip, and that was usually with his sons.
Dad never wanted to follow his Dad as a working stiff. Social Security and pensions were not so great in those days, so Dad chose the independent contractor life. Most of his jobs in those days were sub contracting. He seemed to be able to take orders from other contractors or the customers directly, so it seemed that the hourly, daily, yearly routine was what he hated about a job. My three older brothers all followed Dad in carpentry, construction and contracting. He never had any expectation for us, but relished in the idea that we could do better than he did. And isn't that how it all worked out? The kids of the baby boomers were probably the first generation that didn't do better than their parents.
He was very candid with all of us about how the kids fit in the pecking order. He actually talked about a #26 "scum club." This was when a son crossed the line regarding disrespect and the membership in the club was unpardonable. We can draw our conclusions about the order that the sons got into the club. Roger was first, and Chuck and I shortly followed. Tom finally made in much later when we were all older adults. Before Tom’s time, Dad constantly harped, “one who respected me, three who didn’t.
Dad cherished the respect he had for Menzo despite how he felt about his dad's character, which he often described as mean and miserable. The closest he ever came to violating that relationship with his dad was a time when Menzo was living with us in his last days. Menzo would stay in bed most of the day and Dad suggested he get up and out and maybe let a little stink blow off. Menzo called him a "fucking punk." When my Dad told me this story as a young boy, my reaction was, "ah hah, that's where Dad got that phrase from that uses so often towards us. He threatened us that we'd regret the day he died, because of how we disrespected him. This was so true in the early days. But, in his last years we buried the axe and this wasn't an issue to him anymore. He died believing that finally after over 50 years, I had finally grown up. He pardoned me from the scum club.
He had a hernia problem before the war. Going into the service gave him the medical care for this. My sister feels he could have used the medical excuse to refrain from going to war. In our family line were a lot of military people. He was a deeply patriotic man and had no reservations about serving and possibly dying for his country. He'd often say, #26 "If you appreciate your freedom, shake the hand of a vet."
Dad put a high premium on getting a reaction out of someone about something funny. My fondest memory of this is when I could do the same to him.
Dad's idea of a sport was fishing and hunting. He claimed to be a pretty good hitter in softball, and I kinda followed him in that respect in little league. He quickly established a set point weight of just fewer than 250. He wasn't a runner or jogger, so his game sports precipitation was almost none. He got back to his teen weight when he was recovering from five wounds in the war, but quickly got back to the old weight after the war. He'd often say the only time he'd go running was if he'd have to chase down a dollar bill that blew away from him.
I can recall in Waukesha him going off to work in the morning on a job. Other kids at school would tell me WHERE their dads worked, and I'd have no answer but to say he constructs stuff here and there.
He came back from the war with a 40% disability pension. He had lost a lot of muscle tissue on one side of his back. He often worked with a corset. Without a family he may have been tempted to survive on the measly pension. The pension did put a reasonable amount on the table and he contracted for the rest of our needs. My older siblings did with much less than he provided for us younger ones, but that's probably true with many large families of our era, the youngest were spoiled.