Ch. 8, I Love You, Dad

A family story has it that one time in the early fifties King was up at Lake Tahoe working a job. Harrah's Club and Harvey's were the only two clubs back then and he was in Harrah’s club one night when Nat King Cole was appearing there. Mr. Cole asked if anyone in the audience knew how to tap dance and, of course, King (he was an accomplished tap dancer) was right there. He did an opening tap dance act for Nat King Cole. He liked to sing also, but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. His favorite song was “Old Rugged Cross.” He could also whistle very well and played the harmonica often and dabbled with musical keyboards.

King never bought a home in Northern California, and the family moved no less than fifteen times over the next twenty years. The kids never attended the same school for two consecutive years. During that time he had many run-ins with the Unions and some government officials, and this turned into a long running feud that is well documented in the editorial pages of the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento Union newspapers. At a time (circa 1956) when tape recorders of any type were unusual items, King had a miniature unit that strapped on like a shoulder holster, with a wire leading to the microphone concealed in a wristwatch. He used if effectively in his pursuit of justice, providing evidence of council members and judges engaging in illegal activities. It is probably because of this feud that King finally accepted a position with a company located in Riverside California, and he packed up his family in 1963 and moved to the adjacent community of Sunnymead, later to be incorporated as Moreno Valley California.

For the next 35 years, King conducted business as a General Building Contractor, confining himself to federal government contracts. His wife of 56 years passed away in 1998 and he retired to his home on Starcrest Drive in Moreno Valley CA. Eight years later, on June 15th, 2006 King passed away peacefully with his daughter, Sandra, and his granddaughter LaDena at his bedside. King was interred beside his wife, Elsie, at the National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

My father was not a good money manager, but he never seemed to worry about how we would get by. We never owned a home and I know we moved at least fifteen times because that’s how many different schools I attended. The few nice things we did purchase were usually repossessed by the time the third payment came due and I can still picture my mother throwing things at the repo-man and him picking things up off the front lawn. A “knock” on the front door was always answered by a peek out the window before opening.

As poor as we were, my father would give away his last nickel to someone if he perceived them to be more needy than us. When we asked him about this, he would tell us about the sadness of being without as if reflecting on his own childhood and the poverty he grew up in. He always told us not to worry, that “things always work out for the best,” and they always did. We never had a lot, but we always seem to have what we needed.

                                           I Love You, Dad

Next: Epilogue