Almost Full Circle: A Tribute to Dad

By Steven Michael Hubele

Life in America often rushes past us at a blazing speed. In this provocative and witty book, Steven Michael Hubele chronicles some of the events in his life spent with his fifty-year relationship with his father and twenty-five years of experience as a father to his two daughters. His story is full of all the minor disasters and wonderful coincidences that characterize life in the Midwest. Before his life as a published author, Steve took notes and kept track of interesting and sometimes tragic events, but always tried to keep a sense of humor. Brought to life are stories about work, playing golf, and learning how to act from his father in life and in sickness. In his trademark celebratory comment, each story ends with the words, The memories remain. The hope for reading this book is that it brings some peace as a source of merriment. Yesterdays failures and triumphs earn tomorrows joys. Steven Michael Hubele is the author of Almost Full Circle. He lives in Affton, a modest community in St. Louis County, Missouri. He continues to tell more stories and make more memories for his two daughters, just as his father did for him.
Author photograph: by Allison Hubele

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781462842971

Steven Michael Hubele

STEVEN MICHAEL HUBELE, has a bachelor’s degree in Education from Southeast Missouri State University and a master’s degree in Computer Resources Technology from Webster University. A fifty-six-year-old man at time of publication, he has been a father for twenty-six years and this is his first attempt at authoring a book. A former teacher and newspaper carrier, currently a self-employed businessperson, Steven’s hobbies include computers; playing golf; watching Cardinals baseball games; reading books, newspapers, and Barron’s stock reports; and writing. Born in 1954, Steven is divorced, lives in Affton, Missouri, and has two beautiful daughters, Amanda and Allison. For current contact information, send e-mail to [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2010 by Steven Michael Hubele.

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This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

DOWN THE FINAL STRETCH

THE EARLY YEARS

TALK ABOUT A DEFINING MOMENT IN ONE’S LIFE

FATHERHOOD

GOLF AND FISHING

PAPER BOY

DANCING WITH BEES

BAD MEALS

TRIPS TO ALASKA AND HAWAII

EDUCATION

DANGEROUS WATERS

CARDINALS BASEBALL

FAREWELL

FOOTNOTES AND ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During my life, I have received much help along the way. My childhood was a curiously good one, thanks to my parents, George and Audrey Hubele. This book is mostly an earthy recounting of growing up in St. Louis during the 1950s and 1960s, overcoming some tragic events and Midwest life for decades way beyond that. As the years were passing by, change was happening faster than we took the time to notice.

Everything written in this book happened and is true, with a slight bit of embellishment just for fun. My family knew how to have fun.

I would like to thank my sisters, Kathy, Karen, and Patricia, for the abundance of material and experiences we shared during our formative years. Thank you to my daughters, Amanda and Allison, for the experiences during their formative years.

I remain especially grateful to my publisher for significantly broadening the availability of Almost Full Circle, helping to expand its presence from word-of-mouth sales to the online market and brick-and-mortar bookstores. Also, many thanks to the staff at St. Louis County Library and all my teachers through the years at Dressel Kindergarten, St. Simons Elementary, St. John Vianney High School, St. Louis Community College at Meramec, Southeast Missouri State University, and graduate school professors at Webster University.

Thanks to my father, George Walter Hubele, for all the years of a wonderful relationship we had before his death in 2004. Rest in peace.

Thanks to my mother, Audrey Margaret Hubele, for her tremendous courage and all she continues to do for her children and grandchildren, ever since recovering from quintuplet bypass and heart-valve replacement surgery in 2008.

If any readers spot mistakes in this book, please feel free to e-mail me a letter. The mistakes were unintentional.

PREFACE

Ten years have passed since I started writing the manuscript of Almost Full Circle. Writing a book or screenplay is a huge undertaking and a time-consuming project. One must make a commitment not normally needed in everyday life. To write successfully, you have to be alone in a quiet room, with day-to-day chores completed and plenty of available free time on hand to think, with conscious picking and choosing of words to develop and tell your story.

The Bible is the best-selling single-volume book of all time, printed in any language, nearing an estimated seven billion copies. While some claim divine inspiration, other scholars and people of different faith traditions do not accept supernatural authorship, while everyone recognizes centuries of enormous amounts of time and devotion to this great series of works. According to my research, Johannes Gutenberg’s first major work was the printing of the Bible on one of the first movable-type presses in the year 1455.

The list of the three all-time best-selling book series includes Perry Rhodan, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. Perry Rhodan, written in over two thousand versions, penned in German, and first published in 1961 by various authors, sold approximately one billion copies. Star Wars, written in two hundred installments and first published in 1977 by various authors, sold approximately 750 million copies. Harry Potter was first published in 1997 by J. K. Rowling after numerous rejections from other publishers; the earliest six installments sold approximately 500 million copies.

Publisher’s Weekly estimates that over one billion copies of Agatha Christie’s novels sold in English and another billion sold in other languages.

The Poky Little Puppy, authored by Janette Sebring Lowrey in 1942, and Charlotte’s Web, authored by E. B. White in 1952, are two of the all-time best-selling children’s books.

Twenty-first century publishers monitor the performances of self-published books in a sort of Darwinian selection process and see what works rise to the top, like tryouts for the baseball team. Since the onset of YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace, self-publishing is not whimsical anymore.

Just naming the title of a book can be a daunting task. A Funny but Serious Story; Read This, It Might Be a Hit; The World According To Steve; Burdens of Life; and Just for Laughs are just a few titles I kicked around for my book. I decided on Almost Full Circle to be the title in hopes that the reader would want to know more. This book is a piece of work, written from the trenches of my life in honor of my father and mother.

If this story converts into a box-office hit movie, I would like Ron Howard to travel to St. Louis, Missouri, to be the director of the movie. In 2007, state legislators enacted a law that provides a tax break for investors in Missouri-made movies. This author and Ron Howard were born one week apart in March of 1954. Ron is an admired actor, but his work as a director in films and his loyalty to his close-knit family are what seem to make him a happy man. He filmed the movie Cocoon in the Bahamas, so a visit to some remote exotic place is another possibility. Went this far already, what the heck; Brad Pitt, another boy who grew up in Missouri, can play me. If for some reason director Ron Howard and actor Brad Pitt do not get along, I may have blown any opportunities on the first pages of this book. Oh well, risk is part of life and we have to take chances to reap rewards.

INTRODUCTION

My book is dedicated to my parents, George and Audrey Hubele, who helped me through the good times and the bad times growing as a human being living in the Midwest. From my parents, I learned my storytelling skills. The biggest gift they gave to their children was to tell us bedtime stories of the olden days. Dad’s stories usually involved street smarts, exciting stuff like undercover work by spies, submarines blowing up enemy ships, or play-by-play game enactments of past champions with gestures and sound effects. Dad listened when a kid told him a story, too. He made you feel your stories were important.

Mom’s stories usually involved something interesting she read or something she saw on television. Her stories usually involved lessons about good morals or topics she thought good mothers tell their children. She made sure her children did their chores and homework, and because of this, her children knew she cared about them.

Most important, I must thank Harry Dick. Had he not taken the risk of mentoring me during this book-writing process, none of this would be happening. Harry’s contributions are evident throughout the chapters in this book. I would be remiss if I failed to say a simple thank you to him for his vision and patience. Seriously, Harry had nothing to do with the inception of this book, but my father (George) did once sell a life insurance policy to a man named Harry Dick. Sad, but true, that really was his name. What kind of parents would attach such a name to a baby?

Most people have a few defining moments in their lives. Classic stuff such as birth; graduation from high school or college; marriage, career; and our assortment of family, friends, and acquaintances have a huge effect on our lives. We ask ourselves, Who loves me? Where should I work, where is my next paycheck coming from? Do we drive a decent car? Do we have a great view from our condominium or a safe home in a good neighborhood? Are we making a difference in this world? Our lives are unique works of art.

We all have that fire burning inside, but sometimes it just goes away because we never get the opportunity to use it. Sometimes, our spirit is broken, and there does not seem to be any hope for progress. Why do I not get any of the breaks? What is the truth? We could spend a lot of time on debates or discussions central to the development of this concept. However, if we work hard, overcome obstacles, and are honest with ourselves and other people, we will have more opportunities to feel good about our choices. I have learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is by working hard. Whether you are a doctor, writer, athlete, construction worker, or businessperson, there is no substitution for it. If you work hard, you win. If you do not, you will not. Nevertheless, try to have a little fun along the way.

In this book, I will try to tell you about some of the defining moments relating to my life and work experiences. Some of my life experiences were difficult or complicated, while others were routine or simple, but I usually tried to find the humor in things in order to overcome the burdens of life, coming to terms with jobs, marriage, raising children, friendships, and the loss of a loved one. Sometimes, life feels like more of a burden than a benefit. However, it is important to maintain wit and perspective in spite of hardships or losses while continuing to laugh.

This book does not avoid some tough issues. The chapters are somewhat independent of each other, so if one chapter sounds more intriguing, it is all right to skip around from chapter to chapter. However, it is my contention that ultimately, you will want to read all of the chapters because they are entertainingly interesting. Most of the stories have a little humor in them and some have a strange twist to them. Hope you enjoy reading this book, because I loved every minute I spent thinking about it, researching it, and writing it.

DOWN THE FINAL STRETCH

As a young man of seventeen years, George Walter Hubele enlisted in the United States Navy in 1947. He did his basic training at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and, for the next four years, was delegated to work on submarines as a seaman; part of that time, he was bringing supplies to ships during the Korean War. About that same time, a young woman named Audrey handled clerical chores for the St. Louis archbishop and nursing duties for Dr. Reuter, a general practitioner who had an office in the neighborhood where she lived on St. Louis Avenue.

Upon returning to St. Louis, Missouri, after completing his four-year stint in the Navy, George met an attractive young woman named Audrey Margaret Juengst. George of German decent, who grew up on the south side of St. Louis, and Audrey of Irish decent, who was from the north side of St. Louis, were conservative people and were married on April 18, 1953.

As a young married man, George was a sales manager for a large national insurance firm, offering products from a diverse portfolio, but mainly he concentrated on selling life insurance, health plans, and retirement pensions to individuals and business groups. George was a man with the courage of a Navy seaman, the discretion of a judge, the coordination of an athlete, and the patience of a saint. His naturally curly blonde hair and handsome good looks helped his sales appeal during his early career years of the 1950s. His Pentium-chip brain kept track of things and categorized things as good or bad way before computers existed. People, food, cars, stocks, sports teams all made impressions on him, good and bad.

Four years before getting married, Mom graduated from Laboure High School in 1948, ranked third in a class of eighty-five students, which carried as its reward an offer of a scholarship to St. Louis University, an offer she never accepted, opting to take care of her father. Her father died quite young, long before I was born, due to a long battle with lung cancer, possibly caused by exposure to printing inks and other chemicals at his work site.

Audrey kept her short brown hair combed back and wore little makeup, and her complexion had a soft, healthy glow to it. Audrey’s early part of her marriage to George was mostly spent as child-bearing years, raising four children: Steven (me, the oldest), Kathy (the oldest girl), Karen (middle child), and Patricia (the baby). Audrey (Mom) spent most of her time cooking meals, doing laundry, cleaning house, breaking up arguments, and trying to set aside some time to read books. Mom loved to read books, all kinds of books. She held our family together by being kind, sincere, and loving. She was entirely without suspicion, did not spread rumors, and never said a bad word about another person.

Because Dad had a strong Midwest work ethic, working from sunup to sundown, my sisters and I were better off than most people of our socioeconomic background were. Our house was a cozy place with food in the refrigerator, plenty of books and magazines to read, notes with a daily list of each child’s chores, and a modest amount of clothes to toss around the two shared bedrooms.

The entire subdivision sat parallel to Kohler’s truck farm, an example of a family business that still existed, working the fields in the Heartland of America. Mr. and Mrs. Kohler and their eighty-year-old mother worked the fields of the ten-acre truck farm, wearing large straw hats to protect their faces from the sun as they picked mostly tomatoes and strawberries. Atop the hill next to the farm, our house was the first address on Lawnbrook Drive, east of Baptist Church Road on the south side of St. Louis County. The Pevely Dairy milkman delivered milk (usually two gallons of 2 percent), processed at the Grand Avenue city location, to our front porch on Mondays and Thursdays.

Our house was a ranch-style house with a coarse gray-shingled siding, asphalt roof, and green shutters built on a larger lot than most, with the biggest backyard in the subdivision. The backyard doubled as the neighborhood athletic field; we played football and soccer during the winter, while we played baseball and softball in the summer. Games ended when Mom decided it was time for all kids to go home to eat dinner. The only downside to Mom’s cooking was the smell of the kitchen on the nights we had to eat rush and puff for dinner. This recipe has been in my Mom’s family since my grandmother got it from her mother. Rush and puff (my sisters and I called it ruff and tough . . . we would rather eat fruitcake), served about once per week, was Mom’s version of a noodle casserole, a mixture of fresh or canned green peas, fresh broccoli, long stringy flat lasagna noodles, and a special cheese sauce without the sesame seed bun.

Just eat a little bit and leave what you do not like, Mom would say.

We don’t like any of it, Mom, my sisters and I would say in perfect unison.

Sprinkling on lots of salt and pepper, pinching your nose closed, and rushing to eat this stuff did not make it taste better, but feeding it to the dog or unsuccessfully attempting to wrap it up and smoke it, did ease our pain.

Dad brought our dog, a purebred beagle, home from work one hot summer day as a surprise. Her name was Bitsy; this was a combination of Mom’s preferred choice of naming her Little Bits (she was a tiny toy beagle) and Dad’s choice of naming her Shitsie (she pooped a lot). The beagle became the most popular purebred dog in 1954 America, according to the American Kennel Club. The cocker spaniel ruled for the seventeen previous years. Approximately fifty thousand purebred beagles roamed America and another twenty million mutts (some barked louder and pooped more than the purebreds) claimed part-beagle status. In the Midwest, if you feed your dog, give it water, and take your dog for an occasional walk, you treated your dog well. In Beverly Hills, Ca, where things are sometimes weirdly different, people pay one hundred dollars