Father and Son

Father and Son
Originally uploaded by JaySeaAre.

Duane and Elbert Ratliff.

This B&W picture was taken in the early 1980's when my dad, Duane, moved back to his boyhood home of Middletown, Indiana to assume the management of the family business, Valley View Golf Course. In the early 1960's, my grandfather, Elbert VanDyne Ratliff along with his wife, Vivian and a handful of friends from the rural community, worked the land on the family's dairy farm to change it into an 18-hole golf course.

It never seemed to me that the transfer of ownership and the handing over of the reins of daily management at the golf course was an easy one for Dad and Grandpa, as is the case with many transfers of the old guard to the new, but when I came across this photo that my dad likely developed and printed in his darkroom, it . . . well, it had a lot of emotion for me because I don't recall ever seeing a photo of them together where they were even close to an embrace. And they seem happy and at ease together.

Also of note is the leather 3-ring binder in the background. It is emblematic of many of my dad's possessions in that it is decades old (likely from the 1960's), clearly used but well cared for and in perfect working order, it smells like the combination of sterile veterinary supplies and mildew that permeated dad's basement workshop, and most of all, it has that little leather zipper pull tab. One of dad's MANY hobbies included leather working. These tabs were not works of art like some of his handywork, but he made these little leather tabs to improve the ease of pulling a zipper for everything from golf bags, to parkas to duffle bags to shotgun carrying cases to 3-ring binders. And the leather he used always matched the item in style, thickness and length.