It would be a major oversight to talk about Mitch’s mom and not his dad. You see Mitch’s father grew up dirt poor on a farm. Sure his father had land to till and grow crops for the family on, but this was shortly after the Great Depression, so it was not like it was a very profitable farm. And when Mitch’s father was just 9 years old, he lost his father. His mother lost her husband and soon after lost the land the family owned in rural Pennsylvania, which brings us the connection as to why Mitch’s parents had relocated to Pennsylvania. It gave his father an opportunity to return home in a way, even though they ended up living in a town where Mitch’s father spent his life after his father passed, and not where he was born.
Lewis Smith, who ended up becoming a senior after having his first son Lewis Jr with Mitch’s mom, lived a life of mass employment. In his younger days he could work a job, decide to quit and go up the street and be employed again all in the same day. Trying to do that these days is much tougher and not something one really should try to do. And when you add in that Mitch’s father did not go past 9th grade in school, you can see how that would be even more challenging today.
The breadth of work he performed over his lifetime was something to be admired. He was assistant manager of a Wooworth’s store in Williamsport, Pennsylvania at just 16 years old. He went on to do roadside service changing truck tires for major brands like Goodyear and Bastian tires. Lewis would also work as a mechanic, a building maintenance man for multiple hotels and even manager for multiple apartment buildings. And let’s not forget a short order cook among a laundry list of other jobs. The saying is to be a jack of all trades and master of none only partially applied to Lewis. You see he actually mastered every job he held. This would go on to be a trade that Mitch would inherit from his father, to learn every facet of every job he held. And it did not matter if it was a volunteer position or a paid job. Even when it came to hobbies, Mitch would leave no part of any task unchecked on the mastery end of things. Mitch would learn through a YouTube video how to replace a vehicle’s blower for air conditioning, so as to replace the unit in his sister-in-laws vehicle just to help her save the money to have hers replaced.
Unfortunately, Lewis would turn most of his attention towards his name sake child and Mitch would feel left out from activities he would want to take part in. For Lewis Jr, nothing was off limits. If he wanted to go out for T-ball, sure why not. Nevermind he would quit after a few weeks, after costing the fees for registration and uniforms. Mitch would not even be given the chance to play T-ball. Yet despite being denied opportunities and feeling less loved by his father, Mitch actually looked up to his father for all the good qualities. He threw himself into work at a young age when his father allowed him to go along for work. In fact Mitch used the time to go and paint walls with his father as a way to draw closer to his father, even when his father only took him along to get the jobs done faster. It was this unhealthy need to throw himself into work that Mitch inherited from his father.
Later in life, as the time Mitch’s father had left on earth came to a close however, they actually grew quite close. In fact, Mitch was the only one of his children who was there for him as he laid dying in hospice care of widespread cancer. Sure Lewis wanted to keep a brave face in his last days and so he asked Mitch to stop coming and let him go. Even though Mitch honored his father’s request, when the phone call came to say Lewis had passed, it hit Mitch so hard that he attempted suicide for the first time in his life. If not for the fact he could not find a secure enough spot in the hotel room he was renting to hang himself, Mitch would have died shortly after the news was broken to him. That’s a detail Mitch would often leave out when he spoke about losing his father because he was afraid to show his weakness in that moment.
Lewis had smoked cigarettes and drank most of his life. He gave up alcohol years before he passed, thanks to a program from Salvation Army, but returned to a casual drink before he passed, after giving up cigarettes. The reason for him to return to drinking was never mentioned, however Mitch believed it stemmed in part from pain still existing for Lewis losing Brenda years before. When you have spent so much of your life with another person, losing them in the way Lewis lost Brenda, it’s easy to see how that loss can screw you up inside. And while Mitch and his father never shared how the loss of Brenda affected them, it was obvious the loss hit them both very hard. In fact it was a big part of the catalyst which brought them closer together near the end of Lewis’s life.