Say what you will about Catholics, but one thing no one can deny is their faith. Specifically, when a man and woman have taken the divine mandate to be fruitful and multiply as seriously as my parents did, there was no questioning their belief that God will provide. It is quite clear that my folks trusted Him immensely. As the sixth of seven children (my brother Bob died before my birth), and having my birth follow at least three miscarriages, I feel quite fortunate and thankful that this was the case.

My father, Pete, was forty-four years old at the time of my birth. When Judy and I married, I was thirty-four years old. I already had two children from a previous marriage and balked at the thought of bringing more into the world after doing the math. I would be fifty-two years old when our progeny would have emancipated should Judy and I had decided to procreate. A vasectomy and a hysterectomy a few years later would make this consideration a moot point. Indeed, if Judy and I were to have a child now we would need to name him Jesulito (or "little Jesus".....maybe; my Spanish is a little rusty). In any case, the thought of chasing kids around at that age had me engulfed in cold sweats that were usually reserved for the swine flu or an impending colonoscopy. The stark reality that he would be sixty-two at the youngest when I left home had to be absolutely terrifying for my father.

While trusting in God to provide, my father also found it necessary to meet him halfway. It was kind of a "trust, but verify" idea. In the tradition of "God helps those who help themselves", dad did what he could to stretch the money we had. He patrolled the thermostat the way German shepherds patrolled a stalag fence line. If I was asking for money for a movie, I practically had to use sign language.

"You need five dollars for smokes and band-aids? You're too young too smoke."

"No!! I want five dollars to see 'Smokey and the Bandit'."

This is the same man who could hear the igniter fire up the furnace from a hundred feet and one floor away through two closed doors. There I'd be, lying in bed, kicking my legs back and forth, and trying to shake a layer of permafrost from the cotton sheets. Trying in vain to warm up, I'd pull the three layers of blankets up to my chin and roll back and forth a few times to tuck myself in. Usually around one or two in the morning, I would wake up with a lump in my throat that turned out to be my testicles, climbing ever higher in their nightly search for warmer climes. Unable to stand it any longer, I would tiptoe from my bed, quietly turn the knob to my bedroom door, and step as lightly as I could towards the thermostat which was conveniently located across from my bedroom. Like a safecracker, I would lean in close to the dial (this was in those days before digital, programmable thermostats), and slowly turn it to the left, just until hearing the tell-tale "click" that signified life-giving, broiled air would soon be coursing from the vent next to my bed.

After accomplishing my mission, I would retreat as quickly and stealthily as I could back to my bed. I would shut my eyes and feign sleep so as to establish a credible alibi.

"What? Turn up the thermostat? Who me? I've been tucked snug in my bed sleeping, lo these many hours, now. Perhaps you were walking in your sleep and turned it up yourself, beloved father?"

If I were lucky, I could enjoy up to an hour or so of illicit heat before my father's fifty-five-year-old bladder did what late middle-aged men's bladders do best. I would sometimes hear the warning creak of the hallway floorboards, followed by a disgusted, "Christopher Columbus!" (My father seldom swore in the traditional sense). "These kids must think money grows on trees!" Indeed, if we had played this scenario several decades earlier, in a house with a wood-burning stove, it would not have surprised me at all if father had inquired, "You kids think wood grows on trees?" As far as my dad knew, money didn't say "In God we Trust". It said "If you're cold, put on a sweater".

I could not decide which was worse: not running the furnace in winter, or not running the air conditioner in the summer. True, Judy and I live in a house with no air conditioning now, but we also live in Colorado. In Kansas, during the middle of July, it was not uncommon to see fur-bearing animals trying to chew off their own skins. I lied there melting most nights, windows opened, uncovered on top of the sheets, and as close to naked as a twelve-year-old boy can comfortably get knowing his mother is prone to waking up her offspring by bursting through the door, throwing on the lights, and screaming, "Rise and shinola!" in a voice just perky enough to be extremely irritating at seven in the morning.

To my father, air conditioning was like a fine wine: not something to be enjoyed every day, but something to be savored on special occasions. It was then that I started taking hour long, ice cold baths. As it turned out, this would be good training for high school and college. The baths would get even longer once I discovered that soap was slippery. I couldn't understand having air conditioning and not using it to the fullest possible extent. That would be like Hugh Hefner being surrounded by bunnies and making love to Bea Arthur instead.

We would never see eye to eye on money. Dad thought it was something to be saved and stretched. I thought it was something to be spent and squandered. I could only save it for so long, and then it had to be spent. He would often observe, "You just can't stand to have money, can you? It just burns a hole in your pocket, huh?" I'm getting better, but I still like to spend money on myself and those I love. His legacy lives on in my memory, though. Before Christmas, we were out shopping for some friends' new baby, and I found myself wantonly ogling Star Wars light saber toys. Behind me, I thought I heard a voice.

It was saying, "What is that junk you're buying? Boy that money is just burning a hole in your pocket, huh?"