Editor’s note: Due to a production error, last week’s Longmont Lessons column didn’t run in its entirety. Below is the entire column.

“Mom and I belong to a generation whose lives were forever defined by World War II. So with a slight push from the family, I wrote down this little piece of personal history of those years as best as I can remember them.” — Dad’s lovingly-written memories, dedicated to his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren

My father was a mild-mannered guy, a straight shooter forged in the crucible of World War II as a radio operator in the South Pacific aboard a C-47. Like so many other war heroes, his experiences were something that he rarely talked about at the dinner table. But if you caught him during his living room happy hours, all bets were off.

Growing up with four kids underroof, a houseful of visitors and, at times, a menagerie of dogs, Mom didn’t think twice about coming down hard. When she was in one of her moods, Dad impulsively stepped out of the line of fire. His military training served him well in civilian life. It wasn’t that Dad was a hands-off parent. No, no, no. It was far more that I grew up in the ’60s and early ’70s when the division of power — at least at our address — bent more toward the stay-at-home mom.

Honestly, I can remember Dad wailing on me just once, and it was sort of a half-hearted wail at that. His weapon was his wedding ring. I don’t remember what I had done wrong, but I do know Mom was the instigator, the usual suspect. (Note how I conveniently turned things around and made her the perp)

Dad being Dad, confrontation wasn’t in his nature. Even as his muscular hand came across my cheeks in one fell swoop, there wasn’t a follow-up blow. So he made it as swift and with as little pain as possible. More importantly, he didn’t want to wind up in the dog house with Mom. As the silent type, he refrained from spouting hackneyed lines like, “This will hurt me more than it will hurt you.” Dad was a pragmatist; I don’t think he felt guilty.

The whole purpose of the exercise was to get my attention; it did. And then he was back to cool and while sitting in front of the TV to watch Walter Cronkite on CBS. It was journalism the way journalism was, in those days. And that’s the way it was. Cronkite was Dad and Mom’s favorite. Both of my parents had writing backgrounds; Cronkite’s comforting presence greatly influenced their choice in anchormen.

There were times during my youth when my parents would never ask if we had done our homework. While Mom packed power-packed energy, she was only human. There were times when I would come home from school and she would be passed out on the couch. An hour or two later, Dad would come home, after another exhausting day of ordering giant cuts of roast beef for hungry omnivores, greeting customers at the restaurant and wondering why the dishwasher was AWOL.

Those were carefree nights for me. Not only did they get sudden amnesia concerning my academics, once the dishes were washed (sort of), and stuff put away, (double sort of), the entire family gathered in front of the rabbit eared RCA TV to soak in prize-winning educational masterpieces like “Green Acres” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” But Mom and Dad weren’t anything if not minimalists. If the pesky bout of forgetfulness was still present, they would let us watch Johnny and Ed McMahon and they would drag themselves to bed. Tomorrow was another day.

Indeed, soldiers on the frontline of any war instinctively know they may never see the next sunrise. Dad served his country for four years, logging over 2,000 flying hours with the Fifth Air Force in the Pacific — more than 700 of which were combat time. Newspaper clippings from that period suggested Dad “is believed to have set some kind of record for overseas time in the air.”

Decades later, Dad left a beautiful souvenir to all his grandkids: 44 typewritten, plastic-bound pages retracing some of his experiences in a war that claimed more than 80 million lives, 407,000 of them American. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

“I’ve slept in more places than George Washington. The engineer, a guy from the Bronx, and I opened our cots in the plane’s cabin to rest our weary heads, fully aware that the Japanese were bombing the place nearly every night.”

“The legendary Australian Outback made a great setting for ‘Crocodile Dundee,’ but in reality, you wouldn’t want to build a home there. It’s a vast, endless desert of red clay and constantly swirling winds. If you can imagine flies on the surface of the moon, you might visualize what the Outback is like.”

“On pay day, our salary was always in the national currency of the country in which we were stationed at the moment. In Dutch New Guinea we were compensated in guilders, the Dutch standard, which had a value of 50 cents.”

When Dad was back stateside, he took the train back to his hometown, Mount Vernon, Ohio. After finally arriving at the family farm and unloading his things, Dad ventured out to the barnyard to greet his father, who was busy doing whatever it is you do on a farm to kill time until the next meal. Besides annoyingly mistake “lunch” for “dinner,” fill cracker barrels and bake apple pies, what else is there to do on this wide-open expanse that’s waiting for high-end villas and boutique hotels?

In truth, the time had arrived for some actual labor. Dad’s timing was exquisite. After the father-son homecoming embrace, my future grandpa had a request: “John, I want you to help me round up the hogs.” No, “Lord, have mercy, you’ve come back alive!” Not a peep on “here’s the keys to the new fangled ’45 Buick Roadster I bought for you. She’s waitin’ in the chicken coop. Remember to do your chores before joyriding.’”

Come to think of it, they didn’t do any of those things on “Green Acres.” See, educational TV really works.

Tony Glaros, originally from Washington, D.C., is a longtime reporter and former educator. He says living on the Front Range sparks euphoria.

“It wasn’t that Dad was a hands-off parent. No, no, no. It was far more that I grew up in the ’60s and early ’70s when the division of power — at least at our address — bent more toward the stay-at-home mom.”