Earnhardt History with Aunt Cathy

was there any uh concern about ralph's health before he passed well there was i can remember one time and i was fairly young that daddy i don't know if he had um got sick or passed out i don't know how it commenced but he ended up having to be in the bed for a few days and drink this white chalky stuff and that's really what i remember about that and but that was quite a few years before his heart attack and daddy had a heart attack in january of 73 and that was on the cusp of them doing bypass surgeries and stents and so that that wasn't an option for him then wait so he had a heart attack before he had a heart attack in january of 73 they put him on medication he drove a race car maybe a time or two but that's when stick elliott drove for him was that it affected him physically 73 it affected him physically he just wasn't well then he had a heart attack and died september of 73 yeah yeah so um a lot of you know for the longest time people you know love to tell the story that he passed away in his shop working on his car right and just because that sounds so cool but yeah that's just all about the movie things but he passed away in in the kitchen in the kitchen and there was a whole delivery or so there was a there was a lady her her husband they ran the whataburger down i don't remember what number was it was a small one down across from the cemetery down on the boulevard on 29 and i think he i think it was a drag car he had and daddy was working on parts or doing something for him and the story was told that me and mother had gone to take grandma earnhardt to the mountains back home so we weren't there we left early and according to timing he died not long after we left i mean it was early in the morning before lunchtime and the lady said she got there and daddy was going into the house and told her that he'd be right back so she said for whatever reason i just stood there at the base of the steps of the back door she said he never came and i heard a noise but i didn't know what it was but he never came back out she said so i went in that you know it's pretty common knowledge that he had a heart attack in january so i went in and she found him in the floor in the kitchen floor he had a started opening a pack of gum a piece of gum that was laying on the counter and the water was running and so apparently he'd gotten hot flushed or whatever thought gum you know you put a piece of gum in your mouth that might help well she couldn't find a telephone so she ran across the street to the carter's house and they called zero i don't think 9-1-1 was yet and uh when the ambulance came of course they said he was still alive but when they got into the hospital they pronounced him dead kaye and dale made it to the hospital i don't know a friend about randy and danny made it to the hospital to see him to see his body or to see him but um mother and i had gone to bryson city to take grandma and jesse back home because she wouldn't wait till the weekend for daddy to take her back and they call the highway patrol who was supposed to stop us or catch up with us and it was before lunch because we just had lunch at grandma's and they said well they were supposed to come to grandma's house if they didn't cut you on the interstate we started back down the mountain and stopped in canton to see hilda and frank presley who daddy drove for the v8 car and hilda came to the back door she said what are y'all doing here mama said well hell don't we just come to visit have you not talked to anyone at home well no why what's wrong you need to call home dale you need to call your house dale's at your house you need to call your house so i called and all dale would tell us is that daddy had had a heart attack they wouldn't tell us that he had passed and um you know what was daddy what was what was daddy's state he just said kathy you need to let frank bring you and mama home daddy's had a heart attack he wasn't calm as can be missed he could be my guy and i said dale how serious is it he said just get frank to bring y'all home well frank was on the golf course i wasn't waiting on his eyes i said we're going home he'll just say no you can't drive her home i said well hold your breath i can too well that was before the big interstates were built you know there was it was about a five hour almost five hour drive up to grandma's house but canton it was probably a three-hour drive home we got home about four o'clock and i just remember cars being on both sides of the road you know the crowd of people that was there that told us what had happened and then dale and kay and dale and randy and danny met us at the car and we all went in mom and daddy's bedroom and they told us you know what had happened and how it happened and you just you know daddy's the leader yeah i don't care how you interpreted his personality or his ways of disciplining his children he was our leader he was the person that taught us right from wrong he was the person that gave us opportunity or not and you know when the doors of that garage closed it was like the end of the world yeah he was the direction he was our direction yeah and you know we we didn't see daddy or and even dale as wow you know racing was our life and that was our life stopped right there even though dale was you know tampering with it some he um he just kind of been just getting started just getting started and so um [Music] everything shut down you know it was easy for us that we're married to drive away you know the way i dealt with my daddy and your daddy's death and even randy and danny somewhat i can pretend they're not dead because i didn't live with them every day i didn't have to be there in the mornings or in the evenings when it was time to go to bed and they weren't there but when i'd pull in mama's driveway don't cry and that shop would be closed was the most traumatizing thing of my life so when dale started racing and you know he got all the all the race cars and all the stuff the garage doors were back up and we were back in business you know you'd pull in that driveway and the rate and the doors were up and there's trucks and race cars sitting around and you've got a new lease on life and i think that's what kept our family from really just all going to pieces just kept us from going to pieces because dale kind of stepped into that role he stepped in the role of leader of the family he told mama what to do he told all of us what to do you know he was the control freak so that's how things went i get that i can feel it so when we lost him he had done moved out of the shop of course but when we lost him he was like okay what do we do now you know what do we do now and you know randy and danny just weren't the people to step up people expected you to step up when dale passed they expected you to be the things that dale was when daddy passed and that wasn't the way it was going to be and we all just kind of were in limbo because you know at some parts of our life there was earned hearts in canapus and there's earnhardt's in mooresville there's like you know at his funeral we sat over here they said over there it's just kind of awkward as you say but um we wanted somebody to step up because we needed that leader we needed that clue and my mama was a champion she did she she's the one that carried us all through it and never floundered never um you know she grieved obviously but she as you all testament to during her passing that you know she was the glue for a lot of people she was the support for a lot of people and she got us through it so when uh when dad started how i mean it didn't seem like looking at some of the physical records from racing and so forth it seemed like that this you know dad dad didn't waste any time opening shop doors as you say um and so uh i find it remarkable uh that knowing that he you know was did so poorly in school and that he thought the best thing for him to do was to quit school at 16 years old in eighth grade i mean the decision making didn't seem like it was there but when that moment came i know he wasn't perfect but i mean he he really he took what was there that ralph had created and ralph had built he took that and wheeled and dealed and and i mean through 74 5 6 7 and 8. i mean literally created his he sacrificed his family and kids for that yeah yeah he did well let me i want to say something when you talk about dale's grades dale was brilliant dale could could or would not read something and comprehend it you could read it to him and he'd make a hundred on his test the teacher told mother that she said if dale would just do his homework or just try he's brilliant he's got a brilliant mind y'all both know what a memory he had well that's not a reflection of somebody with bad scores yeah you know he he was brilliant and he could take a little something and make a lot of something out of it he had amazing comments amazing common sense and that's what it took daddy was the same way daddy didn't have any problems yeah so like that was he he was amazing in the way that you would exhaust yourself trying to find a solution to something walk into his office and say here's what i'm dealing with and he would have you fixed up and ready to go out the door with us with an answer in a few minutes because he just could he could step back and and see the solution so easily he was brilliant dale was very very intelligent and it's a shame his records well i don't know well but but it's true you know i don't think he was dumb i think that he didn't apply himself yeah you know he didn't want to do the work he wanted to be having dreams he had bigger options yeah he didn't want to do homework he wanted to work on the car he didn't want to go to school he wanted to stay in the shop and help his dad yeah and so i guess what i'm saying is is that you know one one might tell one might say that you know that's that's not you know he needs his priorities aren't in order right at that moment when he's trying to you know when he when when you would think he was being encouraged to finish school so i guess my point is is that i wish i could uh i guess my point is is that to put all that put all that in front of dad in 1973 at the end of 73 it shocks me that he became what he became it's it it it's not surprising but how did he not screw that up it's really it is i'm as you're sitting here talking i'm thinking about like being parents and how the things happen you're talking about a guy that was which you even when you even alluded to the fact that he had his driver's license at 18. he had a kid he had two kids at that age he had two kids he was a he was a lousy dad he had a lousy husband lost his own dad i do want to say dale was a great dad until lataine left him when he came home from work that day and she had taken care of dale and everything he owned out of that trailer and left him with a fork and a knife and a plate and a cup and one sheet and one blanket and one pillow they'll change dale was never the same really never well there had to be there's two sides to every story but give us your opinion of how all that went yeah why that happened well all and again allah knows what dale would tell us he would bring he would bring carrie dale as his little one to the house to the shop and help daddy on race cars mama would play with carrie dale and keep up with him when that went down we didn't she didn't have access to carrie dale the her parents always worked in the mail and she said she didn't like the way they'll smell like the grease on his hands or you know his clothes would smell like cars and she didn't like that she didn't like that he did that she wanted him to work a job and come home and not come to daddy's you know and that was all we were ever really told about that breakup and so i just know that she left him she left him and a couple christmases a couple christmases uh pi after that mother went to take um carrie dell's christmas present to him and they wouldn't let her see him they said you can leave the gift but you know dales were divorced and she was marrying jack jackie key and um then they told us that carrie had all these problems and they wanted to change his name and so dale was kind of in a corner pushed and put in a corner and at the time it was kind of like the rest of his life he sacrificed everything for his racing he he went down at concord and did a tire test for goodyear i think it might have been hoosier i don't know but he did a tire test and made nine hundred dollars for doing entire tests he gave her that nine hundred dollars to settle the money he owed her now in child support and signed over uh rights rights to carried out and so he meets mom they get they get married has kelly has me um now i'm i said he was a lousy dad but he was frust he was not a lousy he was an absolute dad kelly yeah he was absent yeah he was uh when he was there he was great he was he was um and he loved you i had some very small i have some very faint memories of him being there and they were good times um but uh i i do know through stories of from you know from different people tony senior robert g jr dad raised hell drank out all night running around goofing off racing uh you know working like when the hell did this guy sleep um and that's what i'm saying as far as like how i don't know how he got it i don't know how he made it happen i don't know how he got that opportunity that that propelled him into what he became because people like gary hargit he lost his dad he's he's like lis he's like you know he just became this running 100 mile an hour to speed the light going nowhere you know what i mean just bouncing off walls not figuratively or not literally but figuratively uh racing his ass off he was lucky to have good people around and he had a personality he was likeable i mean he had a personality that just drew people too dale could sell himself yeah yeah because i mean he didn't have no money yeah but but i know he bought a car from here again he bought an old chevelle from harry gantt well then then they got the novas somehow london grey london came in the picture he's the one that actually helped buy the car from harry gant really and that guy there is the guy that's sort of the other part of the earnhardt racing story yes yes which was a business it was a business and we were all part of it yeah we all like kay and i were wondering original sort of earnhardt racing which has been there's been some legal you know arguments and debates about you know he's continued to support dale and he stepped in and was probably think the there may have been somebody else that would have stepped in but he did and that really got dale started yeah and then people like um like i said gary hargett and eddie gibson that had a trucking company i remember gibson being on the side of the car at one point those people came in with money and helped him to the next level helped him the next step or help him get through that season whatever it seemed like because in dale's mind if he could just show his talent if he could just get the chance to get out there and show what he could do then he'd make it that was his mentality i just got to show what i can do [Music]

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 255,189

Keywords: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Jr, The Dale Jr Download, Dirty Mo Media, Dale Earnhardt, Ralph Earnhardt, Cathy Watkins, Earnhardt

Id: UcAF5SeHxi4

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 14 2022