Father's Day is just aroung the corner, and as I sit here, watching a television show portraying one man's struggle to deal with the fact that he has never known his dad, that he has been cheated by his circumstances and forced to go through life without the firm hand and warm heart of a father, I find myself growning somewhat emotional. A catch in my throat, a blurring of the vision. A tug on the old heart strings.
Ok, I am not really tearing up on my couch. It was "How I Met Your Mother" and it was Barney, whose mother told him his father was Bob Barker, who was putting on this a - wait for it- mazing performane. I needed an intro though, dang it, and this is what I am going with.
You see; I knew my dad. I knew him well. Still do. That "very special episode" was not filmed in my house., Dad was there, in his chair, with his glass of iced tea. We used to untie his work boots each evening while he read the paper. Mom and Dad have since redone the livingroom, added on a new kitchen, but his chair is still in the same place (so is Mom's, by the way). Next to his recliner is a pile of magazines and books, topped with today's newspaper. They have morning delivery now, and Dad is retired, which means he is working part-time instead of beyond full time, so he is probably through the paper by 8 a.m. instrad of 6 p.m. and suppertime.
After supper, if we were lucky, and it was Tuesday, we got to go to the library. We would ride our bikes to the library on Saturdays, mainly becuase most of us, my brother and sister, my cousins, me, were nerds. Still are. The cool kind though. Anyway, on Tuesday evenings, we would go to the Ellsworth Public Library. Mom and Dad were and are both avid readers. Dad monopolized the biography section. He is a non-ficton guy, although he once took "The New Testamnet as Literature" through Barton County CC outreach. He would have multiple books going, cracking the spines as he would set them down, open so he would not lose his place. That is one thing I learned early in life from my Dad: you can never have too many books, or too many newspapers. You can never read too much.
I have learned a great deal from my Dad, and, frankly, some of it sucks. I learned that if I wake up in the morning and my head hurts or I am coughing, I must haul my tail out of bed and go to work. That is what I am supposed to do. I learned that I am not supposed to be able to just sit for long periods of time doing nothing. I can sit, but I need to be reading, writing, talking with the people around me. Something. As Dad would say, "I do not sit around well." I learned that when you have obligatins, you have obligations. You don't juat put them off. They are yours. I learned that sometimes, you just need to think about what you hear and what you see, and you have to make your own decisions. You cannot fall back on what someone else decided; you have to own your own principales and your own decisions based on those principles. You see; sometimes responsibility sucks. But it is what we do.
Above all, I learned that I can never be the man my Dad is. He has been with my Mom for going on 50 years. He can create things with hands that I can picture in my head and can describe in words, but I cannot build. He has sweat under the burden of truly hard work, and seen the reward of the end while putting the hours of labor behind him. He has displayed more physical toughness than any athlete we have ever celebrated. He displays an ease in speaking with people of every bend, one that implants him in their memories while his humility tries to keep him in the background. He has raised three children who value education, honesty, family, and faith, each in his or her own way.
I could go for pages upon pages, filling the supposedly infinitelh internet with examples and samples of what I Dad has taguth me. However, I will end with this: the other day my son and I were working in the garage, cleaming my truck or somethng like that. Dylan said, and I quote here, 'It's like I always say. Why pay someoe $20 if I can do it myself for $5?' I know Dad is proud of his grandson right now. Maybe there is a chance, if I keep working at it, to live up to my Dad's example, so that one day, Dylan or Emily can look back as I do now and think, "I hope I can be like him."
So, Happy Father's Day. Mom, would you please get Dad to put down his book to at least try and read this off the computer? If not, I will print it and sneak it into the newspaper next time I am in town. I know it will be right next to his chair.
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