The Event ~ Father's Day




 

A day to honor fathers. Everyday a father should be honored. It’s one of God’s commandments. Honor thy father and mother. . . everyday. It’s another day on the calendar that we choose to single out and make a special effort to communicate with Dad, to make the day all about Dad, to tell him we love him, to treat him in a special way.

My own dad died in 1998. It doesn’t seem like he has been gone twelve years already. To me he was always “Daddy”. What do I remember about my dad?  Random thoughts come to my mind as a I reflect on my Dad:

1. Daddy would lay on the bed or floor or out on the grass, arms by his side, palms up; I would step on his hands and he would raise me in the air till his arms were stretched high and straight. I wonder today how he could do that. He must have been really strong in his twenties.

2. Daddy owned the Massey Ferguson dealership and he let me spend a lot of time there with him. He was so proud to show me off to his customers. He would sit me on the customer counter beside him.

3. One year Daddy went to a store and bought me a pink Easter dress with white gloves. It was the only time I recall that Daddy bought me something special just from him. It may have been when I was eight.

4. Daddy insisted I help my brother with his paper route in the winter. Daddy would get up and drive us around. When we were done,  about 5:30 a.m., he would stop at the local Young’s Café and we would  sit on the round swivel stools at the soda fountain bar and have hot chocolate with marshmallows before going home.

5. Daddy was a C and E person. He only went to church with us on Christmas and Easter and maybe a few other times.  In later years, when church services were broadcast on tv, Daddy would spend hours watching church on tv. 

6. Daddy took my brother and me on a trip to Chicago when I was about ten. I remember we went to a boxing match and he showed me the twin towers. That’s all I remember about that trip. 

7. Daddy loved reciting poetry to me. I would sit on his lap and he would recite poem after poem after poem. He had to memorize poems when he was in school, and he must have enjoyed it to retain all that in his memory.   I remember him reciting a poem to Tim and Janel the day after their wedding.  He penned alot of poetry also, writing several love poems to my mom in place of special occasion cards.

8.  Daddy would wake early, early in the morning, fix a pepper breakfast with a little egg underneath, a slab of butter with a little toast underneath, and a pot of mud coffee; and go to bed early at  nite. 

9. Daddy had a heart for  the poor and homeless people. He was always bringing strangers home for a meal.  One Sunday morning he picked up three young (good looking) English boys touring the US. Their car broke down outside of town. Daddy brought them home, helped them get their car fixed, fed them lunch and supper, put them up for the nite, and we all saw them off the next day.  (The Beatles were popular at the time, so these english guys with their cool accent were as close to the Beatles as I would ever get!)

10.  Daddy was a true entrepreneur.  He created lots of innovative new ideas.  One of them was a golf machine.  Similar to a pin ball machine  or bowling machine in an arcade.  But this was  a wooden box structure on the floor, had a glass top, six or eight slots at the far end, a putting green and the idea was to putt the ball down, up and around the curve and get one ball into each slot.  We had several in our basement and he sold many of them around the country.  He also created some equipment stuff  -  clips and pins - for cultivators, that he had manufactured and sold.  Some of his ventures caused him  financial pain, but in the end he rose above the financial ruin, and with  his last venture, achieved the top nationwide distributor for water distillers.  He also created a  process for bottling distilled water long before bottled water was popular.  He rigged up a room in his little shop with a big distillation setup and sold bottled water all over Montana, along with distillers, bread machines and wheat grinders.

11.   Daddy enjoyed hunting with my three brothers.  He always wanted me to go along, but mostly I didn't want to go because the few times I went, I was scared to death when he drove through the hills and badlands too close to the edges.  They would bring their deer home, and Dad would process it in the garage and kitchen.

12.   Daddy loved to play Scrabble and it was hard to beat him.  We played alot of Scrabble together.

This list may seem simple and inconsequential ~ merely moments in time that come to mind.  As I reflect on my Dad on Father's Day, I cannot forget the other awesome men in my life, and will pay tribute to my husband and my father-in-law in the next entry. 

Below is the poem I read at Daddy's funeral because it exemplified his life and honored his love of poetry.

We cannot all be famous or be listed in Who's Who
But every person great or small has important work to do
For seldom do we realize the importance of small deeds
Or to what degree of greatness unnoticed kindness leads
For it's not the big celebrity in a world of fame and praise

But it's doing unpretentiously in undistinguished ways

The work that God assigned to us, unimportant as it seems

That makes our task outstanding and brings reality to dreams

So do not sit and idly wish for wider, new dimensions

Where you can put in practice your many good intentions

But at the spot God placed you begin at once to do

Little things to brighten up the lives surrounding you

For if everybody brightened up the spot on which they're standing

By being more considerate and a little less demanding

This dark old world would very soon eclipse the Evening Star

If everybody brightened up the corner where they are.