Ten Things About my Dad

"...on rainy days he’d sit on our wooden front porch with his coffee and the newspaper and quietly and calmly read while storms, thunder and lightning raged just out of reach."

Father’s Day is today and dads all over the country will awake to sloppily made pancakes and gifts ranging from a new pair of socks to giant new bar-b-que pits and power tools. Dad Gifts, and unlike mom on Mother’s Day, dad will be expected to cook on those gleaming new pits and maybe even make homemade ice cream, not be feted at a fancy, and overcrowded local restaurant after church.

My own dad has been gone for a long time now, decades, since just after Christmas 1976. But the things he taught me are still with me. "Every man wants to see his son do better than he did, that's the best gift of all" he'd say. I can only hope he wasn't too disappointed with how I turned out, and I can honestly report to you dad that both your grandsons are far better than I ever was, and your great grandson and daughter are getting off to good starts, time marches on. Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.

1.  As soon as I could understand English, my dad, who was already 40 when I was born, began trying to infuse ‘wisdom’ into me – some of the points he made, and real-life subjects covered about how adults could act, how your money could disappear, I had no comprehension of at 8 or 10 years old, then it made no sense.

2.  He died when I was 19, but as my life unfolded often, I was presented with confusing conundrums, adults acting out, fast talkers and my money, and some of his long-ago spoken words would echo into my head suddenly making perfect and timely sense; it was as though he was still alive and counseling me right then and there on the spot, an advising Angel on my shoulder whispering again into my ear. 

3.   He had an amazing work ethic – he labored in The Texas Company oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas for 40 of his 60 years, in addition to running his own TV and Radio Repair Shop on the side.

I saw him get up out of his sick bed, smear Vicks all over his chest and nostrils, put on extra layers of clothing and go out with near pneumonia to work in the freezing elements of the oil refinery, no warm and dry ‘control rooms’ like nowadays, this was in freezing cold rain, wind or lightning he’d still show up for work.

Later in life, sometimes when my own bride would encourage me to take a day off to recover from some bug, and getting some rest, was more important than me going to work that day, the image of my daddy trudging off summer and winter, rain or shine was in my mind and I’d crawl out of bed and off to work I’d go. Even still, I’ve probably had more days off/vacation than he could have ever imagined. In addition, like I said, he was also an entrepreneur, holding interests in several businesses, including his own TV and Radio Repair Shop, forming a semi-pro baseball league, operating a nightclub all as sidelines to his work at the refinery. He was indefatigable.

4.  He was a sportsman. He loved games: baseball, basketball, football – in fact, at the beginning of his oil refining days, around 1935, Texaco hired him away from Gulf Oil so he could pitch for the Texaco baseball team; ultimately, he coached all the Texaco “Oiler” plant teams in semi-pro baseball and basketball for decades until the refinery disbanded the teams in the late 1960’s.

What’s really nice is that as my own little league coach, we not only won championships – but to this day my old teammates and friends from those days will sometimes recall what a gentleman he was, knowledgeable and how he positively had impacted their own lives. The fact that my father is still alive for these other fellows in their memories warms my heart, and his love for sports and particularly baseball transferred seamlessly through me to my sons.

5.  He liked the color green. I don't know why he just did. And I like it too.

6.   On rainy days he’d sit on our wooden front porch with his coffee and the newspaper and quietly and calmly read while storms, thunder and lightning raged just out of reach. From this I learned to remain calm in the face of some of life's roughest storms as I would eventually need to. He used to read the funny-papers to me – Mutt and Jeff were a daily favorite.

7.   He indulged my curiosities – even when I was somewhat destructive; when at about 9 years old I completely dismantled our lawnmower and he had to buy another one so we could mow the grass. Hard work before modern comforts; we had a push-type reel mower that had to be mastered by the child before moving to the faster easier motorized version. This little lesson helped me learn how to physically work hard and build endurance.

And Dad, I’m still sorry about the messy chemistry set incident, I’m glad the whole garage didn’t explode and burn down. I never allowed my own boys to have a chemistry set, even though by the time they came along, chemistry sets were little more than glorified toys with ‘salt and water’ experiments not the actual powerful base and pure chemicals my 1960’s version had.

8.  He was a family man – not only kind and loving to his immediate family, my sisters and mom and me; he visited his mother and sisters every chance he got, we attended family get-togethers regularly, and they all laughed at old times and new times in backyards from Houston to Lake Charles with loved ones and always a glass of sweet, iced tea. The rumble of the adult’s conversations was consistently punctuated by loud outbursts of laughter in the shade of ‘chinaberry’ trees in those long ago Gulf Coast summers.

9.   Nearly 500 people attended his funeral just after Christmas 1976 on a miserably cold, windy, and rainy Port Arthur day. When the hearse arrived at the graveyard, I’m told cars were still leaving the funeral home five miles away. It was the first time I realized how many lives his had touched.

10.  He instilled in me that accomplishments in sports, business or any field are temporary (all glory is fleeting), and every day is a new sunrise, and I must prove myself all over again and never rest on past deeds or reputation. "Glory is as good as yesterday's newspaper, you have to write a new story every morning" he’d often say.

In many ways that even I can’t describe, I have become Him, and I'm thankful for that, the best gift he ever gave me.

Happy Father's Day Daddy.