Father's Day 2019

On Father's day I fondly recall the many things my dad taught his three children like how to catch fish, the value of hard work and the joy of learning to do things ourselves. He was big on discipline like postponing gratification and held up the importance of an enduring faith. As a Sunday School Teacher he brought the Bible to life with his well-prepared lessons.

It was during the early sixties he seated a person in the front rows at our church, someone who by policy was only allowed to sit at the back of the congregation. Dad disregarded tradition one Sunday morning when he served as an usher and for a time, we were not welcome at that church. He carried on anyway, teaching the Bible in our living room every Sunday morning until that preacher left for another church in the Deep South. Times were different back then.

The Only Church in Town

Dad was a great story teller and shared many of the stories about his own father who was born in 1880, who raised six children as a single parent while working on the railroad as a mail-carrier and who later worked as a sharecropper.

Stern and strict at times, Dad believed that "sparing the rod" spoiled the child. But he also could be funny and witty. He was a good singer and liked to play the guitar and sing, "You are My Sunshine" and "Red River Valley."

He had a great smile and an enduring love for animals. He taught us that all life was valuable. I'm grateful that he stuck around to raise us after a trial separation before I was born. My older sister and brother were small children when Mom moved back home to Grandmother's house in Texas. He followed his own father's advice and did the right thing staying around to see the children he brought into the world all graduate high school and leave home before he and Mom parted ways.

He's been gone from this world since 2005 but I will always remember him fondly and often replay in my head that last time he told me, "I love you, my darling."